A Problem Squared - 047 = If Bees Flew Your Weight and Honey Use-By Date

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

047 = If Bees Flew Your Weight and Honey Use-By Date In this episode... How many bees would it take to lift a person? Does honey really have an infinite shelf life?  Anddd some any other beesness!  As always, if you've got a problem or a solution, hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com. You can buy A Problem Squared merch here https://a-problem-squared.teemill.com. And if you want want even more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter and Instagram.

i'm drunk on focaccia i can see why it's taken i see what's taken more goes than usual okay here we go all right i believe in you back come with us now on a journey through time and space. Welcome to the world of the Problem Squared. A Problem Squared, come with us to a Problem Squared. I don't know what it is you're doing. Yep. I mean, I know what it is you're doing. Neither do the listeners. And I frequently don't know what it is you're doing.

But this time very specifically, I don't know what it is you're doing. No, no. Welcome to a Problem Squared. That other voice you can hear is matt parker and this voice you can hear is beck hill and that intro was my best attempt to copy niche british comedy duos tv intro uh the mighty bush once you i always think yeah yeah as soon as you said british comedy i'm like yeah it's the bush intro yeah it's a bush intro who's who oh i wonder but if you're a new listener you might need to know that the howard moon that's so funny yeah the howard moon of this show is matt parker i am the vince noir i'm always the straight guy i i think what i most enjoy Is both pretending

Like I annoy you a lot And then sometimes Genuinely annoying you You don't know which is which In this episode I answer the question How many bees? I look at how long honey

We've got some pun closure We could say any other beesness But we've already used that I used the beesness We've done that We've done beesness Yeah Pun closure. We could say any other bees-ness, but we've already used that. I used the bees-ness. No, we've done that. We've done bees-ness. Yeah.

So, Matt. Beck. How are you going? All right. I'm going okay. We talked a lot in the previous episode about what we've been up to. Yes. Since America.

Since America. And then we realized afterwards. We haven't done anything else of note, really. Yeah. To talk about in i did realize one thing i did oh yeah also in america not to continue that theme but that was the highlight of my recent life i planned my own logistics for the tour myself and alex who holds a camera and points it at me and edits the videos yes flew and drove through many states to make a whole bunch of videos. And I went through and I booked all the hotels. And when I was booking the hotels in the past, past Matt would look up where nearby establishments served food and beverages and until what time.

Okay. Because I kind of knew the days where we're likely to get to the hotel late and there's nothing more upsetting than getting to the hotel at the end of a long day. Yeah. And there's no food or anything available anywhere nearby. I mean, there's definitely more upsetting than getting to the hotel at the end of a long day yeah and there's no food or anything available yeah i mean there's definitely more upsetting things but i oh definitely more but i think everyone can agree that there's nothing more upsetting than doing something long and tiring and then realizing you can't get food you can't get food and so i just thought i would insure against it's an avoidable problem not always

it's still you know things will go wrong. But I thought for the best part, I'll make sure I book hotels near where we can get food and drinks. And so I'll often book in somewhere that does some fun local beers. And so it became a bit of a game of whenever we show up to a hotel, it'll be, why did past Matt book this hotel? Oh, yeah, right. Because I've long forgotten. Yeah. Which hotel.

It's a blur. Yeah. And so we'd get there. It's like memento. It's like memento. Except on my body, I've written what beers I've long forgotten. Yeah. Which hotel, it's a blur. Yeah. And so we'd get there. It's like memento. It's like memento. Except on my body, I've written what beers I want to try. You're looking for clues around the hotel. Exactly.

Well, actually, I just Google craft beer and Google Maps would be like, oh, you happen to be a block away. From a microbrewery. Yeah. How did that happen? Right. And past Matt did me a solid many times over. Yeah. And one time, past matt went above

and beyond their call of duty without even realizing because we got to raleigh in north carolina and i searched for craft beer nearby and on the same block of land as the hotel was the raleigh beer garden i was like past matt good work yeah so we popped around there and they do food till late all the you know the tick all the So we pop around there and they do food till late. All the, you know, they tick all the standard boxes. Cruise around there and they're like, have you been here before? And we're like, no, we haven't. And they're like, oh, just so you know, this is the world's biggest beer garden. What?

And that was our response. We looked around and we're like, it doesn't look like it. By one specific metric, number of beers on tap. The beer garden was embarrassingly small. Okay. Compared to the number of beers available and the seating indoors. I see. I wouldn't have even called it a beer garden.

I think there was a bit more garden at the back than we saw. Yeah. But it was like any other kind of- Was it like a beer courtyard? Yeah, it had the indoor-outdoor dining vibe. Okay. But I wouldn't say it was a beer... Like, I'm thinking beer gardens, like, I've been to places in Germany that are just massive beer gardens.

And even the UK, like, most pubs have a bigger beer garden than this place. Yeah. But most pubs do not have 400 beers on tap. What? On tap? 400 distinct beers on tap. Or like 396 or something. Yeah. So they've got the world record for the most beers on tap. Or like 396 or something. Yeah.

So they got the world record for the most beers on tap. Where do they store all the... What? A lot of kegs. So many kegs. So many. Yeah. How long does a keg go before it goes off?

Once it's been tapped? You know, I would say it's... I'm guessing two to four weeks. Guess. Total guess. It's more than a week. It's less than three months would be my, oh, then again, this is like pressurized kegs. It depends if it's pasteurized beer, but you're right.

You're right. What kind of turnover are they getting? Yeah. Yeah. It's just a wall of taps. So for people who've not been to the UK, if you go into a normal UK pub, that's going to be a bunch of like hand cranked taps i'm looking it up now i want to see you look it up and there's a bunch of like pressurized ones

and they've all got like the the badges above them and there's there's maybe between 5 and 15 yeah in america most places have super skinny badges or have them sideways yes and they rack them in and but then you end up with places with like, you know, 20 or 30 maybe. Wow. Like the taps are only like... There are several floors. That is the ground floor, which is local beers. And then a different floor has like other US beers.

Then a different floor is like imported beers. I like that local beers is like, it's the closest. Like you just walk in and it's... The local beers are the closest to the state. The further the beers come from, the further you have to get. The the further they are from the ground yeah yeah that makes sense wow to be fair i only sampled the ground floor i'd love to see behind this you know i'd love to see their tubing if you're from raleigh north carolina i'll come back and do you behind the scenes tour do you have any inns anyway the moral of the story here well done past matt is what i'm trying to say yeah well done

yeah good job past Matt. How have you been? Oh, yeah. How is current and past Beck? Now, at the time that this comes out, but I haven't told you this. And I don't know if it's, I don't actually think I'll have time. I'm putting my coffee down with this. Because I'm only there briefly. Yep.

But I will be co-hosting Brussels Comic Con. Oh, you're going to Brussels Comic Con. con oh i think i know where this is going so i don't know if i have time because it's a real because i have to come back on sunday night and you're working yeah well monday i'm going to be on set for a thing that i talked about in the patreon podcast well oh yes we'll keep that going they're filming something yeah and you'll never know unless you're a patron that's well once once it's allowed to be publicly, we'll keep that quiet. They're filming something, yeah. And you'll never know unless you're a patron. Well, once it's allowed to be publicly discussed, we'll... Well, we'll see.

We'll see. See what I'm allowed to say. Oh yeah, good point. Yeah. But essentially though, look, in November, if you see any crafty thing and you're thinking, I bet... I wonder who made that. I bet Beck Hill would enjoy this.

Beck would love that. I probably made it. Yeah. So I need to be back for monday to film that in the morning i could go early on friday morning and then i would have friday during the day to potentially check out a long staircase i want someone to go to the monument at waterloo where the battle of waterloo happened they then put up a monument with lots of steps i want to break the world record for most steps slinky's gone down and so we need someone to go and measure a sample of steps and then if we've confirmed that they are suitable

for a slinky world record attempt obviously then i've got to negotiate filming access or smuggling a slinky but smuggling in a slinky to a war memorial feels i just want to say it was like the war was over two centuries ago. Yeah. I don't know where the slinky line is, though. I feel, hmm, yeah. Because there's part of me that's like, well, it's a tourist attraction. They charge entry. Like, to be fair, I think if there was any level of disrespect going on,

it was the point that they started charging people. They're turning up. It's got upkeep. Yeah. It's got to cost money, though. Yeah, but there's many other war memorials that. That charging people. It's got upkeep. Yeah, but... It's got to cost money, though. Yeah, but there's many other world memorials that... Oh, that's true. You know, because it's about going there and the emotional...

See, now I think that amount of history and that type of battle, it's just history buffs want to go in. It's just history, which means it's not necessarily a disrespectful thing. That's why I'm thinking it might be slinky appropriate. Yeah. And so if they're charging, what they want is customers well this is a good good promotion yeah people history buffs and slinky buffs yeah exactly fans of weird world records beaten by using mathematics i'd love it if they didn't want anyone to do it because they're worried

of starting a trend where people are showing up to the memorial with slinkies i mean in a way it's an analogy for war isn't it i think so it all goes down it all goes downhill but one thing tips over the other yeah coil springs coil springs not a history not a history podcast anyway by the time this comes out i've already hosted this was comic-con yep hi oh yeah If you said hi to me, hi. If anyone is not to hijack your catching up bit, but do let me know at abroblemsquared.com if you want to go measure some steps for me in Belgium. Our first problem comes from Josh. And Josh just says, how many bees would it take to lift a person?

One and a half million. Cool. Ding. That's it. Excellent. Thank you. I realize maybe I talk too much doing the solutions to these problems. Sure. You took a beeline approach. Exactly. I took a beeline right to the answer. Good work. That's why this podcast works. I say a number, you make a joke. Job done.

That's why you're the moon and I'm the Vince tomorrow. Exactly. Although while we're chatting about it, do you know how they work out how much a beacon lift? Because I had to work out how much a beacon lift. Now, is this like as if they were carrying you into the sky? Into the air, yes. Lifting you up. Yeah.

Because otherwise, if it's how much they can lift, is it like, could you lie on their backs? You know? No, suspended from beneath the bee. Okay. Bees. I don't know how they measure that. Honey to the bee that you for me. Honey to the bee that you for me.

Okay, I got it. There's two ways that people have calculated how much a bee can lift. And they actually give different results. Is it that they give the bee a tiny dumbbell and they spot them so close so close oh why not they both involve getting a thread and attaching it to the bottom of the bee oh no how it involves attaching one tiny weight to the abdomen of an insect with a string i think they just use like bee safe glue oh i mean that's a real i hope so i hope so because science is famously famously kind to all insects and animals that's oh the thing is like glue's quite like weighty so it'd have to be super light otherwise it would affect the they do factor in the weight of the

why don't they just put heavy heavy glue on it Why do they have to do the thread? Just more and more glue. It might impede the flying process. But just add more honey to it. Yeah. So there's two ways of doing it. One is you put a weight on the bee by the string and see if it can fly off or not. Okay. Then you put a heavier weight on, see if it can fly off or not.

And you gradually increase the weight until the bee can no longer fly away. or not and you gradually increase the weight until the bee can no longer fly away and then they take the average of the heaviest weight the bee could fly away with and the lightest one that it couldn't and they average the two and they work out that's the what it can carry okay or you get a long thread with lots of beads like weights all the way along it. I thought you said bees. Bees. What? Bees? Yeah. You get a long bit of string or thread with one bee, several beads. Got it. And so the bee then tries to fly away and they look at how many beads it can lift off the ground before it can't lift any more up.

Okay. The first method underestimates the strength by 18% compared to the second method. So to recap, the lift several different weights, average the last two, was underestimating by 18% the amount that they saw the bees lift with the bees on a bit of thread routine. And the short answer is, on average, a bee can lift about 53% of its body weight. Okay.

Standard bee. How much can a human lift, do you know, of its body weight? On average or like world record? On average. Okay, let's have a look. What's the average deadlift? Honey to the bee, that's you for me. Honey to the bee.

Do you think they'll have to pay royalties on these? Because I sound exactly like the original. The trip, the copyright. Yeah. yeah okay so strengthlevel.com and it wants to know this podcast has come to to know uh where you are on the strength level spectrum uh beginner novice intermediate advanced elite oh where am i yeah beginner you can lift your body weight 100 yeah yeah i don't know if they've ever seen me hanging from some monkey bars i don't know that's long novice one and a half times your body weight intermediate twice your body weight advanced two and a half times your body weight and elite lifters three times their body weight but so what this is saying is that humans can carry more of their own body weight and elite lifters three times their body weight but so what this is saying is

that humans can carry more of their own body weight than bees can yes but these people who've trained i guess beginner is untrained because these bees didn't train to have thread glued to their abs that's true yeah also i'm not trying to fly with my they've already carried their own addition to your own they are they are flying it off the ground. You're right. So flying is your own body weight. So technically bees can carry 153% of their body weight. That makes them novice.

So bees are stronger than me is what you're saying. There are different types of bees. Now I've done that for honeybees, the standard kind of European honeybee. bees now i've done that for honeybees the standard kind of european honeybee um i've not looked into like uh orchard bees which uh are native to like central and south america they can lift like their own body weight again so their other their other bees are available but if you're looking at your honeybee uh yeah 53 of the body mass now i put in my mass and that's how I got 1,497,481 bees. Do you want to know how many bees it would take to lift you back? Do you want to type your mass in kilograms into this cell in a spreadsheet?

Okay. I am 59 kilograms. Oh, my gosh. You're barely weighing it. Okay, here we go. 1 million bees could lift you up back. What about the strongest insect? Ooh, ants?

Everyone talks about ants. You want to go horned dung beetle. Oh. This is so ridiculous. Yeah, because they can rule around like massive. I don't know if I believe this. Hang on. How much can a dung beetle carry?

Well, according to the calculations, three of them could lift you. So if I stepped on three, they'd be fine. They'd be like, excuse me, and lift you up and off. Yeah. Nah. Nah. And if we go back to this guy, four. Right.

Four beetles could lift me. Right. Because, according to research, they can lift up to 1,141 times their body mass. Yeah. A thousand times. Yeah. 100,000% of their body mass. Yeah. A thousand times. Yeah. A hundred thousand percent of their body mass. Is there any source for this?

Well, that's... Now, this is why it swings back into me believing it. You wouldn't believe which two universities collaborated to do this research. Is this like clickbait? It's like, yeah, you wouldn't believe. It's the nerdiest clickbait. Academics are shocked. It was a combination of Queen Mary, University of London, which believe. It's the nerdiest thing. Academics are shocked.

It was a combination of Queen Mary, University of London, which is the university I worked for for 10 years. Oh, it couldn't be wrong then. And the University of Western Australia. Oh, wow. Where I was a student for five years. I love that this has convinced you more. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you trying to say there?

The standards are so low. To be honest, when you said you wouldn't believe, I was like, oh, so like Cambridge and Oxford got together. Nah, I think think even more academically distinguished and achieved. Ah, Queen Mary and UW. Yeah. And they worked together. They got the Beatles.

Glued a thread to them. Classic scientist move. It's almost like this maybe isn't the best method for measuring how much they can carry.les, glued a thread to them. Classic scientist move. It's almost like this maybe isn't the best method for measuring how much they can carry. Grew the thread to them, ran the thread over a pulley. Because now they're not flying. They're like just pulling. Yeah.

And then they put water in a bucket. And they gradually increased the water until the beetle couldn't like drag the thread to lift it up anymore. How much does a dung beetle weigh uh dung beetle is uh 21.26 grams per beetle and it was how much 11 their mass uh 1141 times so if you times that yeah then we'll get how much water and it was in the bucket yeah 24 and a quarter liters no no no dung beetles cannot big old bucket i know it's ridiculous i i if it wasn't for the caliber of the institutes involved in the research do you know what though it was published is that saying how much they can lift or how much they can drag well they were dragging the thread that was then lifting the... Okay, but what about those strong men that can like haul a jet?

Oh, yeah, but that's because it gets rolling. That's inertia. There's no inertia in lifting a bucket. I was as skeptical as you. Because I reckon I could pull more weight than I could lift. Actually, an important point here, which you've hit upon, is this, like the bees would be attached to you by a lot of strings and then they'll lift you up. Yeah. here which you've hit upon is this like the bees would be attached to you by a lot of strings and

then they'll lift you up yeah this case you would have to have a bunch of beetles pulling threads that go around to pull you then lift you up they couldn't drag you because the friction of dragging you would be different to just straight vertical lift yeah but pulling horizontal because they're beetles i can't but no i don't it was published in i've been published it was published in the proceedings of the royal society b that's a serious academic journal footage would you be happy i had a shipment of you know we both buy our oat milk in bulk we do and i had 50 cartons delivered 50 cartons of oat of oatmeal. Oh, they last me months. Because they're long life. They last a long time. Like the delivery guy was delivering them to,

like bringing them up the steps to me in batches of 12. Yeah. I mean, that's like my suitcase from going to the States. Yeah. It's a lot. It's heavy. Yeah. Nah.

Nah. Good Beatles. I can't ding this. You were answering the bee question. I was answering a different question. But I've decided to. Yeah. Do you want the C?

Do you want the C? Do you want the C problem? I do want the C problem. Would you accept you could be lifted by 17 cats? Yes. Okay, good. Yeah, absolutely. There you go.

Yeah. But you don't believe in the beetles. But to go back and answer our previous question, it's roughly half a million bees per 30 kilos of body mass, which is why you require a million bees and I require one and a half million. I feel like that solved the problem as stated. Yeah. Do you know what?

You give me a ding, but not a dung, Beetle. Not a dung. No dung. Okay, yeah, you get a ding, but not a dung wheel. Not a dung. Not a dung. Okay, yeah, you get a ding, but not a dung. We'll get it done. Now you and I just need a red carpet event where we can rock up carried by bees. I mean, I did look into the logistics of, I suspect the crowding of the bees would mean that they couldn't fly freely. There's a million bees all trying to pull you straight up.

And then the apparatus for all the bees to be able to combine their lifting power is itself going to take some mass so yeah i think practically well i just want everyone to know that we're uh copywriting this pixar film idea right now the dung beetle one right dung beetle in a suitcase that's a pixar film i've ever heard of okay back we got a problem in from jens w jens jens jens they say i've heard that honey can't get bad over time is that true and if it is why sub problem also are there other foods with basically infinite shelf life? I should flag up, we actually had a very similar problem sent in by someone named Marcos, a full name Marcosine. So it's obviously a common problem. Does honey last forever?

Yeah. Now, obviously, I wanted to answer this on this one because it felt like a good fit. Right. With yours. Oh, yes yes we're doing a b special yeah uh b side the mighty b that's the oh yeah that's the theme of the episode the flighty b oh that works too now we've got to get flight of the bumblebee is that out yeah fly the bumble business yeah i'll do i'll sing everything yeah that would be great for copyright reasons that's excellent yeah so they've heard that money can't get bad over time is that true and why so yes oh in in we are efficient today i know i just thought yeah so it's true ding right it is true

and i can say why oh and i can say this with a level of confidence, potentially more confident than... Than my dung beetle. Luck. That was, my goodness, that was like the beginning of an evil laugh. Oh, really? I've been working on it. Yeah, I'm going to add that to my collection of foley sounds. My hoard of dung beetles.

I'll do my bidding. So, this is from the Smithsonian magazine. Archaeologists found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs. What? That are like over 5,000 5,000 years old. And the honey is still edible.

What? Yeah. Now that's the most unbelievable thing in this podcast. Okay. So there are provisos. Right. Of course, there are. Mainly that the honey needs to be left sealed. Ah.

Which is kind of, that makes sense. Now, they didn't say what food can you open and eat continuously over time. Good point. It was just like, you know, are there any foods that can last forever? Yeah. They haven't even said that you could eat, but I'm going to add that. Get bad over time. Provozo that you need to be able to eat it.

Because there are examples of other foods that have been found, but they're not ones that you'd want to eat. Oh. Yeah. Like, for instance, there was a barrel of Irish bog butter. Bog butter. Yes. Which is a butter. Can't believe it's bog butter.

Yeah. which is a can't believe it's bog butter yeah which was like 3 000 years old but they'd said by the time they found it it was uh had turned into like a fatty white substance called adipocere i'm probably pronouncing it wrong a-d-i-p-o-c-e-r-e and this is like which is basically what the fatty deposit the white fatty deposit left when like you get the same when you open up a very old coffin like corpses leave this yeah so you probably don't want to putting it in your mouth is what i'm saying but the honey was still edible the honey was still edible and you might want to eat it and you could eat it yeah now the reason is uh to do with several factors right that make honey also such a good medicinal thing so one of the main reasons is that honey is a sugar oh yep and sugar is a hygroscopic hydros high hygroscopic hygroscopic so like if your jar of honey is unsealed it will suck in moisture moisture yeah got it yeah i mean it still it flows like a liquid but so does magma so i feel

and that's got very little water content i suspect so so because it's very low moisture there's not much room for bacteria or microorganisms to live. There's no room for the bacteria. Yes. The other reason is that honey is super acidic. Really? Yeah. It has a pH between 3 and 4.5.

That is acidic. It's a bit like a soft drink or something. Yeah. It is acidic, but there's so much sugar. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You're not really noticing. Yeah.

You can't taste the protons. No. So the acid in it will kill off anything else that tries to grow in it. Handy. Basically. But the thing that makes honey specifically more long lasting, I was gonna say last longing. More last longing. Yeah.

Is that bees have an enzyme in their stomach called glucose oxidase, which is PDF for short, which I find quite funny. I guess that's what you can open in Adobe. Hey, hey. Hello. Still got it. So when. If you make a mistake, it's oxidase. That's very cute.

So when the bees get nectar, the nectar actually does have quite high water. What? Yeah, I know. The twists and turns. Here's the thing. When they're carrying the nectar on their legs their wings beating let's try it out that's amazing isn't that amazing so like by the time they get to the hive the nectar's like being dry and it means if you were catching a million bees

to go to an event you could leave with wet hair yeah yeah they'll do it for you that's how you get the beehive that's where the name comes from yeah that's where the name comes from so when they put the nectar in their mouths and they regurgitate it and it comes up with an enzyme from their stomachs the the pdf and then that goes into the combs the enzyme mixes with the nectar it breaks it down into two byproducts so there's gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Oh. Yeah. And it's the hydrogen peroxide.

Well, it can do your hair for you. Yeah, it could. Why aren't we harnessing the power of bees more? Why are we just using their honey? They can dye your hair and do a blow dry. And they've got combs. I think we're onto something, Matt, which... We don't want to drone on about it.

Some of your jokes are a lot of work. Work a bee. something matt which uh we don't want to drone on about it some of your jokes are a lot of work okay calling a truce and we're moving on with the podcast you're not you're thinking of bee puns i can tell that's your that's your pun thinking face all right so the hydrogen peroxide will also help kill off any baddies any bad stuff in there and in this is really interesting the amount of hydrogen peroxide in honey is like it's super minimal like it's very small it's enough to kill off the little stuff to live in it but it's obviously not so much that it would harm you if anything it it is perfect for a topical treatment we're always talking about like eating honey and that sort of thing.

But actually, it's perfect to put on wounds. Really? Because it creates a barrier. Oh, yeah. Gooey barrier. It sucks in moisture. So, it takes away anything that the microorganisms could grow off. Yeah, take that.

And the hydrogen peroxide is apparently like the perfect amount to kill off, like to stave off infection and stuff. Well, I guess, I mean, honey, bees evolved honey as a way to store food. Like we shouldn't be shocked that honey lasts a long time when that's its sole purpose. Is that where honey roast ham comes from? What, from the wound? No, no. You said it was a way to store food. Yeah.

Did they put ham in honey and that's where they got honey roast ham from? I don't know. When did they use honey to store food? Be where they got honey roast ham from i don't know when did they use honey to store food bees do the honey is the food yeah bees bees evolved yes bees evolved honey yeah i said it before but you said it are you still thinking about bee puns yes come on hon no i'm saying bees evolved honey as a way to store energy and so we shouldn't be surprised yeah they evolved the perfect amount of hydrogen peroxide yeah and oops a daisy whatever it was and so it all it all it all kind of works yeah then that makes that makes much more sense good

also ham ham i don't know why but just just... I'd love it if bees invented... Oh, they famously hunt pigs. Bees invented honey roast ham. Yeah, they did. They did. No, a pig ran into a beehive. And bees do have a defensive mechanism where they swarm and intrude it to overheat it. Yeah.

So if a pig did run into a beehive, you would have honey roast ham. No, that's not a thing. That they overheat something by swarming it yeah no that's true no producer lauren i bet where'd you get that from two fake universities hey thank you japanese honeybees so the honey does crystallize though. Yeah, yes, it does. So it was very crystallized, the one that they found. But that's fine. It's just crystallized. You can still heat it up and it will return to its natural state.

That's okay. Now, if you open your honey, your honey can crystallize without being opened. It has to do with temperature and everything else. So if your honey remains sealed, you know, probably glass is best because I imagine plastic. I don't know. But if the honey remains sealed, then you should, in theory, be able to eat it at any point that you open it. It might be crystallized, but you can eat it. And it bears repeating that if it crystallizes, you just heat it up and it's honey again.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's still honey. It's still honey. It's just crunchier. Now, when you said you were going to do this problem, I realized I know three people who are into beekeeping. Oh, apiarists. They're apiarists.

Of apiaries. Of apiaries. And in fact, my maternal grandfather was a beekeeper from back in the day. So, I messaged a local friend of mine who keeps bees and they replied. I just said, look, in the beekeeping community, what's the awareness or... Like I didn't know at the time if it was true or not. So I just said, what's the word on the street

in the beekeeping? What's the buzz? And they said, the basic answer is yes, in terms of the perceived wisdom with no fact-based research. So within B people, they said yes. And then they said, I've heard there's been honey found in Egyptian tombs. That was thousands of years old and totally fine.

There you are. Yeah. Then sometime later, they must have done some research. They sent me a link to this Smithsonian Magazine article. Oh, yeah. So I think they found the same one that you found yeah well i'm glad that i've done the same amount of research as someone who keeps bees yeah but you were more informed than them yeah until they suck it until i asked them yeah do you want some extra

bee facts while we're on it please do as you know i went to italy uh before we before i met with you in uh new york and they have this cute little sort of, it sort of looks like a tiny truck that's being made on almost like a three-wheeled scooter. If you can imagine. A truck based on a three-wheeled scooter. If you can imagine like a little three-wheeled scooter. Yeah.

Where, how are they? Two in the front, one in the back? No, do you know what? You can sort of get them here. They do those tiny little coffee things on the back. Those really, really tiny truck. Oh, little coffee van things. Yeah.

Yeah. Hipster coffee on the go. Yeah, they're quite popular in small towns. So it looks like a moped at the front. No, but these look like little trucks. Like they've got a little truck front and like a little ute back. Like a little mini truck. Yeah, like a little ute back.

Wow. Anyway, if you want to look them up, they're called apes. Apey, like spell ape, spell ape. But it's pronounced ape, which is bee in Italian. Which obviously links to apiary, you know, I'm imagining Latin. Do they look like bees? No, but so I was like, oh, are they called apes because like a lot of workers, like they're sort of little worker things.

They don't go very fast. You sort of only use them within the little town you're in. they don't go very fast you sort of only use them within the little town you're in you don't need a license to drive one so i kind of want one but it could be a stepping stone well and i was saying is that why they're called aves and the friends we're staying with said well no it's because they it's because they sound like bees they buzz they're like and i didn't realize this vespa is italian for wasp no yeah because they sound angrier well i'm guessing why would that you know what i don't think that's i don't know what don't do anything constructive i don't know what uh if you look the wrong way they hurt well because i was like why

would you call it a wasp but they were like Yeah. There you go. So, that was a little B fact. So, anyway, that's the answer to that part. Does honey last forever? Yeah. But they also wanted to know, are there any other foods like this? Now... Why not bog butter? Why not bog butter indeed?

So, as we know, honey's got all those right elements that sort of stave off. Yep. Things like that. right elements that sort of stave off things like that. Now, there's nothing that I found that definitely, you know, you could fairly confidently say you could eat after a long time. However, I found a couple of foods that were consumed long after, and I was trying to see if there was anything that sort of matched 5,000 years or more.

Because there's like YouTube channels where they buy like World War II rations and stuff and eat them. Yeah, exactly. There have been unconfirmed but interesting stories of hungry explorers, usually Russian ones, taking bites out of mammoth corpses. I can imagine that. So arguably older than the honey? Yeah, I guess so. There were confirmed cases of people eating food tens of thousands of years old. What?

So there were paleontologists who cooked and ate a dish made with the marrow of a 50,000-year-old horse bone. That's incredible. And researchers who ate a piece of meat from a 36,000-year-old bison corpse for no other reason than to see if they could. Well, why that that science in a nutshell come on yeah now i mean they've linked to a live science article live science can be a bit missing our way down the internet yeah yeah one thing i did want to say of note was there was there was the um the 125 year old cake eaten by Jay Leno. Because people were saying that under the right conditions, fruitcake could last forever. Like scientists were saying, like, technically, there's the, you know, it could.

And there was this person called Fidelia Bates, who baked a regular fruitcake for Thanksgiving in 1878. And she died before the holiday. And her family sentenced the cake to eternity in limbo beneath a plastic cover that's amazing and in 2003 the ancient fruitcake got a last shot at life when morgan ford fidelia's 83 year old great grandson sent it to jay leno at the tonight show he took a bite with no visible ill effects wow so i think i think i've answered it yeah probably fruitcake so the side of mammoth yeah so that's the other foods that basically have an infinite shelf life we don't necessarily have proof of infinite fruitcake no but apparently it could honey yes yeah everything this is under the right conditions and uh miscellaneous ingredients

horse yeah marrow and marrow yeah perhaps according to dubious sources dubious yeah i would say uh ding yeah i think you've done it i think you've answered all the questions the sound of your microwave after heating your delicious crystallized honey back into its liquid state. Ready to eat. You can taste the 5,000 years. And we're coming to AAB, which stands for Ape. Oh, B. So, have we got some any other business?

We do. We do. Now, you ask people to send in dj names oh yeah because back when she was up at the edinburgh festival fringe managed to pull an all-nighter during which as one of her many adventures she was invited to do the 3 a.m dj slot but while uh you were prepared musically you didn't have a dj name at the ready we asked listeners to provide some and they did they did yeah just some favorites i did have some favorites so on that episode i'd already suggested dj be chill be chill yeah which is just my name of the space space moved someone else had recommended me to me bex hill yeah which

i'm gonna be careful with that because as you know i'm not keen on people calling me bex no you're not no so and i feel like if i went for dex hill i'm inviting keen on people calling me bex no you're not no so and i feel like if i went for dex hill i'm inviting that i don't know why i don't know why it uh it's it's my ironically my hill to die on my hill is to die on so uh there were a lot and there's some really good ones so i want to thank everyone who who suggested them but i thought I would read out my favorites um DJ misheard lyrics ah DJ miss heard lyrics yeah yeah yeah uh that and that's because I do misheard lyrics stuff for anyone who didn't know um someone said given you're Australian how about D DJ G day and then we're saying because G day is good day good day DJ good day there was DJ flip-flop anonymous which is fun flip-flop

anonymous yeah so obviously flip-flops for the aussiness uh and then it sounds like hip-hop apotomous which is the final concords from our kiwi neighbors along with the rhyme noserous yes dj hiller cool yeah i did like DJ Spooky Waxwork Ghost Train. I feel like that's something I've missed. I feel like that's a reference to something. And you know, I don't want context. No, nor do I. That's awesome.

That's your Halloween special name. Yes. Yeah. Someone just said Simon. Not even DJ. Who's next? Simon. Just Simon.

Hello. DJ B-Side Flips. B-Side Flips? Yeah. I also like B-Side because it's like backside. That up next, Simon. Just Simon. Hello. DJ B-side flips. B-side flips. Yeah. I also like B-side because it's like backside. That's true. Yeah. And B for Beck.

And B for Beck. Nikolaj Harmon says, DJ flip it, flip it real good. And then to the tune of Salt-N-Peperov's. Yes. Yes. Jell or yell, Zudafart. I may be mispronouncing that. So they liked B-chill.

They liked DJ B-chill like dj b chill but they said you should have matt record the line if there was a problem yo i'll solve it check out the hook while my dj revolves it why are they trying to don't drag me into this i think you should be my hype man oh yeah okay i'm on board with that and then one more that i liked was um dj little sausage which little sausage and then they put in brackets and not a sausage more, which was a poem that I wrote and tweeted a while back about I'm just a little sausage. Oh, yeah.

Which was surprisingly popular. Slated to be one of the top 10 sausage poems of 2022. That's what they say. Yeah. The highly coveted Snaggers Award. Oh, nice. Yeah. highly coveted um snaggers award oh nice yeah snaggers oh i love it we should really uh like keep more fresh air in this room i think we've used up our oxygen is what we're trying to do we had some more any other business we did yes other other in fact we heard back from Ben in episode 044

who asked what item under £100 I could put on a utility bill. To have the greatest reduction in crime. Yes. Yeah. To prevent the most crime. Prevent the most crime. And you decided to put the concept of hope. Yes.

Yeah. But I was asking for any suggestions. Well, Ben has replied and says, Hello, Beck and Matt. Hi. Good opening. First, I love how you've gone about answering the utility belt question. Oh, there you go.

Yeah. I did ask people if they hated how I answered it to say and we just got some nice responses from people. So I appreciate that. That's why next episode will be a three-hour discussion about universal basic income it's gonna be great um so they uh they made some points in terms of a symbol for hope because you did you were crowdsourcing this um they like butterflies they think butterfly could be a great symbol um but they worry that might be two every. Well, I was thinking about this

because I know butterfly is, it can be a bit, you know, standard tattoo idea. Yeah, Scott, yeah. Yeah, but I do quite like butterflies in the sense of the butterfly effect. The idea that the smallest thing can have a knock-on effect and become a big change.

Love it. So I kind of like warmed to it quite quickly when I thought of it in that respect. What if it was someone opening a wallet, but now it's a butterfly flying out? Well, it's usually moths, isn't it? Exactly, but now that's hope. What is a butterfly if not a more optimistic moth?

Well, what is a moth if not a butterfly with a warm jacket? There you are, yep. I think there are those things probably, but... Yeah, yeah. Please do not email us with the differences between moths and butterflies yes no so i quite like i do quite like that you're right i like i like the yeah butterfly effect yeah we did have something from someone else who wrote into the problem posing page about jewish spiritualism and how they have like two

phrases that they carry with them. You mentally carry like one in your left hand and one in your right hand. Right. One is I am like dust and ashes. I am dust and ashes. And then the other is the whole world was made for me, only me. Oh, wow. And then sometimes they'll have them on two pieces of paper,

one in the left pocket, one in the right. Both ends of the important spectrum. On one hand, you've got got i have like nothing but dust you know it's like the saying we're all kind of the same thing pro dust yeah and then on the other hand like the world is made for me it's meant to remind you that you are still important and have the power to change things you know it's very it's meant to be humifying humilifyingifying? Yep. Humbling? Humidifying. Humidifying. It's like an anti-honey.

So, perhaps a problem squared needs two phrases. One to make you feel humble. Yep. The other one to make you feel like I'm capable of making big change. Yeah, confident. Can one of them be, oh, yeah? Yeah, nah. Everyone's like, yeah, nah. It's just, yeah yeah no one's like yeah it's just yeah nah yeah yeah yeah nah sure and then what what it is so what are we saying we're all going to get tattoos of butterflies with yeah nah yeah on one wing nah on the other also i interrupted you you hadn't

finished reading ben's ben's response uh ben does does also say that they would love to commission an artist of your choice to design a symbol inspired by hope divided by change. Sorry, hope slash change as a gift to the podcast. Using your favorite response. I think the yeah, nah butterfly. Do you think that it should be a do better there should be a symbol of the butterfly yeah with yeah nah do you want yeah divided by now no just yeah yeah and one yeah oh yeah on one wing now on the other love it yeah nah finally we offered a pun closure oh yes

which is important you had a buffed coconut. Yes, I had a very strong French coconut puppet. Strong coconut puppet. We put the video on Twitter. We asked people what the pun was. And just to recap, it was something called a shy. Coconut shy. Coconut shy.

Yeah. I said it's shy Lester Stallone. Yeah. It was meant to be a celebrity's name. Yeah. Thank you. And I thought that was pretty good. It was very good.

Was the correct answer better? I mean, I think so. And people got it. You're entitled to be a celebrity's name. Yeah. Thank you. And I thought that was pretty good. It was very good. Was the correct answer better? I mean, I think so. And people got it. You were entitled to say that. People got it. Oh, they did? Yes. What was it?

It was Shia LaBeouf. Shia LaBeouf. And a final bit of any other business was that we are almost at 900,000 downloads. That's pretty exciting. Yeah. I mean, I was underwhelmed because I view it from like a YouTube status i know mister i get millions no i'm just saying no but as you explained as i explained very good for a podcast numbers are different yeah exactly this it's way more commitment to listen to us go on and on so if uh what should we do to celebrate one million so we

do a big one million thing yeah how should we celebrate? Now I've recalibrated that a million downloads is like when you hit a million subs on YouTube. Like it's the big, you know, coming of age. Yeah. But we need to celebrate somehow. We do. That's a problem for our listeners to solve. Yeah. Tell us. It's your fault we got here. How should we celebrate? And tell your friends about this podcast. We'll get there faster. Yeah. Tell us how to celebrate at a problem squared on twitter it could be anything it could be themed episode yep could be a location episode could be a specific problem challenge a million things to eat a party exactly all the honey we could dream of hey um don't be limited by our suggestions you know the musical interludes that we have between each section you could say that there are stings.

Hey, oh my goodness. She did it. We landed it. Moving swiftly along, we've got to thank our Patreon supporters. Who are amazing. Obviously, we thank all of you for listening. If you weren't, this would just be Matt and I chatting to each other. Just us hanging out.

And Lauren just watching. She wouldn't get to join in. It's a little weird actually. It's kind of creepy, if anything. So the Patreon supporters especially make it less weird. Less creepy for Lauren. Because now we get to pay someone to listen to us in silence. Listen to our conversation.

But also to shut up. And the Patreon supporters are why we can provide this podcast for free for everyone. And so that there's no advertising or anything like that yeah so we like to thank three of our patreon supporters at random at random no ran thank three random i'll accept that yeah we should just thank you in the show one day we're just walking down the street and we yelled yelled patreon's name i do that anyway, don't you? Yeah, me, I do. Yeah. Thank you, I shout.

So, this episode, we are going to thank... Camden Blake. Princess Sparkles. Connor Jones. No. Oh, sorry. Connor James. But they haven't got a space. That's all one word. Maybe I pronounced it sorry. Connor James. But they haven't got a space.

That's the one word. Maybe I pronounced it wrong. Connor James. Connage Ames. Connage Ames. Con nor James. Con nor James. Support us on Patreon and you too could have your name mocked.

Not mocked. Like a friendly. Toyed. I'd also like to thank you matt parker thank you for uh sharing in this hive of activity yes yep and my my howard my howard moon uh be a pun yeah Yep. I thank myself, the Vince Noir, Binsnoir, and the Nabi of this show. Oh, well done. Lauren Armstrong Carter. Apologies to anyone who's never seen A Mighty Boosh.

One day you'll watch it and you'll be like, ha-ha, I get it. Be gone. it be gone so matt back i probably should have brought this out the last one because chronologically speaking this came from a trip before america oh. But of course. What have you been holding back? Someone was in Italy. Oh, you got in Italy. So we're traveling the world trying to find a replacement for Twisties, the Aussie snack. And you found Fonzies is the same logo. Now, I think we've brought this up.

I think we've mentioned this before. But you, oh my God, mini packs of Fonzies. Yeah. Oh, they're not Twisties. They're anemic twisties. Yeah, the logo does look like Australian twisties. Yeah, but not. But when you open them.

They're like real pale. They look like twisties, but they're super, they're the opposite of Cheetos. You know what they look like? Chicken twisties. Twisties that have been living in the UK for 17 years. They do look like that. They also look like the chicken twisties. They're twisties that moved to Europe, yeah.

Which are like that, but. Oh, yeah, right, yeah. The texture's pretty good. They also look like the chicken twisties. They're twisties that moved to Europe, yeah. Which are like that. Oh, yeah, right, yeah. The texture's pretty good. It's not dissimilar, is it? No. Now, I'd had Fonzie's in the past and was like, these are nothing like twisties.

I think your aspirations increased and your standards have lowered. I had a bad pack or my standards have lowered. I think these are almost like a crock. They're like if chicken twisties met up with cheese twisties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like if chicken twisties met up with cheese twisties.

Yeah, they're like the hybrid twisties. But instead of it multiplying flavour, they cancel some flavour out. These are both, in terms of packaging and content, the closest. So there you go, Fonzie's. Not quite twisties, but pretty close. Tasty though.

That was my Fonz joke. I thought you were Fonzie. Fonz B. The episode's over.