A few days ago, I got chased by a swarm of bees. I've never been stung by a bee before. Apparently, it's not that bad, but the idea of being stung by a bee sounds pretty unpleasant. Plus, if I'm allergic, I'd rather just never find out. Anyway, I was running from this swarm of bees, and an older lady, an old lady, a southern lady, apparently, started yelling, don't kill him, don't kill him.

And I assumed she was yelling this at the bees.

They didn't seem to hear her.

Bees communicate in a weird, full-body sign language, not English, and my full-body sign language of running away seemed to

translate as sting me in B language. But finally, I managed to run far enough from their nest that they

were satisfied, and as I was walking back, the same lady approached me and said, I'm so sorry, I just don't want to kill them or move their nest because I know how good they are for the earth and that.

I don't know.

They aren't so bad.

And at that moment, I realized that she was saying, don't kill them to me.

She was worried that I would kill them in self-defense, mind

you. Why was she worried about that? Why was her first concern for the bees and not for me?

Today we're going to answer that question. We're going to talk about the importance of pollinators,

the physics of flight and hovering, co-evolution, and conversion evolution.

Today we're going to talk about the birds and the bees, because this episode is about the bee hummingbird.

Melasuga, Helenai.

I'm Mackin.

This is Species.

Hey, welcome to the show.

So today I'm going to talk about the smallest bird in the world.

But it's going to be a big episode.

So let's get to it.

But before we do, I want to ask you

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