# What’s Happening to America’s Bees? The Hidden Cost of Our Food System | Jennie Durant (Bonus Episode)

An episode of [Minimalist Moms Podcast | Purposeful Life & Parenting Tips](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1159498258), 10 Jun 2026, 33 min.

Audio: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/35/audio2.redcircle.com/episodes/eeb622cb-6572-43fa-ab40-3bd68ee314ca/stream.mp3

Every year, millions of honey bees are transported across the country to pollinate the crops that fill our grocery stores - but few of us ever stop to consider the toll this takes on the bees themselves. In this episode, I sit down with author Jennie Durant to discuss the surprising and often unseen realities of modern beekeeping and industrial agriculture. We explore the challenges facing honey bees today, including pesticide exposure, disease, climate pressures, and the demands of large-scale farming. Jennie shares what she learned while researching Bitter Honey and introduces us to the beekeepers, farmers, and advocates working to create a healthier future for pollinators. Whether you're passionate about food, sustainability, gardening, or simply living more intentionally, this conversation offers a fascinating look at the interconnected systems that support our daily lives - and why the future of bees matters to all of us. Links Discussed in This Episode | • Checkout the podcast storefront for recommendations from Diane. • Subscribe to the Minimalist Moms Youtube Channel • Book: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd • Previous Episode: Buzzing with Purpose: Teaching Kids to Protect Pollinators | Luke Howard (Going Deeper) • Previous Episode: The Future of Food: What Regenerative Farming Really Means for Your Family | Jenni Harris (EP440) • Xerces Society • Pollinator Partnership • Connect with Jennie • Website • Instagram • LinkedIn • Book: Bitter Honey: Big Ag’s Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them About Jennie | Jennie Durant is a writer and researcher focused on bees, agriculture, and the environment. She has spent more than a decade working with beekeepers, scientists, and policymakers, including time at the US Department of Agriculture and University of California, at both Davis and Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in Grist, Glamour, HuffPo, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. Episode Sponsors | The Minimalist Moms Podcast would not be possible without the support of weekly sponsors. Choosing brands that I believe in is important to me. I only want to recommend brands that I believe may help you in your daily life. As always, never feel pressured into buying anything. Remember: if you don't need it, it's not a good deal! Enjoy the Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your fellow mothers so that they can be inspired to think more and do with less. Order (or review) my book, Minimalist Moms: Living & Parenting With Simplicity. You can contact me through my website, find me on Instagram, Pinterest or like The Minimalist Moms Page on Facebook. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Cure Hydration and use my code MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://www.curehydration.com * Check out DeleteMe and use my code joindeleteme.com/MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://joindeleteme.com * Check out Wayfair: https://www.wayfair.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

## Transcript

[0:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: For those of you that are new around here, I released bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience.
[0:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So if this content is something that doesn't fit what you're looking for, check out the other episodes that drop this week or join me back here next week for episodes that you don't want to miss.
[0:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I really see bees as being a kind of a charismatic insect that really unites people across the board.
[0:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It doesn't want matter what your politics
[0:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This is Diane Bowden, and you're listening to the minimalist mom's podcast.
[0:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Every year, millions of honey bees are transported across the country to pollinate the crops that fill our grocery stores.
[0:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But, few of us ever stopped to consider the toll this takes on the bees themselves.
[0:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: In today's episode, I sit down with author, Jenny Durant,
[0:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: to discuss the surprising and often unseen realities of modern beekeeping and industrial agriculture.
[0:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We explore the challenges facing honeybees today, including pesticide exposure, disease, climate pressure, and the demands of large-scale farming.
[1:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Jenny shares what she learned while researching bitter honey.
[1:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and introduces us to the beekeepers, farmers, and advocates working to create a healthier future for pollinators.
[1:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So whether you're passionate about food, sustainability, gardening, or simply just living more intentionally, this conversation will offer a fascinating look at the interconnected systems that support our daily lives, and why the future of bees matters to us all.
[1:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But quickly before we get there, if you've been enjoying the minimalist mom's podcast, make sure you hit five stars or share this episode with a friend that can benefit.
[1:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Also, if you have 30 seconds or less, leave a review if you haven't done so yet.
[1:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The show is eight reviews away from hitting a thousand and I would love to hit that by the end of summer.
[1:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So thanks to an advance for taking the time to do that.
[1:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Now with all that said, let's get into the special bonus episode.
[1:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What's happening to America's bees?
[1:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The hidden cost of our food system with Jenny Durin.
[1:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I can't wait to talk about bees.
[1:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: For some reason, I have just always love bees and just have this appreciation for the systems that they have in place and the structures of their, not their nest, it's their colony, yeah.
[2:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And they're high.
[2:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I just, I love bees.
[2:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I was excited to talk to you.
[2:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Click on before we get there, though.
[2:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Tell me a little bit more about yourself and how you got into this line of work.
[2:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, it's kind of a funny story.
[2:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I was in the Philippines, actually.
[2:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I was a full bright scholar at the time.
[2:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I was studying rice terraces up in Northern Luzon, which is the main island in the Philippines.
[2:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I was really homesick.
[2:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I had a friend there who was a Peace Corps volunteer and he had left the region.
[2:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I was reading the secret life of bees by Sumenk Kidd.
[2:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And just, you know, one evening and I was like, you know, I really want to learn more about bees and I like fascinated by them and so I did some research and there was this woman living on an island called behold and she ran like a little kind of be resort.
[3:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so she had it was like this little area where she had like six different built little rooms and they were shaped in hexagonally, like, you know, like be Be sells be waxed cells and she had a little restaurant and everything had honey in it, you know, in some way, but most importantly, she was teaching beekeeping to farmers across the island.
[3:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so she was like really helping with sustainability.
[3:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I went there, stayed there for like 10 days, just like as an intern.
[3:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And during that time, it was 2007.
[3:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm calling a collapsed disorder, was happening in the US.
[3:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm not so much in the Philippines.
[3:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I was reading, you know, I've started a follow-up with B's and then I was reading about them dying, basically.
[3:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And this mysterious deaths and no one knew why they were dying.
[3:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I got really intrigued by this mystery, and so kind of haunted me, I couldn't stop thinking about it for years.
[3:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so then I eventually started a PhD program and started looking into how commercial beekeeping had changed over the years.
[3:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: particularly to pollinate the California almonds.
[4:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I was in California as a UC Berkeley and so and I found out this huge percentage, I remember at the time was probably 70 or 80% of the colonies in the whole United States were traveling to pollinate almonds.
[4:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so I started thinking, oh, like how is this kind of beekeeping perhaps impacting the vulnerability of bees?
[4:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so that's kind of how I started in the research and, you know,
[4:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Okay, interesting.
[4:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I was going to say here at the beginning because I have had one other episode on bees before which I'll be sure to link that in the show notes as well.
[4:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: He's from a local beekeeper here in Columbus.
[4:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The bee collective and I'm sure if you're part of them.
[4:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am curious to know why you think that this topic belongs on a podcast about intentionality.
[4:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's a great question.
[4:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You know, I think that.
[4:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: One of the biggest things that has really influenced my thinking during this research is just how do we relate to the landscapes around us, you know, and a minimalism talks a lot about, or I think that it's core is thinking about consumption, right?
[5:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And part of that is the effect of our consumption on the planet and the environment.
[5:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And
[5:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So when I think about what's happening to bees, you know, it is tied into our consumption.
[5:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's tied into how we relate to the earth, to the landscape around us, to the other creatures that are sharing this planet with us.
[5:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so I do think that at the core of understanding sort of why bees are struggling or dying or disappearing, you know, is how are we living on this planet?
[5:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: How could we be living more sustainably?
[5:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: consumption, our ways of life, our types of farming, our ways that we treat our backyards, you know, and how could we improve that to be better sort of stewards of the land?
[5:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that's where I think it really fits in, but it's such a great question to think about.
[5:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, no, I think it's a great fit.
[6:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you have a new book that's out, bitter, honey, big ads, threat to bees, and the fight to save them.
[6:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So my first question for you is, this book isn't just about bees, but it's about the future of our food system.
[6:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I don't think a lot of people connect the two.
[6:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So what's it's take if we don't actually start to be more intentional about creating environments for pollinators and just everything involved?
[6:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: yeah, such a great question.
[6:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And as funny, there's this statistic that gets thrown around a lot, which is that bees and pollinators pollinate a third of every bite we eat.
[6:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And for a long time, I was like, I guess that's not even true, but it is, they pollinate about 30 percent of our total volume of crop production.
[6:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so kind of translating to that third of every bite we eat.
[6:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They also pollinate 75 percent, they are they help benefit, 75 percent of our major crops
[6:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And the way I like to think about it, because numbers don't always need a lot to people, is there are these quick before and after photos of supermarkets.
[7:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And what would a super market look like if we didn't have be pollination or animal pollinators?
[7:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So just to remind or that pollinators aren't just bees, they are butterflies, they are bats, they are, you know, ants and bugs, and we have lots of different, you know, insects and animals that pollinate.
[7:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and what's really striking in some of those photos is just seeing how many fewer fruits and vegetables we would have.
[7:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And even if they don't disappear, how much more expensive they might get, because a lot of crops like almonds, for example, require B pollination.
[7:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But a lot of crops do not necessarily require it, but the, the say, the crops might be smaller, or the yields would be much lower.
[7:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And when we have lower yields of food, food gets more expensive, right?
[7:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Because there's less of it on the market.
[7:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it's going to become more expensive for people.
[7:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I'm just thinking of, as parents, right?
[7:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We're trying to feed our kids, healthy, nutritious food.
[8:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And what happens when, say, the price of apples goes up by a dollar or two dollars a pound, right?
[8:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it can mean that nutritious food is less accessible.
[8:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And the last thing I'd say is that being is pollinate some of the most nutritious foods that we eat.
[8:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So vitamin C, we get a lot of vitamin E from almonds and other nuts, and we're getting a lot of vitamins from B pollinated and animal pollinated foods.
[8:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that nutritional deficiency, some scientists say is already resulting in half a million deaths.
[8:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: per year, especially in countries that are maybe less economically developed, but you know that could spread around the world.
[8:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And even if it's not actual fatalities, you know, nutritional deficiencies are very real for people who are not able to access, you know, wide diversity of fruits and vegetables.
[8:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I think that it's partly about maybe losing these crops and sometimes it's just about having less of them and fewer people able to access those foods.
[9:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[9:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So it's not just about pesticides in the bugs that are taking out these bees.
[9:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It really does come down to modern agriculture.
[9:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's what you're suggesting.
[9:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: All right, that's what the, yeah, no, thanks.
[9:18] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's what the research suggests.
[9:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And yeah, it really does seem to be a multitude of factors.
[9:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And pesticides play a key role.
[9:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: beekeepers like to talk about the four peas and this kind of helps me organize my thoughts around like what's affecting bees.
[9:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so one of the biggest things that beekeepers actually facing isn't pesticides.
[9:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's a pest and it's called the boroamite and it's like a kind of like a tick on a bee and I like to picture it a giant crab on the side of your body.
[9:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's sucking on your liver.
[9:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Because that's kind of what they're doing is there are these big sort of
[9:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that are on bees and they're sucking on their fat bodies, which function like a liver in a bee.
[10:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And they were, they are just decimating the industry.
[10:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We haven't been able to develop natural resistance to them.
[10:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There would be, so haven't been able to develop that resistance.
[10:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And the chemicals that have been working on them are no longer working as well.
[10:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And beekeepers are just struggling to get a handle on that.
[10:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that's the first peed past the second one is pathogens which are diseases like European Valbrude and other diseases that can and deformed wing virus which is what it sounds like the bees emerge and they have these kind of deformed wings and they can't fly and that's really transmitted a lot by boronite.
[10:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then the third one would be pesticides, and those can be extremely toxic pesticides that kill bees on, you know, in an instant, or what we're seeing a lot of challenges with this sublethaly toxic pesticides like neonics or like fungicides, which are used heavily in almonds.
[10:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And those have like chronic effects that can affect navigation, learning the Queen's ability to reproduce.
[11:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then the fourth one is Prairie, which is really flowers.
[11:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If you think of bees' need flowers, right?
[11:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They feed on nectar and pollen.
[11:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's their primary source of food.
[11:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And they turn the nectar into honey and pollen into something called bee bread, which is just like digestible fermented pollen.
[11:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and with around the United States and the world we're just seeing significant losses of be-forage and be-pray.
[11:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that means there's just less food for bees.
[11:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so that's a huge issue.
[11:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And the last thing I'd say is the one I would add is policy.
[11:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You know, we're seeing some kind of you know, frightening policies that are affecting bee health too, like the loss of maybe funding for conservation programs or research labs that support bee health around the United
[11:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so these are all kind of intersecting to create the sort of nexus of stresses for bees.
[11:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[11:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I want to go back to something you talked about in regards to if apples were to go up a dollar or two.
[12:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, over time, that might not sound like a lot, but for everything that we're bringing to the home that is needing to have been pollinated and there isn't enough resources.
[12:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm just curious to know about affordability and to how people actually understand these hidden costs when it comes to our system.
[12:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of,
[12:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You know, our food system is a really kind of corporate industrial food system.
[12:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And what that means is that a lot of the, I would say, and for the most part, a lot of the costs to the environment are kind of hidden, you know, from the consumer, our food system is designed to be, you know, deliver kind of cheap food.
[12:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That isn't always the healthiest.
[12:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I am thinking of like fast food or cheap white bread or something like that.
[12:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so, but there is a lot of affordable food out there.
[12:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But the environmental effects are pushed off to laborers, you know, farm workers, and I see bees as, you know, kind of part of that system.
[13:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They're, they're also the part of the environment, but they're also providing a kind of labor as well.
[13:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that is often where those are the often the people or the, the sort of natural resources that end up getting impacted by our chief food is bees and, and labor.
[13:18] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so,
[13:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, so I mean to answer your question, it's hard, but I do think that, so we may not be seeing some of the effects of those environmental costs, but I do think we are going to start seeing those issues as beekeepers struggle to keep their bees alive.
[13:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They have to charge more money to farmers for pollination services when they can.
[13:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Sometimes farmers can't pay more, and so we're either going to see beekeepers, you know, paying a lot more money to keep their bees alive, which which translates to the farmer and then translates to consumers.
[13:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so this does really have kind of a domino effect for our bottom lines right at home buying those apples buying those blueberries at the grocery store.
[14:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[14:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I mean, everything's connected.
[14:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that we are just so used to convenience that we don't.
[14:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, I've had a few people on here to talk about the food system that we have.
[14:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Gosh, white oak pastures.
[14:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There was a woman on that runs that farm.
[14:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we were just talking about, we just don't understand what all goes into play.
[14:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We just receive it at our door or pick it up at a grocery store, even though it's been flown halfway across the world.
[14:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So,
[14:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, again, kind of going back to that first question I asked you about intentionality.
[14:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like I'm just wanting to draw attention to some of these things that we should be a little bit more thoughtful and consider it of one of the things that kind of blew my mind a stat that 99% of the US honeybee colonies are shift across the country.
[14:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's pretty crazy.
[14:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What does that actually look like and is that healthy for the bees?
[14:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: yeah it's a great question and so there are a lot of different stats about exactly how many and one of my friends is an economist and who studies bees and that was the one she came up with it might be a little lower but it is still probably over 90% of all commercial honey decollies are shipped across the bees the United States and it is shocking.
[15:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Um, so what's that look like?
[15:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, first of all, one of the reasons it's happening is to pollinate almonds.
[15:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so it is every February, almonds bloom and they're one of the first blooming crops in the United States.
[15:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so beekeepers are bringing their bees here to, you know, pollinate almonds.
[15:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They're also one of the highest paying pollination sort of service opportunities for for beekeepers.
[15:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They're really reliable and they need a ton of bees because every
[15:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: two colonies of bees since almonds, most almonds are all almonds require bee pollination to fruit.
[15:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so you've got this huge demand.
[15:42] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and you've got growers willing to offer a bunch of money.
[15:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then you have beekeepers who are struggling, or keep their bees alive, the honey markets pretty terrible in the United States, so they're not making a lot of money producing honey.
[15:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so now you've got this huge draw.
[15:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so what, because it's happening in February, beekeepers have to bring their bees here in the middle of winter.
[16:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm in California.
[16:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It depends on where they're located, so some beheepers are storing their bees and these like giant over wintering warehouses that are the size of airplane hangers.
[16:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so, yeah, pretty wild.
[16:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so there are, they're bringing their semi trucks into those warehouses.
[16:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They're loading, they're using, they're using four clips to, you know, put the stack the bee colonies onto these semis that hold about some around 485 hundred colonies.
[16:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: into California.
[16:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It depends on when.
[16:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Sometimes it's in the fall.
[16:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Sometimes it's in January, right before pollination.
[16:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Other beekeepers are coming from like the east coast or from the south, and they may be pulling their bees out of apiaries, like which are just be yards with bee colonies and them outdoors.
[16:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then they come into California.
[16:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If you've been storing your bees out
[16:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so you have to make sure there's no fire ants or some other kind of a pest that's not allowed into California.
[17:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So it's really stressful, you know, to come to the border and get an inspection.
[17:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then they truck into California and some of them leave their bees in these like holding yards over winter.
[17:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: where they are there like maybe hundreds of colonies and they're just kind of waiting outside of an orchard before they can go in.
[17:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Some people are dropping them off directly into the colonies.
[17:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: A lot of this movement unloading and loading happens at night when the bees are less active.
[17:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so it's kind of wild.
[17:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I did it pick up once from an almond orchard and it was driving around the back of the truck and the boardclif just bringing them up, putting them on and the bees are kind of, they're more subdued, but they're still kind of flying around everyone's got headlamps on and kind of operating in the dark.
[17:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so yeah, a lot of these beekeepers are working at nights, moving these bees around and then about a month later after Bloom has ended, though, take them back out of the orchard.
[18:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Okay, that's so funny and fun fact.
[18:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We had a swarm on our property last.
[18:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It was about a year ago.
[18:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I want to say maybe Gosh, was it in the fall?
[18:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It was at some point last year, but we had this swarm and a woman in the town over.
[18:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It was like, oh, I'll come get them.
[18:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I want it.
[18:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like, I need some bees for my, she was a beekeeper.
[18:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So anyways, she didn't come till dusk, and it was dark by the time we were on our hillside, trying to get these bees up, and I thought that was so fascinating that they were quiet, and yeah, just not really moving around.
[18:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I just couldn't believe it, because I think that people just assume a lot of people are just really fearful of these in general.
[18:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, so I don't know.
[18:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They can see you, it's not my question.
[18:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They don't want to sting you, and there's different types of bees as well.
[18:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: The aggressors versus who are just trying to make a way.
[18:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, and I would say in general, the things that we're mostly afraid of are wasps, actually, which are yellow jackets are not actually bees.
[18:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They look like bees with the bright yellow stripes and black stripes, but those are wasps.
[19:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They are more aggressive.
[19:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Obviously honeybees can sting you, but you're right, it's usually out of protecting the hive or protecting honey or just sometimes by accident.
[19:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I've been stung right in the center of my face, my face swelled up and but you know they're just doing their job playing around and I think just kind of landed on my face.
[19:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So
[19:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But you say that it's not just honeybees that are in decline, it's also wild bees as well.
[19:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Maybe just speak to that quickly.
[19:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then we can get into some ways that the listener can be a benefit to our bees.
[19:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[19:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, so you're great to point that out.
[19:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We do have honeybees, which are an introduced species.
[19:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They were brought here by the colonists and the 1600s.
[19:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then as colonists, like slowly moved west across the United States,
[19:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: bees went with them.
[19:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They were pollinating European crops like apples and alfalfa and they were also providing honey and wax and colonists made meat out of them, which was like a fermented, you know, honey alcohol.
[20:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so they were really popular and valued.
[20:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But before those bees came, we already had a bunch of native bees by some counts.
[20:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We don't know exactly how many there are, but there's an estimated like 4,000 native bees in the United States.
[20:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: about 70% of those live in the ground.
[20:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And many of them are actually solitary.
[20:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So they honeybees are social animals.
[20:26] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They live in a colony, so do bumblebees.
[20:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But many of the bees just kind of live on their own and just create a little nest and lay some eggs and then they're not living in a colony environment.
[20:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, and the difference between them is that, you know, it's so important I think a lot of attention has been given to honey beans and I think most people when they think of a bee are thinking of a honey bee, but it's important for people know that those aren't native bees to the US, there are many of them are managed by in a commercial way.
[20:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so you can kind of think of them almost like chicken or cows.
[20:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You know, there are beekeepers described them as livestock.
[21:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Whereas these native bees have really important ecological functions with plants.
[21:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And they're also really valued by indigenous communities for their sort of spiritual significance and emotional significance.
[21:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so it's important that we're thinking about both when we're thinking about trying to help our bees.
[21:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, absolutely so there is hope and you do have solutions that you think could on a broader scale be impactful but also I am curious to know what listeners can do that are like slightly maybe they live in the city like what are some things they can do well as speaks that broader scale like what are some solutions that you think that could be recently scaled to address some of these concerns.
[21:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, I have this, um, I don't know if you've read Michael Paulins, um, you know, Michael Paulins, what can he has?
[21:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And now I'm forgetting the name of it.
[21:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But he has this whole phrase, which is like, I'm like, I love Michael.
[21:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Okay.
[21:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'll tell you the phrase and you'll know where it comes from.
[21:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I do too.
[21:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm just terrible with names on the spot.
[21:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Um, but it's, it says his saying, which is eat food not too much, mostly plants.
[22:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it's like plant rules or something.
[22:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Food rules, food rules.
[22:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Got it.
[22:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So yeah, no, that's a great quote.
[22:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, and so I was like, oh, I want something similar like that to kind of just just like a quick and easy, like how can you help ease and so what I've been sharing is plant flowers limit pesticides and share the land and so I just want to go into each really quickly.
[22:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If there's one thing that, you know, your listeners take away from this conversation, it's that bees need more beef-friendly flowers.
[22:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so we just need more food on the land.
[22:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And what's cool about that is we can all contribute something.
[22:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I saw this great photo the other day of a woman with four potted plants on her apartment terrace.
[22:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And she had a little butterfly, you know, visiting, then, and it's like every little bit of food counts, even if it's just that one pot of like lavender, you know, or rosemary or something, you know, on your apartment terrace, or I, for example, in our home, we have pulled out a bunch of lawn and planted a little pollinator garden and I just see pollinator plants there all the time.
[23:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I also have a friend named Nancy Lawson.
[23:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: She is right to book called The Humane Gardener.
[23:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And she has transformed her whole yard.
[23:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: She lives in Maryland and had a few acres.
[23:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And she's kind of like the whole thing grown naturally.
[23:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And now she has like a mini forest.
[23:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And she has like all these pollinator plants.
[23:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so there's like different stages of how much we can plant forage to help bees.
[23:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's like the number one thing.
[23:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The second one is to just really limit the use of pesticides in our yards, try to leave bare spaces of land for those ground nesting bees that I was talking about buying local honey from beekeepers.
[23:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So we know we're supporting our local beekeepers instead of buying honey that's
[23:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: usually from outside the United States and then that whole concept of sharing land is like it's kind of a mindset shift you know it's like how can we think about the landscapes we're in and that we're not just owners of it and it's not just there for our benefit but it's there for all these other creatures and insects you know that are better passing through or making their home there
[24:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and how can we make it a little more habitable, a little more welcoming to these other these other living beings that we share the planet with and have more of a sort of a sharing the land mindset rather than kind of boning the land and extracting from it.
[24:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Those are some of the kind of quick and easy things that I think, kind of anybody can do.
[24:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, as we wrap up, kind of just kind of coming full circle to that idea that the book is more about the larger systems at play if you zoom out what is the crisis reveal about our broader relationship with food nature and consumption without being redundant.
[24:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I know you kind of explained that at the beginning, but again, I'm maybe it's just asking you if you have hope that we can move in a more sustainable direction.
[24:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, I mean, I'll answer that second part about the hopefulness.
[25:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think that honey bees and just saving our bees in general and our pollinators, it's actually a pretty great way for the where community action and each little individual change can actually make the huge difference.
[25:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so, I am really hopeful, partly because I think people are interested and excited about these.
[25:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They're just this kind of fascinating interest in them, which I'd love because, you know, a lot of bee sting people and that could be very sort of off-putting.
[25:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But there's been this really sustained interest.
[25:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so, I think back to when I was a kid, and there was a big concern about dolphins and dolphins were getting caught in tuna nets.
[25:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And we started this huge, or there was this huge sort of ground swell of support for saving the dolphins.
[25:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it really resulted in huge reductions in, you know, dolphin deaths and tuna nets and just a global awareness about the important role that dolphins play and just our connection to them and our desire to save them.
[25:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I really see these as being a kind of a charismatic insect that really unites people across the board.
[26:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: kind of doesn't what matter what your politics are, you know, it's a bezer just fun and interesting and we all rely on them for our food.
[26:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so I really think that there's so many ways people can get involved.
[26:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I like to direct people to like the Zersy society, which is spelled X-E-R-C-E-S.
[26:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: or pollinator partnership, they both have websites that make it really easy to support pollinators at home.
[26:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There's also local nurseries and native plant nurseries that you can go to and ask them like, hey, how can I put some beef-friendly plants, you know, in my yard?
[26:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I think just in general kind of
[26:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: really thinking about just the small things we can do maybe supporting, maybe buying one more fruit or vegetable that's organic instead of having pesticides so we know that we're supporting farmers that aren't using as many pesticides.
[26:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Just things like that, you know, are real basic ways that we can kind of get involved without it being too heavy on our pocketbook,
[26:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[27:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it's so funny.
[27:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I've had two conversations now about bees.
[27:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think there's so much to be said here.
[27:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It is such an interesting, like as I said, I'm so fascinated by this topic.
[27:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So I really appreciate you sharing with the audience today.
[27:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If they want to learn more, where can they connect with you and grab a copy of your book?
[27:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Oh, great question.
[27:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So there's my website, which is www.gennydrant.com.
[27:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm also on Instagram and where I'm sort of a newbie there.
[27:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So no judgment.
[27:26] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm on Facebook as well.
[27:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The book should be available on pretty much any website.
[27:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So you know, Amazon, if you can get it from Princeton, which is the publisher.
[27:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But yeah, I also encourage people to support local book stores as well.
[27:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so try and, you know, if you can try and find a local book
[27:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: All right, well, quickly as we wrap things up here, I'm just going to ask you the final two questions I ask every guest.
[27:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the first one is, what has been a beneficial resource in your life?
[27:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You want to share with the listeners?
[27:53] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I know you've given us so many, which I'll be sure to link in the show notes, but anything else that comes to mind.
[27:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, so beneficial resource, um, let's see.
[28:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I already shared my, like, Cersei's pollinator partnership thing.
[28:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So now I'm going to, I'm going to rethink it.
[28:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's what it is.
[28:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's great.
[28:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like, I think those are great resources.
[28:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[28:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Um, yeah.
[28:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So as far as resources go, I would probably just point people back to those two organizations of talking about the Cersei society.
[28:18] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Again, XERC, RCS, and pollinator partnership.
[28:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: as well as I think what's been huge for me is just talking to gardeners and nurseries that are able to kind of help educate me about native plants.
[28:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, so those are some resources I would say just as far as bee stuff goes, you know, those are some great local ways that we can kind of learn more about bees and how we can help them.
[28:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Okay, final question for you is what is something you can't stop talking about and I'm not going to let you say bees?
[28:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, shoot, that was my plan thing.
[28:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You know, this is a hard moment for a lot of people, just economically, and it's environmentally, I work in science and so I, and about thinking about the environment all the time.
[29:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But I think what I can't stop talking about is just how important it is to stay helpful.
[29:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And to just try and find some small way that we can do something to help kind of create the world that we want to see.
[29:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I mean, the work that you're doing is so important thinking about how we consume and how we kind of simplify our lives, they're more manageable.
[29:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And, you know, just focusing on family and being great parents, I just think all these small ways that we can commit to creating, you know, in generating hope in our lives and creating the world that we want to live in, I'm just like an all about hope and all about just moving towards that vision and
[29:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So every little step we take makes a difference and I just want people to feel like not so overwhelmed by all the challenges that are out there, every little thing makes a difference.
[29:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so I would just encourage people to to run over that.
[29:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that's what gives me hope and what I'm trying to just convey as I'm talking about, you know, be decline.
[29:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So
[29:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, no, I totally agree.
[30:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think that we just operate on such auto pilot, which is a good and bad thing, right?
[30:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But I want to just have a space with this podcast with all these topics.
[30:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, I'm at 600 plus episodes at this point.
[30:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I try to have every episode correlate to some facet of intentional living in tensionality in your life where you can just, again, make a small step.
[30:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Make a small step by getting a potted plant for your terrace.
[30:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's an easy thing to do and what a benefit.
[30:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It doesn't have to be an
[30:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: an overhaul of your lifestyle.
[30:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think that's where the overwhelmed comes in.
[30:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's like, oh my gosh, I'm hopeless because I can't do this.
[30:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But it's like, no, if we just get a little bit more mindful and hopeful, like you can make change.
[30:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If everyone's making small change, right?
[30:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, you know, I want to add the last thing which is I so I have done a lot of minimalist courses like I've done with Joshua backer and yeah and so but I am and sometimes it gets so overwhelmed because I'm like I it's my house isn't where I want it to be I am consuming sometimes more than I want I feel embarrassed about it.
[31:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I'm not perfect in any way, but I'm aspiring.
[31:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so I sort of just remember, I'm aspiring to having a more minimalist lifestyle, I'm aspiring to be a better sort of steward of the land, you know, and better to take care.
[31:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so as long as we like, you know, set that kind of shining star that's guiding us and know that it's always a work in progress, you know, I think it's not aiming for perfection, we're aiming for sort of those small steps that get us toward that goal or head
[31:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, well, Perfection is impossible, and so yeah, I think if we can just have that mindful process that you're describing, I'm just like, and it's a growth mindset too, it without judgment, it's just like a little bit will continue to move the needle forward to like being a little bit better than I was yesterday.
[31:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Exactly.
[31:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, no, I love that.
[31:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's a great way to end up.
[31:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, well, thank you so much for joining me.
[31:49] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like I said, this is a special topic for me personally, so I was really thrilled in our video.
[31:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, thank you so much.
[31:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Thanks for inviting me.
[31:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I had such a great time.
[31:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What did you think of the episode?
[31:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
[32:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: To learn more about today's guest, including links, resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at minimalismomspodcast.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as my book Minimalismoms Living and Parenting with Simplicity, or other ways to connect or work with me online.
[32:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave a rating or review of your favorite episode.
[32:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Lastly, sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends and social media is very helpful and will encourage others on their journey to think more and do with us.

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