You're listening to Comedy Central. I'm meeting with Cam and Summer Johnson, who are raising a family and killing bees. I'm going to follow them for the day to mainly find out why find God's name, not leave this honey farmer with death boxes to white people. All right, fine, I'm here. I don't know where I'm at. What's the first step in this bee keeping situations? This is your first step. This will keep you safe. I suppose to be saving his laundry hamper. Yeah, keep the bees off
your face, no problem. I think one of the reasons black people haven't gotten into bee keeping is because of the outfits. They're planned boring. So I put my own together. You know, I just wanted to wear something like Loki slightly embellish, just you know WHOA that's a V suit right, the razzle dazzle. I mean, you look like a big flower. They might try to pollinate you. All right. Now, As black people, we're in a constant state of danger, right, What made y'all I want to be in more dangerous?
So we moved out to the suburbs. When Zach, our second child, was five years old, he had really bad he's allergies, he struggled with asthma. We'll be in the emergency room, you know, a couple of times a year, until we wanted something natural instead of pumping his body full of steroids in medicine. And so we read about raw honey, right, the ants inflammatory properties, How good it was for him. We said, you know what, we got some land. Let's experiment with beehives and we got hooked. Hold,
that's not a jump. Nobody makes right like you not like, oh my kid is like Cozen's tolerant. Let me start an almond farm. It actually worked. He had no like allergies or asthma after we cured him in the year's worth of honey. Turns out, if you have seasonal allergies, local raw honey has healing properties with allergens native to your area. Over time, a person may become less sensitive to the pollen. So basically, raw honey says a lot.
That's people in open shut. Like I've been saying from the beginning, more black people definitely need to get it on this. It's more black people to be keeping. You think that's predominantly white, but it's changing. Okay, So there's y'all and dozens we know dozens of beekeepers every so what is the reason that like beekeepers for the most part are white. I mean there's a lot of like there's a lot of like systemic reasons of like access to like land, and I mean you do need some
space to be keeping. So uh, you know, we always admolished African Americans to buy in the country too, so they'll have more lands and there's more agriculture going on. So land and racism got it all? Right? If sacrificing myself will inspire others in the black community to become beekeepers, then I'm ready to meet these bugs with dagger bucks. But mainly I'm doing this because I'm stuck in the middle of Ova, New Jersey and can't get it over Houlp. Well,
the good thing is Stunn wasn't allergic to electricity. I'll be the first black Amish people. Hold up, Hold up, this is too many bees. I'm not comfortable. Doesn't feel like a safe space. How do you make them like, calm down? Yes, that will keep you safe. Someone puts lavender in it, so it's like flavor smoke. Sure, these bees are just vaping. Yeah, so it simulates like a forest fire, right, so then they're distracted from us. The intruders are thinking, how do I get this? And they
just get calm. So the smoke makes them think that their high is on fire, but they get calm about it. Yeah, because if my apartment was on fire, I'd be real calm, insane. My only knowledge of bees is that a swarm of them killing mcculey, cocon and my girl. Man. So they'll do that to a little white boy. I don't know what they would do to a grown black woman. We're opening the box, yes, one to look like they get mat. It's dripped it. Smoke them, that's your job, keep them smokes.
Calm them down here. Oh they just busted out the front. See how calm they're said. You're not gonna stock. If they were aggressive, they be stinging the front of your veil. Oh. So if they're mad, they go for the face. They go for the face. You want to look for the queen and the bottom chamber. You want to make sure the hive is healthy and those bees can go off to another hive and find a queen or vice versa. Well, yeah, you gotta take care of the queen first in any situation.
That's why my doorman gives me my packages before anybody else in the building. It's kind of obvious that she's not like aware of bee keeping at all. Um, So can you tell me more about their behavior? See what I did there? Now, isn't honey just regurgitated? Be vomit? Yeah, let's be vomited. Hey America, honey is be vomiting? Did you know that? So now, well, now we'll we'll go. We'll take this one and going there and hardest and extracted. Well again, it's a beautiful story of parental love has
blossomed into a trailblazing black owned business. This is pure yumminess. What do you think? It's really good and it has been inspiring to see the symbiotic relationship that is formed between humans and nature. Just keep me away from them bees. So it's young Zachary. You see that your parents have done all of this, and they got a whole bunch of death boxes in the back. They worked very hard to keep you alive, young man, What are you planning
to do with your life? Are do you like trying to pitch in do the most they can for the honey, in for the business. Okay, what are they done? For you. Well, my name is on it too. It's Zack and Zoe, so it is for me too. I hope through this whole thing is that we've inspired more people to be beekeepers, especially more people of color to keep bees. Puns to everybody anybody who reaches out ruling to help help them get started, help them, point them in the right direction,
talk about the books to bee keeping clubs. Dous who can do it? You can do it. Yeah, I really hope we made a bee keeper out of her. You know, I think we did right. She's not too far from us. No. Watch The Daily Show week eleven Central ar Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime. I'm on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast