January 8, 2025 • 58 mins
What can we learn about sustainability from the insect world? This episode explores the fascinating dynamics of honeybees and desert locusts, revealing how these two vastly different communities manage stress, allocate work, make decisions, and communicate.
Sustainability expert David Auge shares insights from his book, "Man's Search for Sustainability," highlighting how honeybees exemplify order and collective effort, while desert locusts thrive in chaos and individualism. By examining these contrasting behaviors, David challenges us to rethink our approaches to sustainability and inspires us to find new ways to balance our future decisions. Join host Michael Herst as they delve into the lessons these insects offer for a more sustainable future.
The podcast delves into the intriguing world of sustainability through the lens of two vastly different insect communities—the honeybee and the desert locust. Host Michael Hurst engages with sustainability expert David Oer, who brings over three decades of experience in environmental management to the discussion. The episode explores how honeybees operate with remarkable order and discipline, showcasing their ability to allocate tasks, communicate effectively, and maintain a balanced ecosystem within their hives. In contrast, the desert locust represents a more chaotic yet equally successful approach to survival. Oer emphasizes that while humans often view these insects through a binary lens—seeing honeybees as virtuous and locusts as pests—there are valuable lessons to be gleaned from both extremes. By understanding how these communities manage stress and make decisions, listeners are encouraged to rethink their approaches to sustainability, ultimately finding a balance between structure and chaos that can guide us toward a more sustainable future.
Takeaways:
- Sustainability is a journey of learning from both honeybees and desert locusts.
- Honeybees illustrate the importance of organization, communication, and collective effort in communities.
- Desert locusts highlight how chaos and individual effort can drive growth and opportunity.
- Observation of nature can inform our understanding of sustainable practices and community dynamics.
- The contrast between honeybees and locusts reveals different approaches to managing stress.
- David Oer emphasizes the significance of understanding sustainability as a normative concept.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, one more thing before yougo. Have you ever wondered what we
can learn about sustainabilityfrom the insect world? Or how two
vastly different insectcommunities can teach us about managing
stress, making decisions, andmaintaining balance? In this day
and age, we need a lot ofthat. In this episode, a sustainability
expert and I explore howhoneybees and desert locust communities
(00:22):
manage stress, allocate work,make decision, keep, communicate,
and maintain balance. Andwe're going to discover how the lessons
from these honeybees anddesert locusts can guide us towards
a more sustainable future. I'myour host, Michael Herst. Welcome
to One More Thing before yougo. My guest is David Auge. He's
(00:52):
an author and a sustainabilityexpert. Expert. He has dedicated
decades to uncovering the mosteffective way to communicate the
concept of sustainability,something we need in this day and
age. With a wealth ofexperience spanning three decades
in industry, David Auge harisen as the permanent figure in
the field of environmentalmanagement and is on a mission to
(01:13):
transform humanity's approachto sustainability issues. As a certified
Sustainable developmentprofessional, energy manager and
a hazardous material manager,he speaks at businesses and environmental
conferences and has investednumerous hours of practice and research
into the best way tocommunicate that sustainability in
(01:34):
man's search forsustainability. His book David explores
how these insect communitiesmanage stress, allocate work, make
decisions, communicate andmaintain balance. Honeybees exemplify
order, discipline and debateand group effort, while desert locusts
thrive on growth, opportunity,and chaos and individual effort.
(01:56):
We're going to examine theseextremes. David challenged us to
rethink our approaches tosustainability and inspires us to
find new ways to balance ourfuture decisions. Welcome to the
show, David.
Well, thank you very much,Michael. I appreciate your having
me here.
You know, it is what anopportunity we have to inspire, motivate,
(02:20):
and educate some people inregard to sustainability and how
we can communicate thatthrough Mother Nature. Technically.
Yeah, it opens up the door toseeing this thing from a more holistic
perspective as opposed to justa quick how do we fix our energy
needs or our water needs orour concern of the environment and
(02:44):
the air?
Yeah, it is. I think that. Andespecially as we progress through
in how the climate's changing,the world is changing. You know,
so many things are beingaffected by environmental issues
across the world, not justhere in the United States. I think
it's important for us tounderstand that there are solutions
(03:05):
like this that actually wehave to pay attention to because.
And we'll talk about this herein a little bit. But, you know, I
know that the honeybeecommunity is, is. Is not thriving
as it used to be in. There aresome issues within that, but again,
we'll talk about that a littlebit. I like to start at the beginning.
(03:25):
May ask a little bit, where'dyou grow up?
Well, I grew up in Denver,Colorado. I had a chance to. Through
the years, I did grow up,spent a lot of time in the mountains
and enjoyed the environmentthere in Colorado. I was desirous
to find myself from. FromColorado into perhaps the Air Force
(03:50):
Academy, but I did getaccepted to the military academy
at West Point. So from my timein Colorado, I found myself going
to school in New York, andthen I spent a number of years in
the military, and thatprovided me with the opportunity
to see South America, CentralAmerica, Europe, and get a chance
to really experience from thatthe world that we live in and the
(04:15):
opportunities that areprovided to us.
Well, we're homeboys because Igrew up in Colorado. That's my home,
my wife's home, my kids home.Obviously they've traveled a little
away from there, but, boy, Imiss Colorado. The mountains and
the streams and the. The tree.Real. No offense to Mother Nature
or anybody here in Arizona,but real trees, I have to say, real
(04:40):
trees. But yeah, thank you foryour service and thank you for what
you contribute to thatcommunity as well. I'm a veteran
myself, and my brother is. Andmy stepfather was, and my uncles
were, and so thank you forthat contribution. I. I think that
with your background and whatyou had learned, I think you have
(05:02):
an engineering degree fromWest Point as well. I think that.
Did that help you have abetter understanding of sustainability
and how you approach this?What got you interested in sustainability
in the aspect of honeybees andlocusts? Because they seem to me
they are two separate type ofinsect, aren't they?
(05:26):
They definitely are. There'sa. There's a contrast that they put
on the table that is really tothe extremes of the way most people
believe we have to approachthe situation that we're currently
in. A very centralized andorganized effort, like the honeybee
provides us, or the morechaotic approach, but the very successful
(05:47):
approach that the desertlocust approaches. Yet now, the two
contrasts, though, on thespectrum of things, usually make
one the answer and the otherone the problem. The answer being,
why can't we be more like ahoneybee and have our community more
like what we have in the hiveand make sure that what we see in
the desert locust, this desireto just consume everything in sight
(06:12):
and just only continue untileverything's gone as the bad guy.
But there's something to belearned from both of those. And it's
the contrast of learning fromboth of those that I hope to bring
to this conversation about sustainability.
Well, can you help usunderstand. I know there's differences,
as you mentioned. You know, welook in, you know, as far back as.
(06:34):
Even from a religiousperspective, they talk about one
of the great travesties in.During our time period in humankind
was locust that came throughand then wiped everything out. As
compared to the honeybees,which, you know, we have a very vibrant
(06:55):
backyard where we've got a lotof flowers, we got a lot of trees
and flowers and things likethat. And every spring and summer
we can sit back here and watchthe honeybees work and watch how
they go from tree to tree andplant to plant and this kind of thing.
Um, but like you said, locustkind of. Kind of our chaos, right?
(07:15):
What's the difference? Howdoes this. Let me get. Let me get
the right question. Can youexplain, like, the main differences
between sustainability inrelation to both of those? Because
you have one, in my opinion,which you're going to help us understand,
one that, that I see gross.If. And not understanding the community
(07:38):
that you're talking about atthe moment, but we will. Compared
to locusts, which are chaos,how do they work together?
Well, let me go back to theword sustainability, because I think
that's the way we can bestintroduce ourselves to why I even
looked at these two insects.Most people currently see sustainability
as a goal, as an objective, asan endpoint, upon which, once arrived
(08:02):
at, you can then successfullysay, well, that. That one's done.
Let's just move on tosomething else. Yet I think we missed
something. The fact thatsustainability is a normative term.
It's a term used to describeas almost as an adjective, something
that is. Is better thansomething else. The word sustainable
(08:22):
would be a sustainablecommunity, or sustainable foods or
sustainable transport, becauseit's normative, we need to understand
it in that regard. And notjust a good or a bad or right or
wrong or this or that, but asa transformation of a journey upon
(08:43):
which we will all findourselves moving. The sustainability
of our current livingconditions, our current choices are
balanced because we're lookingat all of the opportunities provided
and then making choices fromthat. These two communities, not
their impact upon humanity,but these two communities make decisions
as well. So you're trying tolook at life from inside the hive,
(09:05):
inside the community of a bee.A hive, of course, is between 20
to 50,000 insects and acollected element, which is the Hive,
usually a langstroth box inthe back of someone's yard or in
a tree trunk somewhere acrossthe landscape that we have around
here. For locusts, you'relooking at an insect which has been
(09:29):
transformed into somethingunique. If you look through my book,
you've had a chance to seethat a locust is actually a grasshopper
that has gone through a phasechange, resulting in its desire to
congregate and then become ina large collection of insects, something
(09:51):
that can move across hundredsof miles and consume everything in
sight. But within thatcommunity itself, there is a balance
that allows its success uponwhat it's attempting to do. It's
looking at both of thoseinsects inside their communities
that I'm trying to bring tothe table for us to contemplate how
we neither bees nor locustscan ourselves learn something about
(10:15):
this issue of sustainability.
What made you choose, if youdon't mind, because of all the different
things that we can consider insustainability, and whether it be
the planet, be our community,or us as human beings, why did you
choose honeybees and desertlocusts as your focal points?
I felt they were the extremesin the two communities that we can
(10:38):
see in large numbers. Thehoneybee is, I think, on in the United
States, it's the insect for 26different states. It's the insects
those states. Even though theinsect came from Europe, it has found
itself to be the insect oflike Colorado and North Carolina,
and I'm not sure if Arizonahas it as such, but I know that's
(11:01):
on the center of the flag ofthe state of Utah. On the other extreme,
desert locusts are elevated toa point of distrust and hatred that
they show up in the Bible asthe eighth plague. You know, in the
destruction of the nation ofEgypt before the, the Israelites
found themselves moving out ofthat area. They find themselves as
(11:25):
attached to the word plague.And if you ever look up the word
locust, you're going to findusually a book about some destruction
or some melting down ofsociety. So because they're at the
two extremes, I thought thatwould be the best way to try and
bring this, bring this storyto the forefront of people's minds.
Do you think that overlaps inanything else that we need to consider
(11:47):
in regard to sustainability?When we talk about sustainability,
we're talking aboutsustainability of our food source
or our environments and, orour climate or anything along that
line. Can we define or kind ofhave a better understanding of what
you mean by sustainability asa community, as a society and culture?
(12:10):
I hope, hopefully what itbrings to light is the fact that
we see the world from a, froma perspective currently that everything
around us is a raw materialthat we build into the future as
opposed to something that wecan look into the past. One of the
things I bring forth in thebook is a story about a time I was
meeting with the West PointSociety of Greater Houston. This
(12:33):
was shortly after the 911attacks. It was November of that
year and we had an expertspeaking to our group about the Middle
East. The individual broughtto the table that what was going
to confront our Westernmindset was an approach that could
best be understood by lookingat two words. And those two words
(12:53):
were its history. He said, ina Western mindset, looking back,
looking at something that wesay, oh, it's history means it's
irrelevant. It doesn't haveany bearing upon the decision upon
which we will live our life.It's missing the point because, hey,
it's history, don't worryabout it. Let's go forward. However,
(13:15):
in a Middle Eastern mindset,it's history means the exact opposite.
It means that what we'relooking at is relevant and that looking
back at the way things happen,the way communities work, the way
things have been presented tous gives us a better perspective
upon which to go forward. Ihave a friend who spent a lot of
(13:37):
time in Afghanistan and Iraqduring the wars that have occurred
over the last two decades. Andone of the things he brings to the
table is that we seem to havefought one year of war 20 times.
We continue to go with a veryshort mindset of what exactly we
wanted to impact there, notunderstanding that it was a longer
term investment. These twoinsect communities have lasted for,
(14:02):
you know, a tremendous amountof time. And if we can look at them,
we can perhaps change ourperspective of looking at life in
a different fashion. Thesekind of come to the table from the
idea of something calledmimetic versus poetic. Moimetic is,
is the fact that there is a, away of looking at what is going to
(14:24):
confront us through themimicking of good societies in the
past or things that havehappened in the past that are the
things that we would like bestto mimic. Poietic, if you can use
that word of poetry, is thefact that no, we just have a blank
slate and from this pointforward we need to make it up as
we go along. I find the wholein the fact we don't look back and
(14:48):
what I'm trying to do bylooking at these two communities
is look back a little bit.Let's. Well, let's take the issue
of sustainability and let'ssay it's humanity, but let's look
at these two insectcommunities and see what they've
done over the years, over thecenturies, over the thousands of
years in the past where we canlearn something from what they've
done and how they do things.
(15:09):
I think it's an interestingapproach. Do you think that the behaviors
of honeybees and desertlocusts can be applied to human societies?
I mean, you just mentionedthat, that we as humans in different,
in different societies, welook at history, as you said, from
a different perspective. Butwe also, I think, at least from my
(15:30):
perspective, I appreciatehistory because I think from history
we're in our lessons and weunderstand what to do and what not
to do, what applied, whatworked and what didn't work. But
I'm a history buff, my wife'sa history buff, my kids are history
buffs. We love history from adifferent perspective. Not as in,
that's like you said earlier,that's old history. I like the idea
that we can take lessons fromhistory, we can take opportunities
(15:55):
from history. So long wayaround. A short question. How do
you think the behavior ofhoneybees and desert locusts can
be applied to human societies?How can we take lessons from that?
Well, because of both of thesecommunities have instinctual drives
for moving forward in theirexistence. We can learn from those
instincts. Now we don't havean instinctual desire unless someone
(16:19):
says it's the Maslow'shierarchy of need of existence and
relatedness of growth. But forthe most part we don't have a community
existence development thatgoes forward. We can learn something
from the way these communitiesdo something. Now once again, they're
instinctually driven. There issomething within their DNA that says
this is the way we're going togo forward. That's where we're a
(16:41):
little bit different. And oneof the reasons why the book I, I
wrote is entitled Man's Searchfor Sustainability, because there
is something in the, theaspect of that search that kind of
gets to the idea of meaning aswell. I mean, the title is very similar
to Viktor Frankl. ViktorFrankl was a, an individual who survived
(17:02):
the Nazi concentration campsand in his survival, the Nazi concentration
camps, he, he entered as apsychologist and he left as a psychologist.
He had a chance to bring tothe forefront some just tremendous
insights about why someonewould want to live and breathe to
see the next day. Are youfamiliar with Viktor Frankl?
(17:22):
I am.
Okay, well maybe for ourLeonard's listeners, let me provide
a little bit of insight abouthim. Viktor Frankl was an Austrian
neurologist and psychologistwho founded what he called logotherapy,
which has been dubbed like thethird B&E school of psychology. It
(17:43):
follows Freud and Adler as. Asan effort to find that, if you want
to call it the instinctualdesire, that thing which inside of
us wants to drive us forwardto make a decision to exist. Freud,
of course, has primarily the.The idea that it's a sexual drive,
it's a desire to. To gainpleasure and to work in that regard,
(18:06):
Adler says, it's the desire toexercise power over others. But Lova
therapy and what Frankl bringsto the table believes that it's a
desire to find purpose. Now,Frankl was able to bring his insights
to bear because of hisexperiences at different concentration
camps there in Stadt,Auschwitz, Kaufering, Turkenheim.
(18:29):
He lost his father at theTerezin ghetto, his brother and mother
at Auschwitz, his wife atBergen Belsen, his sister at Struts.
Stella was able to escape. Butwhat he was able to find through
these experiences and throughthe work in the different hospitals
that were associated with theconcentration camp, that there was
(18:51):
a drive within the individualto see the next day. He lists it
as one of three things. Adesire to produce something, desire
to be with someone, or thedesire to find a purpose of why,
in a larger frame, why we areeven here and doing what we're doing.
It's that searching ofsustainability, knowing that it's
(19:13):
a normal term that also has asearch for meaning. You want to sustain
that which you believe hasmerit, has a benefit to you and society
going forward. And ViktorFrankl, in man's search for meaning,
kind of brings that to theforefront in, in his effort to communicate
(19:34):
how these come together. Now,I'm kind of taking it back. I was
not in a concentration camp,but I do have a chance to look at
two communities that makedecisions themselves, the insects
that I've mentioned, and seewhat they could bring to the table.
One of the things that wetalked about or we mentioned was
that the honeybee is somethingthat might be in some degree not
(19:58):
as prominent as it was in thepast, but there are some things that
require man's input so thatit'll stay that way. We want the
honeybee to exist because itpollinates, because it provides honey,
because it provides a part ofour economic input. In so doing,
we make somewhat of a fragilesociety in the honeybee in some ways
(20:20):
ourselves. When we start tocreate a certain effort where the
order or the discipline orthose things Are there. There's a
fragility to that communitythat we need to be aware of. And
that's one of the things Ibring forth in the book, is that
that fragility is somethingthat perhaps we could learn from.
(20:40):
There's a drive on the otherside from what we have with, with
locusts. There is the lack offragility there. There's actually
a toughness where, where, likeyou mentioned, they, they grow from
stress. Stress actually bringsout the, the, the strength of the
entire community, making thenumbers increase, making their efforts
to search for the center andto move forward even more elaborate
(21:04):
and than we can handle as anational level. One of the things
that's on the table is thefact that to handle a locust swarm,
it takes the United nationsefforts to do so because they cross
international boundaries,because they cross seas, because
they find themselves in theexplosion of their effort to move
forward. There's something wecan gain from that, knowing that
(21:26):
that exists within society,within nature.
No, I think it's kind of abalance. I mean, within themselves,
because obviously we needgrowth, we need opportunity. I almost
say we really need chaos fromthat perspective. But chaos also.
There are things that come outof chaos that allow us to grow and
(21:47):
learn as human being and associety itself. I know we mentioned
earlier, at least at thebeginning of the conversation, how
do honeybees manage? How dothey help us manage stress and maintain
order compared to that chaosthat the locust brings?
There's a strong hierarchywithin the hive. The hive has just
(22:11):
one, one insect, the queen,who actually can reproduce and provide
through that community, thenext generation. Through that hierarchy,
you've got a bunch of sterilefemales, the workers, and you have
drones, a very small percent,less than 1%, that particular structure
and the jobs that they have toentail that they do from their, from
(22:34):
their birth and the six weeksof life of which they, they present
is a structure and an orderupon which there's a, there's a growth
of that community. We canlearn from that, from just how easy
they're able to transitionfrom one job to the next, how they
accept without, without toomuch pushback, the effort to, to
(22:58):
organize themselves and tomove forward. There's. That hierarchy
is something that we find ashumans to be very attractive in the
stabilization of any type ofsociety. And I find that too, also
something that is one of thereasons why they put insects throughout
(23:18):
the United States as theinsect of that state or on state
flags or in different type ofemblems around the United States.
Well, I think obviously weenjoy coming from any environment
that I came from, both withmilitary, my military training as
well as being a police officerfor as long as I was, you know, structure
and hierarchy from thatperspective and, and I could see
(23:42):
how it worked and how itthrived and how you had to have that
hierarchy. You had to haveyour, the police officers and then
you had the, the corporals andthen the sergeants and then the,
you know, the commanders,captains, lieutenants, commanders,
captains, et cetera, etcetera. It allowed me as an individual
to have a structure within mylife that I brought home as well,
(24:05):
so that we, we had thatunderstanding of the structure and
how we as a family unitworked, which again, shows how community
works as well. I think we seethat in the fact that we've got a
city government, a countygovernment, a state government and
a federal government andthings like this. On the opposite
(24:27):
end of that, in mentioningearlier you mentioned about locust
amplify exemplifies growth andopportunities. On the opposite end
of that, how do we learn fromthe locust side of it? Because obviously
we've seen them withcatastrophic damage across the world
(24:48):
in what they do. How do welearn from that?
Well, we learned that there isan effort in the locust to search
for the center. It's one ofthe ways that I mentioned their search
for opportunity. The locustswill march in what appears to be
a uniform fashion, but they'llalso fly in a uniform fashion, always
(25:10):
seeking the center upon whichto exploit. And that exploitation
of the center allows them asa, as a mass to move forward and
successfully do what they wantto do, which is, of course, consume
everything in the countrysideand reproduce. That, though may appear
detrimental to us as humans,but to them as a society, it brings
things forward. Let me bringan analogy to our own aspects of
(25:35):
the country that we live in,the United States. Alex de Tocqueville
wrote a book called Democracyin America back in the 1830s. And
in chapter five of that book,he brings to the table the fact that
the stability that he sees inthe small community, the townships
in France and in Germany andin England have a strength of order.
(25:57):
He says, if you went to lookat the financial records of these
small towns in any of thosethree countries, you would find that
they knew exactly what theyhad paid to the penny. They were
orderly. The, the police andthe, the structure of the systems
that were in those countries,France, Germany and, and England
(26:17):
seemed to be able to at thetime of the 1830s, repel any type
of frustration or, ordisorder. In contrast, he of course,
he's in the United States atthis time. Alexa Tocqueville he found
that the ability of any townwithin the United States to come
to the conclusion of where allthe money they collected actually
(26:39):
went was almost impossible. Hesaw a chaos in the efforts of that
order. But he also saw aspirit within the township that we
had here in the United Statesthat just marveled him. He saw an
effort from the individualcitizen within our country to take
upon himself the opportunityof growth that didn't exist in France
(27:02):
or in England or in Germany.That we had something that was going
to take the community furtherdown the road than what he thought
could ever happen there. Andthat it was the disorder, the opportunity
to take advantage individuallyas opposed to being wait to be told
what to do by some hierarchythat was going to allow America and
(27:26):
our understanding of democracyand its exercise to be successful.
Compared to what he saw in NewEurope, that would be an example
of the honeybee. Once again,what he saw in Europe versus the
locust, what he saw here inthe United States.
It also kind of reminds me alittle bit about maybe the Roman
Empire and how they expandedand grew the way they grew and kind
(27:48):
of made their way acrossEurope and Attila the Hun in those
kind of individuals. Can Irelate that to the same principle?
I don't know completelybecause perhaps to a certain degree
de Tocqueville brought it tothe surface because he saw this lack
of a hierarchy. There weren'tearls, there weren't dukes, there
(28:12):
wasn't the aristocracy inplace in order to be exercising authority
in the United States. Forthese positions, he brings to light
especially the justice of thePeace. The justice of the Peace in
England was primarily a personwho was a squire or an earl who had
a title and was given thatfrom, you know, father to son of
(28:33):
the next generation. Yeah.Based upon their. Their title and
their position in the UnitedStates, that didn't exist. And because
of that, there was an exerciseof a Justice of the Peace. And at
that time, he mentions, it'sneither a judge nor a police officer,
but there was a. There was aninterim position upon which that
person, though only a citizen,exercised a certain amount of control
(28:57):
over the chaos that he saw ofAmerican society that was moving
forward in a. I'd say acontrolled environment. But he seems.
He seems to think in apositive, growing environment.
That's interesting. I'd liketo explore that. Aside from this
conversation, I think I wouldlike to explore that a little bit
(29:17):
more myself. I find thatpretty interesting the way that that's
all implemented and kind ofintegrates. Earlier you mentioned,
and I'm trying to rememberback a little bit here. Earlier you
had mentioned that likelocusts, they all kind of fly in
a group. Honeybees are kindof. They have a community within
(29:41):
themselves. I've watched thehoneybees here because, like I told
you, we watch them in thebackyard all the time. They come
back there. In fact, they evenhave a relationship. We've got a.
We kind of have an open areawhere we open. We have huge doors
that go outside. You can't seemy hands moving. We have huge doors
that, you know, we open up andit's kind of a, you know, walk in
(30:03):
and out. We have. It goesright out to the back patio and everything.
And, you know, we have. Thosebees have a. They don't bother us,
you know, because we respectthem. They respect us. For example,
um, and, you know, they'llcome in, they'll fly around the house
a little bit, then they'll goout or they'll. We're sitting in
the chair, they'll walk up,they'll fly around us, they'll check
us out, then they'll go to thenext tree and they don't bother us.
(30:25):
Where some people freak outwhen the bees show up kind of a deal.
And we have a relationship inthat regard. How do, how, how do.
If, if you can help usunderstand this, because I find it
fascinating. How do theycommunicate within themselves? How
do they know that? Earlier youmentioned the hierarchy with the
queen and then the ste. Beesand then the worker bees and things
(30:48):
like that. How do theycommunicate? How do the locusts communicate?
To know where they're goingnext or how they're going to go next.
Is that too complicated? Did Ithrow too much at you?
No, no. You're bringing to thetable the idea of communication,
which is great. There isability. There is an ability within
the hive to transmit messagesthrough a number of different means.
(31:14):
One of the easiest ways thathoneybees transfer information is
through smell. The queen has apheromone that is able to be communicated
about every 20 minutes. Everysingle bee within the hive present
there within the hive is ableto know from her, her health, her
spirit, and to a certaindegree, the efforts at the hive is
(31:38):
moving toward. That's throughjust the odor, the pheromones that
she's able to transmit thatthen find their way to all 20 to
50,000 bees that might be inthat hive. The second one is also
by color and by humming. Thereis a Transfer of information that
they have through the sound. Ihave hives both here and at work
(32:04):
that you can approach a hiveand you can almost sense through
the. The humming sound that'sthere whether it's been a good day
or not. If it's not been agood day, that humming could pretty
much tell you that's thesituation. It also tells the other
bees the same situation. The,the. The aggressiveness or the disorder
(32:24):
that might be in that hive.For example, if the queen has been
crushed or rolled, when I gointo my hives and I'll pick up the
frames, you have to do sovery, very gently in order to not
kill the queen. She's slightlylarger in size. She is most likely
on one of those frames, and soyou're inadvertently killing her.
(32:45):
Could prompt the need for anew queen, but also prompt a certain
destabilization of thatcommunity for a short period of time.
Of course, the most famous wayfor communication that people usually
bring to the table is, is thedance. Through the dance that the
bees, these are the foragers,bring back to the hive, it will communicate
(33:09):
the location and the distanceand also the fruitfulness of a potential
pollination source. This isusually a circle or a figure 8, and
then the shaking, whichindicates an intensity of what they've
just found, that's then seenand understood by the other bees
within the hive.
Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah.You see me smile. That's pretty cool.
(33:31):
I think. Come back and thebees dance and then, you know, you
found a good place. I think weall do that. Going to a restaurant,
we do a dance when it's good food.
Somewhat of a snoopy dance,but it's a little tiny bee size.
That's pretty slick. So howlong have you been a beekeeper?
I've been a beekeeper forabout five years. I started first
(33:54):
at work. We, at the company Iworked for, have an array of beehives
on the, on the site. And therewas an expert there who began to
teach the rest of us thebasics of beekeeping. And then about
three years ago, I startedbeekeeping at home, and I started
with two, went to five. Nowit's, you know, two hives again in
(34:17):
my yard. And I'm in theresidential area. I'm not in. In
a car. Countryside.
Yeah, that's very cool. Ireally appreciate that. Thank you
for your contribution to thatas well. I know that we all hear.
You hear people talking aboutthat if the bee community disappears,
then it will be catastrophicto our environment, to our sustainability
(34:40):
as human beings because again,that's how things are pollinated.
You mentioned earlier, soforth. Do you, do you think we're
on the cuspus of anenvironmental catastrophe based upon
global warming and the stormsurges and everything that I'm sure
have an effect on thosecommunities, both bees and locusts?
Well, talking about bees, I'mnot a prognosticator about the longer
(35:03):
term effects of any type ofthese decisions, but I do see the
importance of bees and theirbalance somewhat abused. We take
about 60% of the hives in theUnited States, across the continent,
every single year. They startin the almond fields of California
(35:25):
and they'll journey all theway up into Michigan and Pennsylvania
and the like. They'retransported, that is, these hives
are transported, about 1.5billion of them for the very purpose
of pollination, pollinatingdifferent crops. And we have a lot
of crops that require thepollination of these insects. These
(35:48):
efforts are successful to adegree, but not as successful as
they could be if more, and letme use the word sustainable, it's
a normative term, a moresustainable approach to what could
be done were pursued. There'sa portion of my book where I talk
about the use of nativepollinators that are much more efficient
(36:11):
at being able to pollinateplants than our, you know, APIs mellifera,
which is the, the commonhoneybee that will be utilized and
transported across thecountry. That balance has resulted
in imbalance, if you would,and our dependence upon this transporting
of these bees back and forthacross the continent.
(36:33):
That brings me to a question.It's kind of a, I guess a personal
question, but at the same timeit would benefit others as well.
So we go to the farmer'smarket here when, when they open
and there is a beekeepingcompany that ends up there at this
one that we go to everyweekend. And when they come, they,
(36:57):
because it just mentioned,when you mentioned what you did it
trying to trigger this, theybring a series of different honeys.
Like one of them is lavender,one of them is. And, and forgive
me, I may not remember all ofthese, but one of them is mesquite,
for example, because there's alot of mesquite in and around here,
(37:18):
but they've got severaldifferent, what they call flavors
of honey that, that were, theysay were from specific pollination
of those type of plants. Andthat's what created that. Are you
familiar with, Is that whatyou said earlier? When you take them
across the country line,across the state lines, can that
(37:42):
be done or is that somethingthat they have to specifically have
bees that only go to lavenderplants, for example, or only go to
muskie.
Well, they're going to placethe. Hide the Langstroth box in an
area where the majority of theplants that need pollination are
the ones that would be ahoney. Yeah. That will have a unique
(38:05):
taste. The ones I wasmentioning are not being transported
across the United States toproduce honey as much as they're
being transported to pollinatethe field. So the honey you would
get from that particular typeof effort would be. Wouldn't have
a unique flavor. And theireffort isn't to collect honey. Their.
(38:26):
Their effort is to. To polyplants from that perspective. But
you're right. Yeah, there'ssome excellent honey tasting competitions
around the United States, andI think it's in Georgia. We've had
a number of contests,worldwide contests where there's
honeybee efforts in Georgiathat have been sometimes the most
successful, as well asMichigan. Those two states for some
(38:48):
reason seem to have uniqueflavors from where they're able to
position the hives to collect the.
That's pretty cool. Yeah. Isay again, that was kind of a little
bit of a personal question,just because you had mentioned about
moving them around and ifthere was any difference, and I do
understand the difference nowbetween the pollination part and
(39:09):
the honey part, but it, itinspired me to ask that question
because, you know, we bring amoment you can actually taste the
difference. I mean, and thenwhen you said about the taste testing
things like in Georgia andeverything, that would be really
kind of cool to explore. Whata unique opportunity to visit a place
(39:32):
like Georgia during that timeperiod. That'd be a cool vacation,
actually. Cool weekend, right?
Cool.
Yeah, cool weekend. Coolweekend. Do you think that. What
kind of experiences you hadsince you do beekeeping? Again, this
is an educational perspective.In your experience with beekeeping,
were there positives andnegatives when you. When this. When
(39:55):
you. Let me try this inEnglish because I got 12 questions
running through my head. Withyour experience in beekeeping, are
there positives and negativesin regard to your experience with
beekeeping? If we wanted toget into something.
Like that, yeah, let's talkabout the positives. You're going
(40:18):
to be exploring a communitythat is a little on the edgy side
of things. You know, if youwant to be a gardener, if you want
to find yourself out theregrowing zucchini or tomato plants
or something like that,there's a certain. There's a certain
type of bent of a person wholikes to do that, a person who Wants
to be a beekeeper. And thosethat pursue that are a little bit
(40:42):
more, I use the word edgy.They're a little bit more of a risk
taker because you're going tobe dealing with something that produces
a crop that is honey that alsodoesn't want you to take it from
them. So as you're going to bein that environment, there's things
are possible and you're goingto find yourself perhaps a little
uncomfortable every now andthen. So you learn that part of it.
(41:04):
But you. But the good part isyou're venturing into an avenue that
has some really fascinatingpeople to meet. In the county I live
in, in North Carolina, we havea beekeeper association and I'm part
of it. There are approximately300 individuals that a part of this
committee and meet on aroutine basis and do other things
(41:26):
together. And it's reallyamazing to see the interest that
they have in what they do andhow they do it. 300 in a county with,
let's see, our countypopulation is not that large. Maybe
150,000 is pretty remarkable.Now, on the backhand, let's say the
negative part of it. When Ifirst brought my bees home, I brought
(41:49):
up what's called a nuke from alocal farm. And I brought it and
put it in place. I started tointeract as best I could with that.
And I wasn't properly,properly gowned, especially around
my ankles. And I got a lot ofbee stings, probably about six or
seven on both ankles. And Iwas slapping the bees. Found that
they had to their. To their, Iguess, joy, a real live one. So I
(42:15):
was running around thebackyard trying to get away from
these bees. My wife waslocking the doors of the house to
keep me from going backinside. The little dog we had was
also dancing in everydirection to stay away from me. I
went back in the house. Myknee, my legs, my ankles actually
swelled and I couldn't walkfor a few days. I was thinking, I'm
either going to back out therewith a baseball bat, ending this
(42:36):
misery, or I'm going to learnas much as I possibly can about the
insect that I can. And thereare a lot of books about insects,
about what people have learnedabout experiences, about. About the
study of the insects thatjust, I don't know, open up a different
world to an individualstarting down the road to farm and
(42:58):
to. To look at the. Thenatural environment that's around
them. So it was a bad thing inthe fact that I was stunned and I've
been stung frequently. But Agood thing in that it drove me to
make a decision. Am I going tolearn or am I going to give up?
I think that that is a, that'sa unique way to learn. It's almost
(43:20):
like, you know, don't put yourfinger in the fire. And then you.
They put their finger in thefire, they go, okay, well, I'm not
going to do that again. It'sinteresting. And I have heard that
speaking of bee stings, yourinflammation. I have rheumatoid arthritis
really bad. And I got it aftersome injuries and so forth. And I
had somebody recommend to me,which I have not tried yet, somebody
(43:42):
recommended me, thatapparently bee venom is supposed
to reduce inflammation inrheumatoid arthritis, but I've not
explored that yet. I'll haveto let you know that if I ever decide
to try that protocol, I'llhave to let you know.
That I'd like to find out ifit does.
(44:03):
Yeah. Considering the oppositeis the swelling like you had. So
I'm not sure how that wouldactually work, but I was tempted.
I was very, very tempted. Butinteresting and from Colorado, since
we're homeboys back there. Iknow in your book you mentioned Rocky
(44:23):
Mountain locust. What's aRocky Mountain locust?
That's a good question. TheRocky Mountain locusts are the largest
locust swarm that have everexisted on planet Earth. They are
now extinct. But the RockyMountain locusts were brought to
the attention of at least thepeople of the United States back
(44:49):
in the 1860s and 70s becauseof its detrimental effect on the
middle portion of the, of ourcountry. Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri,
those particular states hadbeen devastated and were devastated
in the 1870s and 1880s,especially when the farmers started
(45:10):
to move in great numbers andstarted to be successful in that
area because of that. Okay,let me give you some background about
the Rocky Mountain locust wehad. Well, let me give you background.
The locust. There's about 10particular grasshoppers that can
transform into a locust. Therewas a guy named Boris who was a,
(45:32):
a Russian entomologist whofound that these locusts, which most
people prior to 1920 believejust came out of the soil some day
and decided to devastateeverything in sight. He was the one
who said, no, this isn't the,the case. These things just don't.
Here, out of nowhere, theyappear to have some connection to
a grasshopper. Thatgrasshopper placed into an environmentally
(45:53):
stressful situation will findthemselves transforming their color,
their brain size, even thestrength of their legs and their
ability to operate differentlyMost of them will go from green at
night with a small brain goingto an environmental situation where
they are full first, fed agreat deal, and then what happens
(46:15):
is there's a pulling back ofthat resource, whether it be grains
or food because of drought,they congregate together and in that
congregation, this grasshopperbecomes a locust. In the United states
in the 1860s and 1870s, thatoccurred here on this continent as
well as it does in Africa andAsia and Europe and the rest of the
(46:37):
places. But it became thelargest seen locust swarm ever. There
was a. There was a guy namedAlfred Childs who kind of put that
particular effort on the map.He was in Nebraska, a medical doctor
who during the Civil War,desired to become a meteorologist.
So he had the equipment to doso. While in Nebraska, he saw flying
(47:01):
overhead the Rocky Mountlocust. And he had the instruments
that could tell and also theaccess to. To telegraph to find out
that this swarm that wasmoving over the head of Nebraska
was 110 miles wide. It was onemile deep, and it flew overhead in
1875 from June 15th to June25th at a pretty good clip of about
(47:24):
10 to 15 miles per hour.
That's crazy.
Yeah. A swarm of insects thatmasted flying in, pretty much devouring
the state of Iowa overNebraska and into Missouri and portions
of Illinois and up into toWisconsin. The effort to control
that was actually a nationaleffort at that time. And there's
(47:48):
monuments in a number of areaswhere laws are put into place that
you must come out and findways to eradicate this insect. You
have to put certain areasaround crops that they believe were
important. You had to burn thedying locusts or whatever collections
there because they would stinkand they would create disease on
the drinking water in thearea. Anyway, the estimated amount
(48:13):
of locusts in that swarm thatDr. Childs reported Alfred was. It
was called alfred swarm was3.4 trillion. 3.4 trillion insects
descending on that middle partof the United States and pretty pretty
much destroying the crops inthose states. Some of the frustration
was that we didn't have anyumbrella organization that said,
(48:36):
we have people dying out thereof starvation. What do we do? We
had a number of military basesand military compound because it
was the end of the Civil War.But most of those individuals spoke
French or German or somelanguage other than English and didn't
have any way to reach out tosay, we are dying here on these farms
with nothing to eat. There's agood story I kind of include where
(49:00):
a Dr. Ord, I'm sorry. AGeneral Ord was able to open up a
number of those militarydepots in order to feed those people.
Anyway, the efforts to controlthis locust swarm and why it's extinct
right now, linked perhaps tothe use of a plows. The plow the
(49:23):
United States that was in usewent down about 9 inches in order
to break the soil. While alocust, once it oviposits its eggs,
usually goes down about 6inches. So that would kill a number
of the reproductionopportunities that they had. Second
is there was a lot of plantingof trees along river bodies, which
are the best type of soil forthe locust to be able to position
(49:47):
its young for the nextgeneration to move forward. Silver
and then finally, the beliefis that the locusts, which started
in the Rocky Mountains,primarily between Wyoming and Montana,
that during the gold and theSilver Rush, that efforts to support
those miners in that arearesulted in people going up there
and farming those pasturelands. That's the origin many times
(50:07):
of where the Rocky Mountainlocusts would begin as they work
their way across the centralportion of the United States, ending
up, you know, near theMississippi River Valley. But now
we know nothing about it. Wehave little, little to, to present
that to the Americanpopulation. But it was quite a devastating
(50:29):
event.
And yeah, that's, there's justa simple size of that. To be able
to look up and see that comingand to recognize if that, I mean,
it would be. That would belike you would be in awe of what
the hell was happening, basically.
(50:49):
Little House on the Prairie,there's a good thing that, a good
section where Laura IngallWilder writes about the impact of
one of those swarms landingand just devouring everything in
sight, eating the handles offof shovels and anything with salt
within the leather wasconsumed by these insects and the
entire family running intoshelters trying to, you know, keep
(51:10):
these things from. They don'thurt humans, but they would, they
would devastate everything insight. So anything that needed to
eat cows, pigs, goats, weregoing to soon die.
Wow, that's just crazy. That'sjust great. That's wild. I'm gonna.
I'll have to go back and readyour book. I'm actually related to
(51:32):
her by the way, down the linea little bit. So I should. That should
propel me to read her book, Iwould think. Speaking of books, how
do you hope your book caninfluence reader perspective on sustainability?
I think that, you know, itpresents an opportunity for us to
(51:53):
be able to learn what and howthis works, in what influence that
we can do to help sustainthem, both sides of those insects
is obviously we need both ofthem. How do you hope that your book
will influence readers?
I hope it lets them see it asa journey. I hope it lets them see
(52:15):
sustainability as. Assomething once again is normative
in its description. Somethingis more sustainable or less sustainable.
And we are all on a journey ofmaking that decision of what we are
going to sustain in thateffort of moving forward. It's a
bigger picture than just adestination and that's what I hope
(52:37):
people will see. It's adiscussion hopefully separate enough
so that you won't get theparochial interests, the interests
of he said, she said. He'llsay let's learn from something else.
Let's mimic if you would.Let's use them memetic form of understanding
and bring to the table somecontrasting approaches and see what
(53:01):
their strengths are and whattheir weaknesses are. That's the
discussion I want them tohave. We don't seem to observe as
we once did. We quickly go toapplication. And that observation
is so important to being ableto see a larger picture of what we've
been given.
I agree with that. I thinkit's a wonderful opportunity for
people. I grew up in anenvironment, I have a lot of friends
(53:23):
that are Native American. AndI've been educated through some wisdom
that have been passed downthrough generations in regard to
our ability to connect withMother Nature, sort of in humanity
from that perspective. Andtaking the time to observe and to
watch and to listen to MotherNature. And I say Mother Nature because
(53:47):
I include the insects and thebirds and the bees and the animals
and the trees and the plantsand the bushes is all part of Mother
Nature. And taking thoselessons in just observing and watching
and listening and seeing whatwe can take from that to help us
all survive. Because I thinkit's an effort that we need to do
to sustain our community, ourworld, our environment, our ability
(54:11):
to continue to grow and notfade away into oblivion. Which is
kind of a strong word, but youknow, how do you think, what kind
of steps can we as individualstake? I know that you have some in
your book, but what, what kindof steps can you give us that we
(54:33):
can incorporate lessons ofthat type within ourselves? What
can we practice?
Well, well, let's. Let's goback to the. The steps of, of how
we learn. Many peopleunderstand that you first observe
something, you. You study itto a great deal so that you can,
from what you study, observe ageneral rule, if you would, that
(54:57):
can be brought to the tablefrom there you interpret what that
general rule might have as animpact upon human decisions on what
we're going to do and whywe're going to do it and then we
apply it. Then we take whatwe've learned there and we apply
it to the efforts on thetable. Observe, interpret and apply.
(55:19):
We want to run so quickly tothe application. We have talking
heads and we'll say if we justcan harness the waves of the ocean
and be able to use that forthe hydroelectric power needs along
the coastlines, then we'll beable to solve all the problems. We
just need to go and be able todeal with the population deficit
in certain portions of theworld so that the next generation
(55:42):
will have the proper, like inChina, the proper number of children
in order to propagate theirfamilies. We just need to. Well,
those are all applicationaspects. Let's go back to observing.
Let's go back to observe whatwe've been given already. Use a memetic
point of view. Let's look atthe world we've been handed and learn
(56:02):
from that and then go to thenext step to interpret and then to
apply.
Those are great lessons. Ithink that these are things that
we should all take a momentand a pause and put the noise down,
basically, you know, put thenoise away for a little bit and listen
and watch and listen. I thinkit's a good thing to do. We're running,
(56:27):
unfortunately, we're a littlebit out of time here. So let's talk
about how somebody can findyour book in regard to how to get
it and where it's at. And Iknow you have a website, so if you
can say that out loud for usas well too, I'd appreciate it. Sure.
The website is Davidojbooks.com and you can just look up
(56:50):
my name, David OJ on Amazonand the book is being sold there
as well. So that, that's agood place to go there. If there's
a glitch on the website, Iapologize. I'm trying to find out
what happened. But you shouldbe able to go to David OJ books.com
and I'll make sure I can go ahead.
(57:12):
No, I'm sorry. I'm going tomake sure that's in the show notes
as well so that people have aneasy way to just click it and go
right to your. Your sight.Okay, thank you. This has been a
wonderful opportunity toinspire, motivate and educate. David,
thank you very much for comingon the show. I really appreciate
what you're bringing to theworld. I think we all need to take
(57:34):
lessons from you and your yourwhat's in your book in regard to
helping us sustain ourselvesand sustain the environment that
we live in. So thank you forbeing here.
Well, thank you, Mike, forallowing me to be here.
It's been great. I will makesure that all the information to
get in touch with you will bein the show notes so that they can
(57:55):
just click and find you. Andthis is one more thing before you
go. So I always ask, do youhave any words of wisdom before we
leave?
Let's see, perhaps would be onthe back of the book that he who
has a wife why. This is fromNietzsche. He who has a why to live
for can handle almost any how.
(58:16):
Those are brilliant words ofwisdom. I love it. I love it. I think
we should all take that intoconsideration. So once again, thank
you for being here. Iappreciate your time. All right.
Thank you.
And for everyone. And the onemore thing before we go, community,
thank you for being here.Thank you for being part of the community.
Be sure to share, likesubscribe and all that good stuff.
(58:36):
And one more thing before youall go, have a great day. Have a
great week. And thanks forbeing here.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
you Go. Check out our websiteat beforeyougopodcast. Com. You can
find us as well as subscribeto the program and rate us on your
favorite podcast listening platform.
Hey, one more thing before yougo. Have you ever wondered what we
can learn about sustainabilityfrom the insect world? Or how two
vastly different insectcommunities can teach us about managing
stress, making decisions, andmaintaining balance? In this day
and age, we need a lot ofthat. In this episode, a sustainability
expert and I explore howhoneybees and desert locust communities
(00:22):
manage stress, allocate work,make decision, keep, communicate,
and maintain balance. Andwe're going to discover how the lessons
from these honeybees anddesert locusts can guide us towards
a more sustainable future. I'myour host, Michael Herst. Welcome
to One More Thing before yougo. My guest is David Auge. He's
(00:52):
an author and a sustainabilityexpert. Expert. He has dedicated
decades to uncovering the mosteffective way to communicate the
concept of sustainability,something we need in this day and
age. With a wealth ofexperience spanning three decades
in industry, David Auge harisen as the permanent figure in
the field of environmentalmanagement and is on a mission to
(01:13):
transform humanity's approachto sustainability issues. As a certified
Sustainable developmentprofessional, energy manager and
a hazardous material manager,he speaks at businesses and environmental
conferences and has investednumerous hours of practice and research
into the best way tocommunicate that sustainability in
(01:34):
man's search forsustainability. His book David explores
how these insect communitiesmanage stress, allocate work, make
decisions, communicate andmaintain balance. Honeybees exemplify
order, discipline and debateand group effort, while desert locusts
thrive on growth, opportunity,and chaos and individual effort.
(01:56):
We're going to examine theseextremes. David challenged us to
rethink our approaches tosustainability and inspires us to
find new ways to balance ourfuture decisions. Welcome to the
show, David.
Well, thank you very much,Michael. I appreciate your having
me here.
You know, it is what anopportunity we have to inspire, motivate,
(02:20):
and educate some people inregard to sustainability and how
we can communicate thatthrough Mother Nature. Technically.
Yeah, it opens up the door toseeing this thing from a more holistic
perspective as opposed to justa quick how do we fix our energy
needs or our water needs orour concern of the environment and
(02:44):
the air?
Yeah, it is. I think that. Andespecially as we progress through
in how the climate's changing,the world is changing. You know,
so many things are beingaffected by environmental issues
across the world, not justhere in the United States. I think
it's important for us tounderstand that there are solutions
(03:05):
like this that actually wehave to pay attention to because.
And we'll talk about this herein a little bit. But, you know, I
know that the honeybeecommunity is, is. Is not thriving
as it used to be in. There aresome issues within that, but again,
we'll talk about that a littlebit. I like to start at the beginning.
(03:25):
May ask a little bit, where'dyou grow up?
Well, I grew up in Denver,Colorado. I had a chance to. Through
the years, I did grow up,spent a lot of time in the mountains
and enjoyed the environmentthere in Colorado. I was desirous
to find myself from. FromColorado into perhaps the Air Force
(03:50):
Academy, but I did getaccepted to the military academy
at West Point. So from my timein Colorado, I found myself going
to school in New York, andthen I spent a number of years in
the military, and thatprovided me with the opportunity
to see South America, CentralAmerica, Europe, and get a chance
to really experience from thatthe world that we live in and the
(04:15):
opportunities that areprovided to us.
Well, we're homeboys because Igrew up in Colorado. That's my home,
my wife's home, my kids home.Obviously they've traveled a little
away from there, but, boy, Imiss Colorado. The mountains and
the streams and the. The tree.Real. No offense to Mother Nature
or anybody here in Arizona,but real trees, I have to say, real
(04:40):
trees. But yeah, thank you foryour service and thank you for what
you contribute to thatcommunity as well. I'm a veteran
myself, and my brother is. Andmy stepfather was, and my uncles
were, and so thank you forthat contribution. I. I think that
with your background and whatyou had learned, I think you have
(05:02):
an engineering degree fromWest Point as well. I think that.
Did that help you have abetter understanding of sustainability
and how you approach this?What got you interested in sustainability
in the aspect of honeybees andlocusts? Because they seem to me
they are two separate type ofinsect, aren't they?
(05:26):
They definitely are. There'sa. There's a contrast that they put
on the table that is really tothe extremes of the way most people
believe we have to approachthe situation that we're currently
in. A very centralized andorganized effort, like the honeybee
provides us, or the morechaotic approach, but the very successful
(05:47):
approach that the desertlocust approaches. Yet now, the two
contrasts, though, on thespectrum of things, usually make
one the answer and the otherone the problem. The answer being,
why can't we be more like ahoneybee and have our community more
like what we have in the hiveand make sure that what we see in
the desert locust, this desireto just consume everything in sight
(06:12):
and just only continue untileverything's gone as the bad guy.
But there's something to belearned from both of those. And it's
the contrast of learning fromboth of those that I hope to bring
to this conversation about sustainability.
Well, can you help usunderstand. I know there's differences,
as you mentioned. You know, welook in, you know, as far back as.
(06:34):
Even from a religiousperspective, they talk about one
of the great travesties in.During our time period in humankind
was locust that came throughand then wiped everything out. As
compared to the honeybees,which, you know, we have a very vibrant
(06:55):
backyard where we've got a lotof flowers, we got a lot of trees
and flowers and things likethat. And every spring and summer
we can sit back here and watchthe honeybees work and watch how
they go from tree to tree andplant to plant and this kind of thing.
Um, but like you said, locustkind of. Kind of our chaos, right?
(07:15):
What's the difference? Howdoes this. Let me get. Let me get
the right question. Can youexplain, like, the main differences
between sustainability inrelation to both of those? Because
you have one, in my opinion,which you're going to help us understand,
one that, that I see gross.If. And not understanding the community
(07:38):
that you're talking about atthe moment, but we will. Compared
to locusts, which are chaos,how do they work together?
Well, let me go back to theword sustainability, because I think
that's the way we can bestintroduce ourselves to why I even
looked at these two insects.Most people currently see sustainability
as a goal, as an objective, asan endpoint, upon which, once arrived
(08:02):
at, you can then successfullysay, well, that. That one's done.
Let's just move on tosomething else. Yet I think we missed
something. The fact thatsustainability is a normative term.
It's a term used to describeas almost as an adjective, something
that is. Is better thansomething else. The word sustainable
(08:22):
would be a sustainablecommunity, or sustainable foods or
sustainable transport, becauseit's normative, we need to understand
it in that regard. And notjust a good or a bad or right or
wrong or this or that, but asa transformation of a journey upon
(08:43):
which we will all findourselves moving. The sustainability
of our current livingconditions, our current choices are
balanced because we're lookingat all of the opportunities provided
and then making choices fromthat. These two communities, not
their impact upon humanity,but these two communities make decisions
as well. So you're trying tolook at life from inside the hive,
(09:05):
inside the community of a bee.A hive, of course, is between 20
to 50,000 insects and acollected element, which is the Hive,
usually a langstroth box inthe back of someone's yard or in
a tree trunk somewhere acrossthe landscape that we have around
here. For locusts, you'relooking at an insect which has been
(09:29):
transformed into somethingunique. If you look through my book,
you've had a chance to seethat a locust is actually a grasshopper
that has gone through a phasechange, resulting in its desire to
congregate and then become ina large collection of insects, something
(09:51):
that can move across hundredsof miles and consume everything in
sight. But within thatcommunity itself, there is a balance
that allows its success uponwhat it's attempting to do. It's
looking at both of thoseinsects inside their communities
that I'm trying to bring tothe table for us to contemplate how
we neither bees nor locustscan ourselves learn something about
(10:15):
this issue of sustainability.
What made you choose, if youdon't mind, because of all the different
things that we can consider insustainability, and whether it be
the planet, be our community,or us as human beings, why did you
choose honeybees and desertlocusts as your focal points?
I felt they were the extremesin the two communities that we can
(10:38):
see in large numbers. Thehoneybee is, I think, on in the United
States, it's the insect for 26different states. It's the insects
those states. Even though theinsect came from Europe, it has found
itself to be the insect oflike Colorado and North Carolina,
and I'm not sure if Arizonahas it as such, but I know that's
(11:01):
on the center of the flag ofthe state of Utah. On the other extreme,
desert locusts are elevated toa point of distrust and hatred that
they show up in the Bible asthe eighth plague. You know, in the
destruction of the nation ofEgypt before the, the Israelites
found themselves moving out ofthat area. They find themselves as
(11:25):
attached to the word plague.And if you ever look up the word
locust, you're going to findusually a book about some destruction
or some melting down ofsociety. So because they're at the
two extremes, I thought thatwould be the best way to try and
bring this, bring this storyto the forefront of people's minds.
Do you think that overlaps inanything else that we need to consider
(11:47):
in regard to sustainability?When we talk about sustainability,
we're talking aboutsustainability of our food source
or our environments and, orour climate or anything along that
line. Can we define or kind ofhave a better understanding of what
you mean by sustainability asa community, as a society and culture?
(12:10):
I hope, hopefully what itbrings to light is the fact that
we see the world from a, froma perspective currently that everything
around us is a raw materialthat we build into the future as
opposed to something that wecan look into the past. One of the
things I bring forth in thebook is a story about a time I was
meeting with the West PointSociety of Greater Houston. This
(12:33):
was shortly after the 911attacks. It was November of that
year and we had an expertspeaking to our group about the Middle
East. The individual broughtto the table that what was going
to confront our Westernmindset was an approach that could
best be understood by lookingat two words. And those two words
(12:53):
were its history. He said, ina Western mindset, looking back,
looking at something that wesay, oh, it's history means it's
irrelevant. It doesn't haveany bearing upon the decision upon
which we will live our life.It's missing the point because, hey,
it's history, don't worryabout it. Let's go forward. However,
(13:15):
in a Middle Eastern mindset,it's history means the exact opposite.
It means that what we'relooking at is relevant and that looking
back at the way things happen,the way communities work, the way
things have been presented tous gives us a better perspective
upon which to go forward. Ihave a friend who spent a lot of
(13:37):
time in Afghanistan and Iraqduring the wars that have occurred
over the last two decades. Andone of the things he brings to the
table is that we seem to havefought one year of war 20 times.
We continue to go with a veryshort mindset of what exactly we
wanted to impact there, notunderstanding that it was a longer
term investment. These twoinsect communities have lasted for,
(14:02):
you know, a tremendous amountof time. And if we can look at them,
we can perhaps change ourperspective of looking at life in
a different fashion. Thesekind of come to the table from the
idea of something calledmimetic versus poetic. Moimetic is,
is the fact that there is a, away of looking at what is going to
(14:24):
confront us through themimicking of good societies in the
past or things that havehappened in the past that are the
things that we would like bestto mimic. Poietic, if you can use
that word of poetry, is thefact that no, we just have a blank
slate and from this pointforward we need to make it up as
we go along. I find the wholein the fact we don't look back and
(14:48):
what I'm trying to do bylooking at these two communities
is look back a little bit.Let's. Well, let's take the issue
of sustainability and let'ssay it's humanity, but let's look
at these two insectcommunities and see what they've
done over the years, over thecenturies, over the thousands of
years in the past where we canlearn something from what they've
done and how they do things.
(15:09):
I think it's an interestingapproach. Do you think that the behaviors
of honeybees and desertlocusts can be applied to human societies?
I mean, you just mentionedthat, that we as humans in different,
in different societies, welook at history, as you said, from
a different perspective. Butwe also, I think, at least from my
(15:30):
perspective, I appreciatehistory because I think from history
we're in our lessons and weunderstand what to do and what not
to do, what applied, whatworked and what didn't work. But
I'm a history buff, my wife'sa history buff, my kids are history
buffs. We love history from adifferent perspective. Not as in,
that's like you said earlier,that's old history. I like the idea
that we can take lessons fromhistory, we can take opportunities
(15:55):
from history. So long wayaround. A short question. How do
you think the behavior ofhoneybees and desert locusts can
be applied to human societies?How can we take lessons from that?
Well, because of both of thesecommunities have instinctual drives
for moving forward in theirexistence. We can learn from those
instincts. Now we don't havean instinctual desire unless someone
(16:19):
says it's the Maslow'shierarchy of need of existence and
relatedness of growth. But forthe most part we don't have a community
existence development thatgoes forward. We can learn something
from the way these communitiesdo something. Now once again, they're
instinctually driven. There issomething within their DNA that says
this is the way we're going togo forward. That's where we're a
(16:41):
little bit different. And oneof the reasons why the book I, I
wrote is entitled Man's Searchfor Sustainability, because there
is something in the, theaspect of that search that kind of
gets to the idea of meaning aswell. I mean, the title is very similar
to Viktor Frankl. ViktorFrankl was a, an individual who survived
(17:02):
the Nazi concentration campsand in his survival, the Nazi concentration
camps, he, he entered as apsychologist and he left as a psychologist.
He had a chance to bring tothe forefront some just tremendous
insights about why someonewould want to live and breathe to
see the next day. Are youfamiliar with Viktor Frankl?
(17:22):
I am.
Okay, well maybe for ourLeonard's listeners, let me provide
a little bit of insight abouthim. Viktor Frankl was an Austrian
neurologist and psychologistwho founded what he called logotherapy,
which has been dubbed like thethird B&E school of psychology. It
(17:43):
follows Freud and Adler as. Asan effort to find that, if you want
to call it the instinctualdesire, that thing which inside of
us wants to drive us forwardto make a decision to exist. Freud,
of course, has primarily the.The idea that it's a sexual drive,
it's a desire to. To gainpleasure and to work in that regard,
(18:06):
Adler says, it's the desire toexercise power over others. But Lova
therapy and what Frankl bringsto the table believes that it's a
desire to find purpose. Now,Frankl was able to bring his insights
to bear because of hisexperiences at different concentration
camps there in Stadt,Auschwitz, Kaufering, Turkenheim.
(18:29):
He lost his father at theTerezin ghetto, his brother and mother
at Auschwitz, his wife atBergen Belsen, his sister at Struts.
Stella was able to escape. Butwhat he was able to find through
these experiences and throughthe work in the different hospitals
that were associated with theconcentration camp, that there was
(18:51):
a drive within the individualto see the next day. He lists it
as one of three things. Adesire to produce something, desire
to be with someone, or thedesire to find a purpose of why,
in a larger frame, why we areeven here and doing what we're doing.
It's that searching ofsustainability, knowing that it's
(19:13):
a normal term that also has asearch for meaning. You want to sustain
that which you believe hasmerit, has a benefit to you and society
going forward. And ViktorFrankl, in man's search for meaning,
kind of brings that to theforefront in, in his effort to communicate
(19:34):
how these come together. Now,I'm kind of taking it back. I was
not in a concentration camp,but I do have a chance to look at
two communities that makedecisions themselves, the insects
that I've mentioned, and seewhat they could bring to the table.
One of the things that wetalked about or we mentioned was
that the honeybee is somethingthat might be in some degree not
(19:58):
as prominent as it was in thepast, but there are some things that
require man's input so thatit'll stay that way. We want the
honeybee to exist because itpollinates, because it provides honey,
because it provides a part ofour economic input. In so doing,
we make somewhat of a fragilesociety in the honeybee in some ways
(20:20):
ourselves. When we start tocreate a certain effort where the
order or the discipline orthose things Are there. There's a
fragility to that communitythat we need to be aware of. And
that's one of the things Ibring forth in the book, is that
that fragility is somethingthat perhaps we could learn from.
(20:40):
There's a drive on the otherside from what we have with, with
locusts. There is the lack offragility there. There's actually
a toughness where, where, likeyou mentioned, they, they grow from
stress. Stress actually bringsout the, the, the strength of the
entire community, making thenumbers increase, making their efforts
to search for the center andto move forward even more elaborate
(21:04):
and than we can handle as anational level. One of the things
that's on the table is thefact that to handle a locust swarm,
it takes the United nationsefforts to do so because they cross
international boundaries,because they cross seas, because
they find themselves in theexplosion of their effort to move
forward. There's something wecan gain from that, knowing that
(21:26):
that exists within society,within nature.
No, I think it's kind of abalance. I mean, within themselves,
because obviously we needgrowth, we need opportunity. I almost
say we really need chaos fromthat perspective. But chaos also.
There are things that come outof chaos that allow us to grow and
(21:47):
learn as human being and associety itself. I know we mentioned
earlier, at least at thebeginning of the conversation, how
do honeybees manage? How dothey help us manage stress and maintain
order compared to that chaosthat the locust brings?
There's a strong hierarchywithin the hive. The hive has just
(22:11):
one, one insect, the queen,who actually can reproduce and provide
through that community, thenext generation. Through that hierarchy,
you've got a bunch of sterilefemales, the workers, and you have
drones, a very small percent,less than 1%, that particular structure
and the jobs that they have toentail that they do from their, from
(22:34):
their birth and the six weeksof life of which they, they present
is a structure and an orderupon which there's a, there's a growth
of that community. We canlearn from that, from just how easy
they're able to transitionfrom one job to the next, how they
accept without, without toomuch pushback, the effort to, to
(22:58):
organize themselves and tomove forward. There's. That hierarchy
is something that we find ashumans to be very attractive in the
stabilization of any type ofsociety. And I find that too, also
something that is one of thereasons why they put insects throughout
(23:18):
the United States as theinsect of that state or on state
flags or in different type ofemblems around the United States.
Well, I think obviously weenjoy coming from any environment
that I came from, both withmilitary, my military training as
well as being a police officerfor as long as I was, you know, structure
and hierarchy from thatperspective and, and I could see
(23:42):
how it worked and how itthrived and how you had to have that
hierarchy. You had to haveyour, the police officers and then
you had the, the corporals andthen the sergeants and then the,
you know, the commanders,captains, lieutenants, commanders,
captains, et cetera, etcetera. It allowed me as an individual
to have a structure within mylife that I brought home as well,
(24:05):
so that we, we had thatunderstanding of the structure and
how we as a family unitworked, which again, shows how community
works as well. I think we seethat in the fact that we've got a
city government, a countygovernment, a state government and
a federal government andthings like this. On the opposite
(24:27):
end of that, in mentioningearlier you mentioned about locust
amplify exemplifies growth andopportunities. On the opposite end
of that, how do we learn fromthe locust side of it? Because obviously
we've seen them withcatastrophic damage across the world
(24:48):
in what they do. How do welearn from that?
Well, we learned that there isan effort in the locust to search
for the center. It's one ofthe ways that I mentioned their search
for opportunity. The locustswill march in what appears to be
a uniform fashion, but they'llalso fly in a uniform fashion, always
(25:10):
seeking the center upon whichto exploit. And that exploitation
of the center allows them asa, as a mass to move forward and
successfully do what they wantto do, which is, of course, consume
everything in the countrysideand reproduce. That, though may appear
detrimental to us as humans,but to them as a society, it brings
things forward. Let me bringan analogy to our own aspects of
(25:35):
the country that we live in,the United States. Alex de Tocqueville
wrote a book called Democracyin America back in the 1830s. And
in chapter five of that book,he brings to the table the fact that
the stability that he sees inthe small community, the townships
in France and in Germany andin England have a strength of order.
(25:57):
He says, if you went to lookat the financial records of these
small towns in any of thosethree countries, you would find that
they knew exactly what theyhad paid to the penny. They were
orderly. The, the police andthe, the structure of the systems
that were in those countries,France, Germany and, and England
(26:17):
seemed to be able to at thetime of the 1830s, repel any type
of frustration or, ordisorder. In contrast, he of course,
he's in the United States atthis time. Alexa Tocqueville he found
that the ability of any townwithin the United States to come
to the conclusion of where allthe money they collected actually
(26:39):
went was almost impossible. Hesaw a chaos in the efforts of that
order. But he also saw aspirit within the township that we
had here in the United Statesthat just marveled him. He saw an
effort from the individualcitizen within our country to take
upon himself the opportunityof growth that didn't exist in France
(27:02):
or in England or in Germany.That we had something that was going
to take the community furtherdown the road than what he thought
could ever happen there. Andthat it was the disorder, the opportunity
to take advantage individuallyas opposed to being wait to be told
what to do by some hierarchythat was going to allow America and
(27:26):
our understanding of democracyand its exercise to be successful.
Compared to what he saw in NewEurope, that would be an example
of the honeybee. Once again,what he saw in Europe versus the
locust, what he saw here inthe United States.
It also kind of reminds me alittle bit about maybe the Roman
Empire and how they expandedand grew the way they grew and kind
(27:48):
of made their way acrossEurope and Attila the Hun in those
kind of individuals. Can Irelate that to the same principle?
I don't know completelybecause perhaps to a certain degree
de Tocqueville brought it tothe surface because he saw this lack
of a hierarchy. There weren'tearls, there weren't dukes, there
(28:12):
wasn't the aristocracy inplace in order to be exercising authority
in the United States. Forthese positions, he brings to light
especially the justice of thePeace. The justice of the Peace in
England was primarily a personwho was a squire or an earl who had
a title and was given thatfrom, you know, father to son of
(28:33):
the next generation. Yeah.Based upon their. Their title and
their position in the UnitedStates, that didn't exist. And because
of that, there was an exerciseof a Justice of the Peace. And at
that time, he mentions, it'sneither a judge nor a police officer,
but there was a. There was aninterim position upon which that
person, though only a citizen,exercised a certain amount of control
(28:57):
over the chaos that he saw ofAmerican society that was moving
forward in a. I'd say acontrolled environment. But he seems.
He seems to think in apositive, growing environment.
That's interesting. I'd liketo explore that. Aside from this
conversation, I think I wouldlike to explore that a little bit
(29:17):
more myself. I find thatpretty interesting the way that that's
all implemented and kind ofintegrates. Earlier you mentioned,
and I'm trying to rememberback a little bit here. Earlier you
had mentioned that likelocusts, they all kind of fly in
a group. Honeybees are kindof. They have a community within
(29:41):
themselves. I've watched thehoneybees here because, like I told
you, we watch them in thebackyard all the time. They come
back there. In fact, they evenhave a relationship. We've got a.
We kind of have an open areawhere we open. We have huge doors
that go outside. You can't seemy hands moving. We have huge doors
that, you know, we open up andit's kind of a, you know, walk in
(30:03):
and out. We have. It goesright out to the back patio and everything.
And, you know, we have. Thosebees have a. They don't bother us,
you know, because we respectthem. They respect us. For example,
um, and, you know, they'llcome in, they'll fly around the house
a little bit, then they'll goout or they'll. We're sitting in
the chair, they'll walk up,they'll fly around us, they'll check
us out, then they'll go to thenext tree and they don't bother us.
(30:25):
Where some people freak outwhen the bees show up kind of a deal.
And we have a relationship inthat regard. How do, how, how do.
If, if you can help usunderstand this, because I find it
fascinating. How do theycommunicate within themselves? How
do they know that? Earlier youmentioned the hierarchy with the
queen and then the ste. Beesand then the worker bees and things
(30:48):
like that. How do theycommunicate? How do the locusts communicate?
To know where they're goingnext or how they're going to go next.
Is that too complicated? Did Ithrow too much at you?
No, no. You're bringing to thetable the idea of communication,
which is great. There isability. There is an ability within
the hive to transmit messagesthrough a number of different means.
(31:14):
One of the easiest ways thathoneybees transfer information is
through smell. The queen has apheromone that is able to be communicated
about every 20 minutes. Everysingle bee within the hive present
there within the hive is ableto know from her, her health, her
spirit, and to a certaindegree, the efforts at the hive is
(31:38):
moving toward. That's throughjust the odor, the pheromones that
she's able to transmit thatthen find their way to all 20 to
50,000 bees that might be inthat hive. The second one is also
by color and by humming. Thereis a Transfer of information that
they have through the sound. Ihave hives both here and at work
(32:04):
that you can approach a hiveand you can almost sense through
the. The humming sound that'sthere whether it's been a good day
or not. If it's not been agood day, that humming could pretty
much tell you that's thesituation. It also tells the other
bees the same situation. The,the. The aggressiveness or the disorder
(32:24):
that might be in that hive.For example, if the queen has been
crushed or rolled, when I gointo my hives and I'll pick up the
frames, you have to do sovery, very gently in order to not
kill the queen. She's slightlylarger in size. She is most likely
on one of those frames, and soyou're inadvertently killing her.
(32:45):
Could prompt the need for anew queen, but also prompt a certain
destabilization of thatcommunity for a short period of time.
Of course, the most famous wayfor communication that people usually
bring to the table is, is thedance. Through the dance that the
bees, these are the foragers,bring back to the hive, it will communicate
(33:09):
the location and the distanceand also the fruitfulness of a potential
pollination source. This isusually a circle or a figure 8, and
then the shaking, whichindicates an intensity of what they've
just found, that's then seenand understood by the other bees
within the hive.
Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah.You see me smile. That's pretty cool.
(33:31):
I think. Come back and thebees dance and then, you know, you
found a good place. I think weall do that. Going to a restaurant,
we do a dance when it's good food.
Somewhat of a snoopy dance,but it's a little tiny bee size.
That's pretty slick. So howlong have you been a beekeeper?
I've been a beekeeper forabout five years. I started first
(33:54):
at work. We, at the company Iworked for, have an array of beehives
on the, on the site. And therewas an expert there who began to
teach the rest of us thebasics of beekeeping. And then about
three years ago, I startedbeekeeping at home, and I started
with two, went to five. Nowit's, you know, two hives again in
(34:17):
my yard. And I'm in theresidential area. I'm not in. In
a car. Countryside.
Yeah, that's very cool. Ireally appreciate that. Thank you
for your contribution to thatas well. I know that we all hear.
You hear people talking aboutthat if the bee community disappears,
then it will be catastrophicto our environment, to our sustainability
(34:40):
as human beings because again,that's how things are pollinated.
You mentioned earlier, soforth. Do you, do you think we're
on the cuspus of anenvironmental catastrophe based upon
global warming and the stormsurges and everything that I'm sure
have an effect on thosecommunities, both bees and locusts?
Well, talking about bees, I'mnot a prognosticator about the longer
(35:03):
term effects of any type ofthese decisions, but I do see the
importance of bees and theirbalance somewhat abused. We take
about 60% of the hives in theUnited States, across the continent,
every single year. They startin the almond fields of California
(35:25):
and they'll journey all theway up into Michigan and Pennsylvania
and the like. They'retransported, that is, these hives
are transported, about 1.5billion of them for the very purpose
of pollination, pollinatingdifferent crops. And we have a lot
of crops that require thepollination of these insects. These
(35:48):
efforts are successful to adegree, but not as successful as
they could be if more, and letme use the word sustainable, it's
a normative term, a moresustainable approach to what could
be done were pursued. There'sa portion of my book where I talk
about the use of nativepollinators that are much more efficient
(36:11):
at being able to pollinateplants than our, you know, APIs mellifera,
which is the, the commonhoneybee that will be utilized and
transported across thecountry. That balance has resulted
in imbalance, if you would,and our dependence upon this transporting
of these bees back and forthacross the continent.
(36:33):
That brings me to a question.It's kind of a, I guess a personal
question, but at the same timeit would benefit others as well.
So we go to the farmer'smarket here when, when they open
and there is a beekeepingcompany that ends up there at this
one that we go to everyweekend. And when they come, they,
(36:57):
because it just mentioned,when you mentioned what you did it
trying to trigger this, theybring a series of different honeys.
Like one of them is lavender,one of them is. And, and forgive
me, I may not remember all ofthese, but one of them is mesquite,
for example, because there's alot of mesquite in and around here,
(37:18):
but they've got severaldifferent, what they call flavors
of honey that, that were, theysay were from specific pollination
of those type of plants. Andthat's what created that. Are you
familiar with, Is that whatyou said earlier? When you take them
across the country line,across the state lines, can that
(37:42):
be done or is that somethingthat they have to specifically have
bees that only go to lavenderplants, for example, or only go to
muskie.
Well, they're going to placethe. Hide the Langstroth box in an
area where the majority of theplants that need pollination are
the ones that would be ahoney. Yeah. That will have a unique
(38:05):
taste. The ones I wasmentioning are not being transported
across the United States toproduce honey as much as they're
being transported to pollinatethe field. So the honey you would
get from that particular typeof effort would be. Wouldn't have
a unique flavor. And theireffort isn't to collect honey. Their.
(38:26):
Their effort is to. To polyplants from that perspective. But
you're right. Yeah, there'ssome excellent honey tasting competitions
around the United States, andI think it's in Georgia. We've had
a number of contests,worldwide contests where there's
honeybee efforts in Georgiathat have been sometimes the most
successful, as well asMichigan. Those two states for some
(38:48):
reason seem to have uniqueflavors from where they're able to
position the hives to collect the.
That's pretty cool. Yeah. Isay again, that was kind of a little
bit of a personal question,just because you had mentioned about
moving them around and ifthere was any difference, and I do
understand the difference nowbetween the pollination part and
(39:09):
the honey part, but it, itinspired me to ask that question
because, you know, we bring amoment you can actually taste the
difference. I mean, and thenwhen you said about the taste testing
things like in Georgia andeverything, that would be really
kind of cool to explore. Whata unique opportunity to visit a place
(39:32):
like Georgia during that timeperiod. That'd be a cool vacation,
actually. Cool weekend, right?
Cool.
Yeah, cool weekend. Coolweekend. Do you think that. What
kind of experiences you hadsince you do beekeeping? Again, this
is an educational perspective.In your experience with beekeeping,
were there positives andnegatives when you. When this. When
(39:55):
you. Let me try this inEnglish because I got 12 questions
running through my head. Withyour experience in beekeeping, are
there positives and negativesin regard to your experience with
beekeeping? If we wanted toget into something.
Like that, yeah, let's talkabout the positives. You're going
(40:18):
to be exploring a communitythat is a little on the edgy side
of things. You know, if youwant to be a gardener, if you want
to find yourself out theregrowing zucchini or tomato plants
or something like that,there's a certain. There's a certain
type of bent of a person wholikes to do that, a person who Wants
to be a beekeeper. And thosethat pursue that are a little bit
(40:42):
more, I use the word edgy.They're a little bit more of a risk
taker because you're going tobe dealing with something that produces
a crop that is honey that alsodoesn't want you to take it from
them. So as you're going to bein that environment, there's things
are possible and you're goingto find yourself perhaps a little
uncomfortable every now andthen. So you learn that part of it.
(41:04):
But you. But the good part isyou're venturing into an avenue that
has some really fascinatingpeople to meet. In the county I live
in, in North Carolina, we havea beekeeper association and I'm part
of it. There are approximately300 individuals that a part of this
committee and meet on aroutine basis and do other things
(41:26):
together. And it's reallyamazing to see the interest that
they have in what they do andhow they do it. 300 in a county with,
let's see, our countypopulation is not that large. Maybe
150,000 is pretty remarkable.Now, on the backhand, let's say the
negative part of it. When Ifirst brought my bees home, I brought
(41:49):
up what's called a nuke from alocal farm. And I brought it and
put it in place. I started tointeract as best I could with that.
And I wasn't properly,properly gowned, especially around
my ankles. And I got a lot ofbee stings, probably about six or
seven on both ankles. And Iwas slapping the bees. Found that
they had to their. To their, Iguess, joy, a real live one. So I
(42:15):
was running around thebackyard trying to get away from
these bees. My wife waslocking the doors of the house to
keep me from going backinside. The little dog we had was
also dancing in everydirection to stay away from me. I
went back in the house. Myknee, my legs, my ankles actually
swelled and I couldn't walkfor a few days. I was thinking, I'm
either going to back out therewith a baseball bat, ending this
(42:36):
misery, or I'm going to learnas much as I possibly can about the
insect that I can. And thereare a lot of books about insects,
about what people have learnedabout experiences, about. About the
study of the insects thatjust, I don't know, open up a different
world to an individualstarting down the road to farm and
(42:58):
to. To look at the. Thenatural environment that's around
them. So it was a bad thing inthe fact that I was stunned and I've
been stung frequently. But Agood thing in that it drove me to
make a decision. Am I going tolearn or am I going to give up?
I think that that is a, that'sa unique way to learn. It's almost
(43:20):
like, you know, don't put yourfinger in the fire. And then you.
They put their finger in thefire, they go, okay, well, I'm not
going to do that again. It'sinteresting. And I have heard that
speaking of bee stings, yourinflammation. I have rheumatoid arthritis
really bad. And I got it aftersome injuries and so forth. And I
had somebody recommend to me,which I have not tried yet, somebody
(43:42):
recommended me, thatapparently bee venom is supposed
to reduce inflammation inrheumatoid arthritis, but I've not
explored that yet. I'll haveto let you know that if I ever decide
to try that protocol, I'llhave to let you know.
That I'd like to find out ifit does.
(44:03):
Yeah. Considering the oppositeis the swelling like you had. So
I'm not sure how that wouldactually work, but I was tempted.
I was very, very tempted. Butinteresting and from Colorado, since
we're homeboys back there. Iknow in your book you mentioned Rocky
(44:23):
Mountain locust. What's aRocky Mountain locust?
That's a good question. TheRocky Mountain locusts are the largest
locust swarm that have everexisted on planet Earth. They are
now extinct. But the RockyMountain locusts were brought to
the attention of at least thepeople of the United States back
(44:49):
in the 1860s and 70s becauseof its detrimental effect on the
middle portion of the, of ourcountry. Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri,
those particular states hadbeen devastated and were devastated
in the 1870s and 1880s,especially when the farmers started
(45:10):
to move in great numbers andstarted to be successful in that
area because of that. Okay,let me give you some background about
the Rocky Mountain locust wehad. Well, let me give you background.
The locust. There's about 10particular grasshoppers that can
transform into a locust. Therewas a guy named Boris who was a,
(45:32):
a Russian entomologist whofound that these locusts, which most
people prior to 1920 believejust came out of the soil some day
and decided to devastateeverything in sight. He was the one
who said, no, this isn't the,the case. These things just don't.
Here, out of nowhere, theyappear to have some connection to
a grasshopper. Thatgrasshopper placed into an environmentally
(45:53):
stressful situation will findthemselves transforming their color,
their brain size, even thestrength of their legs and their
ability to operate differentlyMost of them will go from green at
night with a small brain goingto an environmental situation where
they are full first, fed agreat deal, and then what happens
(46:15):
is there's a pulling back ofthat resource, whether it be grains
or food because of drought,they congregate together and in that
congregation, this grasshopperbecomes a locust. In the United states
in the 1860s and 1870s, thatoccurred here on this continent as
well as it does in Africa andAsia and Europe and the rest of the
(46:37):
places. But it became thelargest seen locust swarm ever. There
was a. There was a guy namedAlfred Childs who kind of put that
particular effort on the map.He was in Nebraska, a medical doctor
who during the Civil War,desired to become a meteorologist.
So he had the equipment to doso. While in Nebraska, he saw flying
(47:01):
overhead the Rocky Mountlocust. And he had the instruments
that could tell and also theaccess to. To telegraph to find out
that this swarm that wasmoving over the head of Nebraska
was 110 miles wide. It was onemile deep, and it flew overhead in
1875 from June 15th to June25th at a pretty good clip of about
(47:24):
10 to 15 miles per hour.
That's crazy.
Yeah. A swarm of insects thatmasted flying in, pretty much devouring
the state of Iowa overNebraska and into Missouri and portions
of Illinois and up into toWisconsin. The effort to control
that was actually a nationaleffort at that time. And there's
(47:48):
monuments in a number of areaswhere laws are put into place that
you must come out and findways to eradicate this insect. You
have to put certain areasaround crops that they believe were
important. You had to burn thedying locusts or whatever collections
there because they would stinkand they would create disease on
the drinking water in thearea. Anyway, the estimated amount
(48:13):
of locusts in that swarm thatDr. Childs reported Alfred was. It
was called alfred swarm was3.4 trillion. 3.4 trillion insects
descending on that middle partof the United States and pretty pretty
much destroying the crops inthose states. Some of the frustration
was that we didn't have anyumbrella organization that said,
(48:36):
we have people dying out thereof starvation. What do we do? We
had a number of military basesand military compound because it
was the end of the Civil War.But most of those individuals spoke
French or German or somelanguage other than English and didn't
have any way to reach out tosay, we are dying here on these farms
with nothing to eat. There's agood story I kind of include where
(49:00):
a Dr. Ord, I'm sorry. AGeneral Ord was able to open up a
number of those militarydepots in order to feed those people.
Anyway, the efforts to controlthis locust swarm and why it's extinct
right now, linked perhaps tothe use of a plows. The plow the
(49:23):
United States that was in usewent down about 9 inches in order
to break the soil. While alocust, once it oviposits its eggs,
usually goes down about 6inches. So that would kill a number
of the reproductionopportunities that they had. Second
is there was a lot of plantingof trees along river bodies, which
are the best type of soil forthe locust to be able to position
(49:47):
its young for the nextgeneration to move forward. Silver
and then finally, the beliefis that the locusts, which started
in the Rocky Mountains,primarily between Wyoming and Montana,
that during the gold and theSilver Rush, that efforts to support
those miners in that arearesulted in people going up there
and farming those pasturelands. That's the origin many times
(50:07):
of where the Rocky Mountainlocusts would begin as they work
their way across the centralportion of the United States, ending
up, you know, near theMississippi River Valley. But now
we know nothing about it. Wehave little, little to, to present
that to the Americanpopulation. But it was quite a devastating
(50:29):
event.
And yeah, that's, there's justa simple size of that. To be able
to look up and see that comingand to recognize if that, I mean,
it would be. That would belike you would be in awe of what
the hell was happening, basically.
(50:49):
Little House on the Prairie,there's a good thing that, a good
section where Laura IngallWilder writes about the impact of
one of those swarms landingand just devouring everything in
sight, eating the handles offof shovels and anything with salt
within the leather wasconsumed by these insects and the
entire family running intoshelters trying to, you know, keep
(51:10):
these things from. They don'thurt humans, but they would, they
would devastate everything insight. So anything that needed to
eat cows, pigs, goats, weregoing to soon die.
Wow, that's just crazy. That'sjust great. That's wild. I'm gonna.
I'll have to go back and readyour book. I'm actually related to
(51:32):
her by the way, down the linea little bit. So I should. That should
propel me to read her book, Iwould think. Speaking of books, how
do you hope your book caninfluence reader perspective on sustainability?
I think that, you know, itpresents an opportunity for us to
(51:53):
be able to learn what and howthis works, in what influence that
we can do to help sustainthem, both sides of those insects
is obviously we need both ofthem. How do you hope that your book
will influence readers?
I hope it lets them see it asa journey. I hope it lets them see
(52:15):
sustainability as. Assomething once again is normative
in its description. Somethingis more sustainable or less sustainable.
And we are all on a journey ofmaking that decision of what we are
going to sustain in thateffort of moving forward. It's a
bigger picture than just adestination and that's what I hope
(52:37):
people will see. It's adiscussion hopefully separate enough
so that you won't get theparochial interests, the interests
of he said, she said. He'llsay let's learn from something else.
Let's mimic if you would.Let's use them memetic form of understanding
and bring to the table somecontrasting approaches and see what
(53:01):
their strengths are and whattheir weaknesses are. That's the
discussion I want them tohave. We don't seem to observe as
we once did. We quickly go toapplication. And that observation
is so important to being ableto see a larger picture of what we've
been given.
I agree with that. I thinkit's a wonderful opportunity for
people. I grew up in anenvironment, I have a lot of friends
(53:23):
that are Native American. AndI've been educated through some wisdom
that have been passed downthrough generations in regard to
our ability to connect withMother Nature, sort of in humanity
from that perspective. Andtaking the time to observe and to
watch and to listen to MotherNature. And I say Mother Nature because
(53:47):
I include the insects and thebirds and the bees and the animals
and the trees and the plantsand the bushes is all part of Mother
Nature. And taking thoselessons in just observing and watching
and listening and seeing whatwe can take from that to help us
all survive. Because I thinkit's an effort that we need to do
to sustain our community, ourworld, our environment, our ability
(54:11):
to continue to grow and notfade away into oblivion. Which is
kind of a strong word, but youknow, how do you think, what kind
of steps can we as individualstake? I know that you have some in
your book, but what, what kindof steps can you give us that we
(54:33):
can incorporate lessons ofthat type within ourselves? What
can we practice?
Well, well, let's. Let's goback to the. The steps of, of how
we learn. Many peopleunderstand that you first observe
something, you. You study itto a great deal so that you can,
from what you study, observe ageneral rule, if you would, that
(54:57):
can be brought to the tablefrom there you interpret what that
general rule might have as animpact upon human decisions on what
we're going to do and whywe're going to do it and then we
apply it. Then we take whatwe've learned there and we apply
it to the efforts on thetable. Observe, interpret and apply.
(55:19):
We want to run so quickly tothe application. We have talking
heads and we'll say if we justcan harness the waves of the ocean
and be able to use that forthe hydroelectric power needs along
the coastlines, then we'll beable to solve all the problems. We
just need to go and be able todeal with the population deficit
in certain portions of theworld so that the next generation
(55:42):
will have the proper, like inChina, the proper number of children
in order to propagate theirfamilies. We just need to. Well,
those are all applicationaspects. Let's go back to observing.
Let's go back to observe whatwe've been given already. Use a memetic
point of view. Let's look atthe world we've been handed and learn
(56:02):
from that and then go to thenext step to interpret and then to
apply.
Those are great lessons. Ithink that these are things that
we should all take a momentand a pause and put the noise down,
basically, you know, put thenoise away for a little bit and listen
and watch and listen. I thinkit's a good thing to do. We're running,
(56:27):
unfortunately, we're a littlebit out of time here. So let's talk
about how somebody can findyour book in regard to how to get
it and where it's at. And Iknow you have a website, so if you
can say that out loud for usas well too, I'd appreciate it. Sure.
The website is Davidojbooks.com and you can just look up
(56:50):
my name, David OJ on Amazonand the book is being sold there
as well. So that, that's agood place to go there. If there's
a glitch on the website, Iapologize. I'm trying to find out
what happened. But you shouldbe able to go to David OJ books.com
and I'll make sure I can go ahead.
(57:12):
No, I'm sorry. I'm going tomake sure that's in the show notes
as well so that people have aneasy way to just click it and go
right to your. Your sight.Okay, thank you. This has been a
wonderful opportunity toinspire, motivate and educate. David,
thank you very much for comingon the show. I really appreciate
what you're bringing to theworld. I think we all need to take
(57:34):
lessons from you and your yourwhat's in your book in regard to
helping us sustain ourselvesand sustain the environment that
we live in. So thank you forbeing here.
Well, thank you, Mike, forallowing me to be here.
It's been great. I will makesure that all the information to
get in touch with you will bein the show notes so that they can
(57:55):
just click and find you. Andthis is one more thing before you
go. So I always ask, do youhave any words of wisdom before we
leave?
Let's see, perhaps would be onthe back of the book that he who
has a wife why. This is fromNietzsche. He who has a why to live
for can handle almost any how.
(58:16):
Those are brilliant words ofwisdom. I love it. I love it. I think
we should all take that intoconsideration. So once again, thank
you for being here. Iappreciate your time. All right.
Thank you.
And for everyone. And the onemore thing before we go, community,
thank you for being here.Thank you for being part of the community.
Be sure to share, likesubscribe and all that good stuff.
(58:36):
And one more thing before youall go, have a great day. Have a
great week. And thanks forbeing here.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
you Go. Check out our websiteat beforeyougopodcast. Com. You can
find us as well as subscribeto the program and rate us on your
favorite podcast listening platform.
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