Bees make honey? We’ve known this since we were kids, so we take it for granted. But bees are insects – furry body, red, not red!… yellow, and black stripy, hairy leggy, big ears … big eyes! – big ears as well, but they leave them behind when they go out … (got out of that one) – medium size wings … You know – they’re buzzy things, you know, and they make honey?! Which is in your morning, on your breakfast toastie, in a jar, kind of – how do they do make that? I mean … do earwigs make chutney? Do spiders make gravy? What is going on? Earwigs going:
– Get the chutney under that stone there … tra-lala … We make chutney all day …
It’s an earwig’s life, ain’t it?
– Put the chutney in there, there we go …
And spiders, saying:
– Gravy, yes … no problem at all, mate. We’ll make spider gravy, the way spiders like to make it, yes … Put the cubs in there … Hold on, Legs … There you go, mate. Can we get the measuring jar back when you’re finished?
It’s very weird.
So – the way bees make honey, is they get ten bees together, they fly down to a supermarket, they get a jar of honey, and they bring it back, that’s how!
And also, bees look for pollen; they find pollen, and when they do, they come back to the hive.
– I’ve found pollen.
– Where did you find pollen?
And instead of telling the other bees, they do an intricate dance in front of them.
– Tra-lala …
– Brian, where’s the pollen?
– Tra-lala…
– Where’s the bloody pollen, Brian? All this leaping about can wait until later!
Why doesn’t the first bee who found the pollen say:
– Follow me, bzzzzz! Here it is.
That could work, couldn’t it? No, they don’t think.
Eddie Izzard: Unrepeatable (1994)