Meet The Mares: Honeybuzz · 9:31pm Sep 8th, 2021
There’s only so much that can go into a story, especially one with as many characters as 16 has. So I’m opening the floor to asking these characters questions. Post your reply with any questions you have and Honeybuzz will be happy to answer them (I’ll be editing this blog to add those questions). I’ll be posting the other characters in the coming weeks (up through Snowcatcher; the rest will come after their chapters are posted).
Interview subject #7: Honeybuzz
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/111968
Cutie mark?
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/165211
Thanks to Feathermay, I discovered that pony names don’t translate to English quite as well as everyone originally thought. What’s the most direct translation of your name?
She Who Buzzes as the Bees and Gathers Honey.
You were on the very first busload of ponies brought to the consulate the day the portal opened. Is that correct?
That’s correct. I was hoof-picked by Starlight Glimmer to come here and look into why Earth’s bee population is collapsing and see if I can reverse the damage.
Relationship status?
Single. Any potential suitors reading this need to keep in mind I come with bees. Lots of bees. They were here first, and if the choice is ‘it’s either me or those bees’ the bees are staying.
Favorite part of living on Earth?
My twin sister will never bother me here. We haven’t spoken in years, except for her to send postcards bragging about her accomplishments. I didn’t leave a forwarding address and Headmare Starlight Glimmer knows to return any future correspondence to sender.
What happened?
My sister had a bad habit of bullying me. She pushed me too far, I struck back, and I think it scared her. It scared me. So I applied to the School of Friendship, moved across country, and never went back. I can’t really say ‘back home’. I just never went back. How sad is it that school became more of a home to me? Now Earth is. I don’t know if I’ll stay here, but I have no reason to go back to Equestria either. At least here I’ve got a purpose.
There was a time I wanted to repair our relationship more than anything else. I saved for months to buy Bumblesweet the gift she most wanted for our shared birthday… and she never even opened it. That’s when I realized there was nothing more I could do. I’m not opposed to reestablishing contact with her, but not if it’s just to continue where we left off. It hurts that we don’t have a good relationship. The other twins I’ve met have very good rapport with one another. I’d love to have that. If we can’t have that, what’s the point?
What’s your favorite song? Specifically, your favorite song that our audience on Earth might know?
Blake Shelton’s Honey Bee.
Favorite TV show?
Elementary. There are also some documentaries I’ve enjoyed, like More Than Honey and Queen of the Sun.
Favorite movie?
Bumblebee. I know it’s about giant transforming robots, but I love that the main character is named Bumblebee. Though it would make more sense if he transformed into a Datsun Honey Bee or Dodge Super Bee. Beetles aren’t bees.
Speaking of cars, do you have a vehicle?
A 1976 Datsun Honey Bee.*
*No picture because I haven’t shot one. These things rusted out quickly and are probably extinct here in the Northeast.
What do you miss about Equestria?
Beekeeping was easier in Equestria. But that’s obvious, considering I came here to discover the reason behind Colony Collapse Disorder.
Emil: What was the favorite food/drink that you discovered on human-Earth?
There’s a lot of overlap between our foods. While humans don’t eat daffodils or daisies, they’re available. The biggest difference is that humans have a much wider variety of food choices, due to being omnivores. There’s meat, poultry, seafood, etc. – things ponies wouldn’t be interested in eating. Well, most ponies wouldn’t be interested in. I’ve heard rumors that some ponies have tried such things. Most of the rest of the new foods fall into the ‘junk food’ category. Most of those are more like chemistry experiments than food. Have you read the ingredients labels on the things you eat?
I haven’t tried most human foods. But I’ve tried honey, of course. But that’s not really a fair comparison, because honey’s taste varies due to the nectar collected by the bees. Different plants grow in different areas. Honey can even be toxic if collected from plants that are poisonous to humans or ponies, but have no ill-effect to bees.
Bahamuttone: Well... Have you read the ingredient list of a banana? I mean if you go at it in the same way and list what makes it.
I haven’t, though to be fair Daisy’s our resident chemist. I would have to look half those ingredients up to know what they are. Going by your chart, bananas don’t contain phosphoric acid. From what I understand, this is used as a preservative and as a tangy flavoring in drinks like soda. It’s also used as an anti-rust treatment and is known to cause dental erosion. I assume it’s safe to eat or stores wouldn’t be able to sell it, but ‘also used to prevent rust’ isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for a beverage. Still probably better than the tap water here in New Jersey.
I probably don’t want to know what honey would look like broken down into base components like that.
Dan: Do you know the Nord Mead Song?
I’m afraid not, though I do know how to make mead.
Dan: Mead is not a wine, even though some ignorantly call it "honey wine" or even blasphemously adulterate it with grapes.
Heathens, all of them.
BirdsBooksBrownies: There's a beverage you might consider trying out as it gets closer to the holiday months called Mead (I don't know if that's a thing in Equestria). It's pretty popular on Earth. It's a fermented wine made from honey.
As you can imagine, with beekeeping being a low margin business, my family’s explored a number of different ways of preparing honey. We have several mead recipes, some of which have been passed down for generations. The problem is mead isn’t all that popular in Equestria. Cider’s the beverage of choice for most ponies.
With everything I’ve seen recently flavored with ‘pumpkin spice’, I’ve considered making a pumpkin spice honey. I hate the idea of selling out like that, but if it’s profitable… Beekeeping’s gone from being my livelihood to my hobby and a side job. My purpose for keeping bees these days is to determine what’s causing Colony Collapse Disorder. That means I’m not keeping enough bees to be self-sufficient, and anything that helps offset my costs is good.
BirdsBooksBrownies: I find Equestria to be a fascinating place from the stories I've read. Also as something of a home cook and tea lover, I often keep a bottle of honey around for experimenting or just sweetening my tea.
Honey is the best sweetener for tea, but I’m more than a little biased.
Spamotron: My understanding is that there are local communities of professional and hobbyist beekeepers all over who are pretty welcoming and close-knit. How did your introduction to the New Jersey Beekeepers go?
Really well! In addition to sharing beekeeping as a hobby, they were really curious to hear about Equestrian beekeeping techniques. We compared various ways of doing things, and they were really impressed with my buzzing. A couple of the others in the group recorded me buzzing with their phones and they’re going to see if it works for them too. If so, I’ll happily make recordings for anybody that wants one.
Snowliasion: Your favorite colleague oh lover of pollinating insects?
Daisy Dreams. She does most of the hotel’s landscaping, so we often work together to make sure we optimize our talents.
Dan: What do bees think of a bear hanging from a balloon, claiming to be a raincloud?
I don’t know? I can’t really talk to the bees. Bears often steal honey from bees, smashing open the hives to eat bees and their larvae also, so I suppose they might sting the balloon in hopes of popping it, and causing them to have one less potential predator.
penguincascadia: What differences have you found between Equestrian and Earth bees?
As Feathermay has learned with birds, there really aren't many differences at all. Equestrian animals tend to be smarter, but that's the main difference. That's one thing we've managed to test - Snowcatcher brought her cat with her, and there are plenty of cats here on Earth, too. Snowflake's the smartest kitty we've encountered by far. We'd need more Equestrian cats in our sample to truly confirm this, but Feathermay reports that Equestria's birds seem smarter, and amazingly, even the bees do too.
If anything, my buzzing works better on Earth's bees. I wasn't expecting that, and I'm still researching why exactly that is.
penguincascadia: Also, you might be interested in this video explaining how many "artificial" ingredients food are just tweaked natural ingredients that are safe.
That definitely has my attention, though the safety of the additives isn't the problem, so much as other aspects of the ingredients. Even some of the 'natural flavors' that are just labeled that. Ponies are herbivorous, and there are a great many things that one wouldn't expect to not be vegetarian: Doritos, marshmallows, Jello, etc.
That said, Plumsweet had a very negative reaction to a popular zero sugar soda. She reported 'side stitches without exercising' after drinking this for several months. When she switched back to the normal, non-diet version, the pains went away. Months later she tried the zero sugar again, and on the very first bottle she purchased, the pains came back. She's stuck with the normal version ever since.*
*This actually happened to me. Not counting a few cases of food poisoning (improperly prepared food), it's the only negative reaction I've ever had to a food product. I think it's the aspartame, as I've had no problems with sucralose.
ZimFanaticGal: Which bee is your most favourite type?
1. Honey Bee
2. Bumblebee or a
3. Regular Bee?
Honey bees. I primarily work with honey bees, so I’m biased. Honey bees form larger colonies than bumblebees, which is helpful in beekeeping – that’s more bees to send out to pollinate crops.
And while I’ve never seen one, I have to give a shout out here to orchid bees. My research into Colony Collapse Disorder has included researching various pesticides to see what effect they have on bees, and I discovered that not only does DDT not harm certain species of orchid bees, they were found to be actively collecting it. I’ve not yet discovered why they were collecting it or what they did with it. While initially quite effective, insects were shown to build resistance to DDT over time. DDT has since been banned for detrimental effects to the environment.
Royale Princess: Is spring a season for your bees to mainly come out in?
Spring is when the bees swarm. To explain, after laying eggs that will become new queens, the queen will leave the hive and take some of the other bees in the hive with her. They’ll then start a new hive, elsewhere.
Of course, there are times when we don’t want new colonies, so there are methods to artificially prevent swarming.
Dan: What kind of presentation would you give to a busload of 4-H kids?
I know this will come to a shock to everyone, but I’d probably extol the virtues of soy.
Just kidding! Bees are very misunderstood. Ponies and humans alike fear them because of their sting. Most bees won’t sting unless provoked. Africanized bees, or as pop culture calls them, ‘killer bees’, are more defensive and aggressive. They rigorously defend their territory, and that territory extends further from the hive than other honeybees.
I would hope that anyone in 4-H or FFA would understand the importance of bees for pollination. Even the Africanized bees are now kept by beekeepers throughout their range because they’re superior honey producers. They can produce significantly more honey than Western bees. Risk and reward. Or in the case of South America, it’s what they’ve got to work with. Africanized bees were bred in Brazil and they’ve mostly hybridized with the native bees or replaced them entirely.
Beekeepers operate on a slim margin. You don’t go into beekeeping to get rich, that’s for sure. In addition to talking about bees, I’m also quite qualified to talk about frugality. When I still lived with my family, before going to the School of Friendship, we took care of as many of the tasks as we could to keep our apiary running smoothly. We didn’t have the budget for carpenters or plumbers, we did it all ourselves. Mostly Dad, but my sister and I were learning too.
Do you know the Nord Mead Song?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/recreating-a-medieval-mead-calls-for-a-giant-cauldron-to-caramelize-honey/
Well... Have you read the ingredient list of a banana? I mean if you go at it in the same way and list what makes it ^^;;;
bahamuttone.net/Banana.png
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Bananas creep me out. Abominations of nature they are.
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There are other if you would like ^^
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-chemicals-are-in-an-all-natural-banana-2017-6?r=US&IR=T
There's a beverage you might consider trying out as it gets closer to the holiday months called Mead (I don't know if that's a thing in Equestria). It's pretty popular on Earth. It's a fermented wine made from honey.
As to the dating thing, I am honestly a little afraid of bees (a bad experience back when I was really really young) but I would NEVER presume to say something like "your life's passion or me". But If you ever happened to travel the country for your job and happened to be in my neck of the woods I would not be opposed to offering to take you out for coffee or something.
I find Equestria to be a fascinating place from the stories I've read. Also as something of a home cook and tea lover, I often keep a bottle of honey around for experimenting or just sweetening my tea.
My understanding is that there are local communities of professional and hobbyist beekeepers all over who are pretty welcoming and close-knit. How did your introduction to the New Jersey Beekeepers go?
Mead is not a wine, even though some ignorami call it "honey wine" or even blasphemously adulterate it with grapes.
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Thank you for your questions and comments!
I've added them to the blog with responses.
I'm surprised that there's no novel honey-related food on Earth that's caught her attention!
What do bees think of a bear hanging from a balloon, claiming to be a raincloud?
And as per norm, your favorite colleague oh lover of pollinating insects?
"It’s also used an anti-rust treatment"
"It’s also used as an anti-rust treatment"?
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Fixed, thank you!
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Thank you for your questions!
I've added them to the blog with responses.
What differences have you found between Equestrian and Earth bees?
Also, you might be interested in this video explaining how many "artificial" ingredients food are just tweaked natural ingredients that are safe: https://youtu.be/lfsCXjIgfjY
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Thank you for the question!
This has been answered in the blog post.
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That they are!
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Thank you! This has been answered in the blog post.
What kind of presentation would you give to a busload of 4-H kids?
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Thank you! Question responded to in the blog, as normal!