All language subtitles for Coyote Peterson Brave the Wild Series 1 Part 4 Swarmed by Killer Bees 1080p

I don't like getting stung
in the face.

Are you telling me that
the queen being there would help

reduce the chances of stinging?

Yeah, I don't know.

Coyote: I'm in the swarm.
10,000 bees.

Stung on the neck.

Chris, I'm getting
stung on the neck.

Aah!

♪

my name is coyote peterson
and I've traveled the world

seeking out the most fascinating
animals on our planet.

Look at that.

No matter the location,

my mission
has always been the same.

To get up close and uncover
the secrets of the creatures

that we often misunderstand

even worse, fear.

Every animal has a story
and I brave the wild to tell.

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

killer bees.

It's a term that swarmed
united states in the early '90s,

blanketing the nation
with a fear that being covered

and stung to death
by africanized honeybees

was a possible
and very painful doom.

And while people do die
from these things every year,

the term killer bee is nothing
more than a media headline.

On this episode,
my mission is two fold.

First, I will introduce you
to the killer bee.

And for the grand finale,

I will prove that bees
are not out to sting us

as I attempt to wear
the ultimate bee beard.

♪

♪

♪

there was once a time
when only calm, friendly,

pollinating european honeybees
were bumbling and buzzing

across the arizona landscape.

Then in the early '90s,
the arrival of aggressive,

not-so-friendly
africanized honey bees

completely changed the genetic
makeup of the bee colonies

that previously existed.

The sonoran desert
located in tucson, arizona

is one of
the harshest environments

found in north america.

Yet during the rainy season,

its multitude
of flowering plants

make the perfect place
for pollinating honeybees.

♪

today I will be meeting up
with bee conservationist

chris brinton.

I have known chris
for many years

and the first time
we worked together

I attempted to wear
a bee beard

composed of friendly
european honeybees.

By using a pheromone lure,

I was able to draw
an entire colony to my face.

But when a handful of curious
africanized bees got mixed in,

things didn't exactly
go to according to plan.

Smoke me,
I'm getting some on my --

oh, my gosh. Dude, my face
is so much pain right now.

♪

this looks like it.
This is the ranch.

Hey, there he is.

-What's up, buddy? How are you?
-Good to see you.

-Good to see you.
-As always.

-Hey, what's up, chris?
-Good to see you, buddy.

-Doing good.
-Good, good.

You guys ready
to do some bee stuff?

Let's do some bee stuff.

For many years,
chris has dedicated his life

to honeybee conservation
by capturing aggressive

africanized colonies
and restructuring them

into calm european colonies.

In doing so, he moved
swarms away from humans

and prevents them
from being exterminated.

Chris uses his own custom
built bee traps,

baited with a special pheromone

to draw in and capture
swarms of wild

africanized bees.

He then relocates
the africanized colony,

removes its queen
and introduces

a non-africanized
european queen.

This new queen
will pass on her dna,

genetically resetting
the hive's composition

and in turn will create
a swarm of friendly

european bees.

So to better understand,
I'm going to spend a few days

working alongside him to see how
this fascinating process works.

♪

brinton: Right here
is our first trap.

Coyote: Oh, look at that.

Perfectly camouflaged
into the tree.

So I can definitely see there's
bees flying around that box.

Is this one that
we would want to check?

We're gonna get
a closer inspection.

Okay.

So what's a safe distance?

I mean, how far do we need
to stay back

without them
feeling threatened?

Well, right now, we're a good
distance away from them.

We're not in
their flight path.

So what I'm looking for is just
to see if this is a nest.

Now you see those bees coming in
and they've got pollen on them?

Mm-hmm.

You'll actually see these come
in, boom, right there.

You've got the yellow pollen
coming in.

That's a telltale sign
right there that that's a nest.

Okay, so there's thousands
of bees inside of there.

It has a swarm that came in.

It's 3,000 to 5,000 bees
on an average.

Wow.

That food right there
is important to the bees

and also the bees that are out
there getting that food

are all the forager bees
that need to be back at night.

So we come in in the evening
time to pull these traps.

Okay, well, I'd say that's
a successful first run at it.

First trap,
first swarm of bees.

All right,
let's keep scouting.

Before we get any further,

it's important that
we understand the difference

between european bees
and africanized

or as they're commonly
known, killer bees.

The name of killer bee
is a term created by the media,

which was used to describe
the swarms of european bees

who interbred with invasive
east african lowland bees.

This breeding created
aggressive swarms

of what are now known
as africanized bees.

Visually,
there's very little difference

between a european
and an africanized bee.

The key difference is
the africanized bees

are far more aggressive
and respond in greater numbers

when their nest is disturbed.

So when provoked,
they respond by sending up

to 60% of their hive to swarm
and attack the intruder.

Whereas european colonies
will send out

only 10 to 20 guard beans.

The sting of a killer
or africanized bee

isn't more potent than
that of a european bee.

But because they attack
in greater numbers,

this equates to more stings
and the chance of death

hence the nickname killer bee.

Okay, so we've got
a couple more back here.

Okay.

Oh, look at that. We've got
another hive of bees.

-Oh, wow.
-Fascinating little creatures.

All right, well,
that's one more full swarm.

Yeah.

So what we're gonna do now
is ride out the heat

that's here
in the middle of the day.

Chris said that the best time
for us to come back

and actually extract the traps
is closer to sunset

and the reason for that
is that right now

all the bees are out
doing their work, right?

Collecting pollen,
bringing it back to the hive.

At night, the bees
will be in there.

So just before sunset, we will
come, block up the entrances,

and then, extract the traps.

In total, we have identified
four traps that are full of bees

and ready to be pulled.

These insects do
all of their pollination

work during daylight hours.

And chris has a firm motto

that no worker bee
shall be left behind.

Waiting until sunset is fine
by me as the sonoran desert

has reached
the scorching temperature

of 105 degrees fahrenheit.

This extreme heat brings with it
the building of massive storms

and as dusk sets in,

an ominous monsoon
is rolling in full force.

My day in the life
of a beekeeper

certainly isn't
getting any easier.

Darkness has set in.

We've met back up with chris,

but the problem we now face
is a massive monsoon

coming over the mountains,
which is full of lightning.

Chris, what's this gonna
do for us tonight

when it comes
to collecting these bees?

We're not gonna go out there.

We're not gonna brave
lightning, things like that.

I don't want to get
anybody struck by lightning.

That's dangerous.

This is not something you want
to fool around with.

[ thunder crashes ]

coyote: A massive monsoon
has swept across the desert.

Lined with countless
lightning bolts,

it has greatly delayed
our ability

to extract the four bee traps
we located earlier in the day.

It's now after midnight

and we can finally
finish up today's work.

So the rain has stopped,
which is fantastic.

Now we can go out
and collect the traps.

The problem is that
so much rain fell,

the desert is
completely saturated.

We'll stack the traps
on the back.

But this truck is too heavy to
drive across the saturated sand,

which means we need
to collect the traps on foot,

which is gonna make tonight
more difficult

than originally anticipated.

And we need to do this
in a very narrow window

because there's actually
another monsoon storm coming.

So chris, you ready to go out
and start picking up the traps?

Ready to go skiing
in the mud. [ laughs ]

it's gonna be one muddy mess,

but we've got four traps
to pick up.

So let's get some bees.

So chris, we're not wearing
any bee suits to do this.

Is there any risk of us
getting swarmed tonight?

Well, hopefully I can just sneak
in there real quick.

Get a screen over the door
and get it stapled shut

before they even know
I'm here.

Okay.

With a monsoon looming,
we work quickly and carefully

to ensure that we don't put
too much stress on the bees.

For each trap that we collect,

an empty trap takes its place
to hopefully catch

another swarm
of africanized bees.

Okay, there we go.

All four traps
are now collected.

Four swarms removed
from the environment.

Now to actually take them
out of the traps

and into their new bee boxes,

we're gonna do that under
the brightness of day, correct?

Do it tomorrow morning, yes.
You can do that at night.

Right. And that's gonna
get a bit more dangerous.

We're gonna have
to put on bee suits

for this next procedure
and at first light,

these bees are
gonna have brand new home.

♪

the next morning,
we transport our swarms

to a remote plot of trust land

that chris leases
from the state of arizona

for the purposes
of honeybee conservation.

This is only one
of his many bee yards

and it's these protected areas
far from humans

where he actively reworks
aggressive

africanized swarms
into calmer european swarms.

Brinton: Stick that down close
to their front door and puff

on them a little bit.

Give a good puffs there.
Get it inside of that nest.

What we're gonna do is we're
just gonna pop this lid off.

-Wow.
-So what you got here,

is you got a colony
of africanized bees right here.

So now what we're gonna do
is we're going to pull this back

and we're gonna start
pulling back and finding out

what part of these is the nest.

So you start seeing...

-Oh, yeah, right there.
-Oh, yeah, see that?

That's all honey right there
and some pollen.

So this is the outer frame.
So it stays as the outer frame.

Yeah, we want to try to keep
the hive as similar

as it was within the trap.

Absolutely, we don't want
to mess them up too bad

because they just,
you know, they know what's home

and we just made
a new home for them.

And right now what we're
looking at --

-wow.
-...Is we got brood.

The brood is basically
the cappings over top

of all the larva
that she has laid.

So now we've got
another frame here

that has yet again
a lot of brood on it.

And you can see just
how many brand new bees

are gonna be
coming out of this.

Every single one of these things
right here is a brand new bee.

How long does it take for them

to build each one
of these little cells?

Multiple cells per day?

You know, honestly it depends
on their food source.

So if they have a lot of feed,

they could build
this frame in a day.

I'm not seeing a queen
on this one,

so we'll go ahead
and set this in the box also.

So we're gonna go
through here

and we're gonna slide
this one straight up also.

And I think a lot of people
don't realize

is that the majority
of the bees

in a colony like this
are actually female.

The only ones that are males
are the drones

and there's usually only
a couple hundred per

entire hive, correct?

Exactly, they don't want to make
too many of them

because they actually
are resource drainers.

They have to feed them,
they have to do everything.

-The drones that is.
-Yeah, the drones.

And the drones just sit around
all day, drink up the honey,

and wait until it's time
to breed with the queen.

-Exactly.
-Not exactly the toughest life,

but they die immediately
after breeding.

Yeah, they do and that's
a very, very harsh death.

Now this is the frame that has
the most amount of eggs on it.

Uh-huh.

This is the one
where we find the queen.

Oh, there she is.
You're right. Look at that.

You could see how when
she starts moving around,

she pretty much demands
her space.

Mm-hmm.

So that's your girl
right there.

That's the one
that's laying all the eggs.

-That is an africanized queen.
-Mm.

But we need to get her
into that hive, too.

Okay.

So we'll go ahead
and set her in there.

You're just gonna be
real careful

when you set her down
and keeping an eye on her.

And then you bring her back
so that way we don't smash her.

Now just make sure

there's not a lot of bees
standing up on top.

We don't want to smash
a whole bunch of bees,

so we'll just set a lid on them
and I have a new colony of bees.

And there we go.

Coyote: The queen in this hive
is africanized,

but will be replaced
with a docile european queen

in the coming days.

The reason it's not
done immediately

is because this swarm
must acclimate to its new home

before the queen is replaced.

That's pretty crazy.

Transferring four colonies
of africanized bees

to their new homes
and being a part of the swarm.

Want to do
something else crazy?

What'd you have in mind?

Want to try
the bee beard again?

♪

coyote: Today I'm gonna attempt
to wear a beard of 10,000 bees.

Worst case scenario here
is that a single sting

sends me
into anaphylactic shock.

The last time I did this
it was with 3,000 bees

and I was stung 60 times.

Maybe wondering didn't you learn
your lesson the first time?

Guess we'll see what happens.

♪

you look like a man who's ready
to build a bee beard.

You ready to do this again?

I guess.

10,000 bees.
I go from 3,000 to 10,000.

It's a pretty extreme jump.

So what's gonna be different
about today?

Today we're gonna try

a little bit
of a different technique.

I'm gonna put
a queen's necklace on you.

Okay, that is different.
What is the queen's necklace?

It's actually a mated queen.

-Okay.
-And she's in a cage with them.

Now what it is those bees are
getting used to her pheromone.

So these are young bees that are
gonna want to crawl to her.

She's gonna sit
right about there.

Oh, that sounds like
a really safe spot

right on the edge of my neck.

Putting 10,000 bees on your face
sounds like a really safe idea.

Yeah. Round two. Here we go.
Okay, so same thing.

I'm gonna take off
my vest and this shirt.

I'll have on
just a basic t-shirt.

We'll get me into position
and get everything started.

-Absolutely.
-Okay, here we go.

All right, chris. This is it.
The point of no return.

We're gonna take the top
of this bee box off.

It's gonna expose the bees

and we're gonna start
putting them on my face.

We're gonna take the queen's
necklace out first

and put her around your neck

because that's a new thing
that we're just gonna try it.

Why not? You like getting stung
on the face. I mean...

I don't like getting stung
on the face.

You told me that the queen
being there would help

reduce the chances
of stinging.

Yeah, I don't know.

You never know.
You never know.

All right, I'm ready.
Let's do it.

So I will
stand in position here.

Okay.

Okay, this time to wear
a 10,000 bee beard.

The most important thing to note
about this bee beard

is that these bees
are the first generation

of a requeened colony
that was once africanized bees.

These bees are younger
and are less likely to sting.

And this means that the bees
should be docile,

giving me the chance to prove
that chris's process

of recolonizing killer bee
swarms is working

or at least I hope.

Holy cow. Here they come.

Wow. That is a lot of bees.

Chris is preparing
the queen's necklace.

This one will be tied
around my neck

and inside this little cage
is a queen bee.

That's what all these workers
are interested in.

This is it.

It begins right here
and you can't move it,

even if you are stung.

So if I take a sting,

I just have to endure
through the pain

because if swat at the bees,

it's only gonna
make them angry.

Just try to keep my body calm.
Reduce that fear pheromone.

♪

so many bees.

Just calm down.
They're not stinging you.

Okay.

Chris, how many bees would you
say are on me at this point?

-Maybe a thousand.
-Only a thousand bees so far.

I think there might be more bees
in this box than 10,000.

Well, 10,000 is a nice
round number for us,

but it feels like
more than 10,000.

What this shows you
is that bees

aren't necessarily aggressive
towards humans.

Chris has on no bee suit.
I have on no bee suit.

We got the royal highness
is hanging around my neck.

All they want to do
is get close to her.

They want to start making comb

so they can start
producing honey.

We're going all the way.
10,000 bees.

Man: This is insane, coyote.

You have far surpassed
the amount of the first time.

They're everywhere.

Feels like I can't move
my body an inch.

The weight of the bees
is incredible.

My entire body feels like
it's crawling.

I'm doing everything I can right
now to just keep myself calm.

Putting my mind
in a state of relaxation.

♪

you get stung?

Stung on the neck.

Chris,
I'm getting stung on the neck!

Aah! Ah, it's so much pain!

Coyote: Stung on the neck!

Chris, I'm getting
stung on the neck!

Ah, so much pain!

Ah, one is stinging my neck.

Aah!

Stinging my neck.

[ groans ]

this is intense.
I am covered in bees.

Chris, is this the biggest
bee beard you've ever built?

I do believe this is the biggest
bee beard I've ever built.

This looks awesome.

What would you guess the number
of bees on me are at this point?

You have 10,000 bees on you
right now.

So this is 10,000 bees.

10,000 bees, man.

Because it's all the way
around the back of you, too.

Like from your hat to your
shoulders all the way around you

is completely covered in bees.
So --

so this box had more than
10,000 bees?

I'm assuming so.

I can feel the weight
of the bees.

The sound is incredible.

♪

I'm the king of bees!

Aah.

We have done it.

We have achieved
the ultimate bee beard.

10,000 bees completely
covering my upper body

and all in the name
honeybee conservation.

I'm coyote peterson,
bee...Brave.

Stay wild.

We'll see you
on the next adventure.

All right, I think it's time
to remove the bees.

In total,
I was stung four times.

Three of those stings happened
in removing the bee beard

and was simply a result
of the workers

not wanting to abandon
their queen.

The reason I perform
this seemingly crazy stunt

was to reaffirm and prove

that chris's conservation
work to recolonize

africanized bees is working.

To date, he has captured

thousands of aggressive
killer bee swarms,

which equates
to millions of bees.

And once introduced to a docile
european queen,

every single colony has been
successfully reprogrammed

into what
I consider friendly bees.

These buzzing insects
are not something to fear,

and it's important for us
to remember

that the pollination work
they're doing

plays a massive role
in the planet's ecosystem.

The plight of european honeybee

is a story that is steering
toward a happy ending.

And with continued hard work,
this conservation effort

will eventually
be a complete success.

♪