South, we check out the burgers at the Pai Pai Eco Park, and we meet a beekeeper who lets us dive into the wonderful buzzy little world.

Coming to you now!

(Upbeat music) We are actually revisiting the Pai Pai Zoo because we were told that their food was something we should look into.

The first time we came, the animals were the highlight, but we wanted to make sure, we weren't passing up some good grub.

This burger is called the Grand Olga and it's got, you know, top sirloin, caramelized onions, your garlic mushrooms right there.

And some melted cheese.

Look at all that cheese.

Look at all that caramelized bacon.

It's a wonderful thing.

Whenever somebody caramelizes bacon.

Look at this cheese.

Look at how gooey the cheese is.

Oh man.

They're so stinking juicy.

That's all I can say.

They're so juicy.

Full of flavor.

The veggies are fresh.

The meat is juicy.

Seasoned correctly.

I think the test is like when you put it in the sun and you see how the food glistens, that's it.

That's all you've got to see.

That's all you've got to see right there.

Okay, so this one of the steep lion, you have your crispy chicken breast with cheddar and the cheese apparently has jalapeno fused or mixed into it.

I don't know if you can see the scale of these things.

These things are humongous.

Let's un-stab it as well.

We have the, the knife with which it was ended.

It was killed.

You can see it right there.

Check it out.

Those are the jalapenos inside the melted cheddar.

You've got your giant McNugget inside this burger.

Let's hit that cheddar.

Okay.

- Hmm.

- Good taste.

Fresh.

They taste like a good day.

They taste like a good day.

It's crispy.

It's juicy.

It's ginormous.

It's a burger with quality products.

Even the quality of the romaine lettuce, the Pickles and everything.

It's a perfect touch.

Okay.

So, this is the black Panther.

Wakanda forever.

This is the black Panther and it has grilled shrimp.

It's also got your Oaxaca melted cheese, and it's got Angus beef.

So this is very Baja.

Very Baja compatible burger.

Oh my goodness.

Food and Baja, is it.

So let's get right to it.

If it's it, that's where we want to be.

Let's un-stab this burger from the Chile Guero.

All right.

Look at the shrimp.

Look at the size of that.

I don't know if you can see, it's probably as big as my head.

Look at this thing.

All right.

Yes.

Folks.

It tastes as good as it looks.

Look at that.

Look at how that glistens.

Hmm.

Okay.

So this right here is the Lemur cocktail.

Now, this thing is made with bourbon, mango, strawberries, it's got a little bit of lime, some mineral water and some mango liqueur.

And it looks fantastic.

Especially on an nice sunny day like today.

Oh, it is fantastic.

And you've got your tamarind Mexican candy, which is something they do with beers also.

We're going to try that right now.

Hmm.

Oh, that hit the spot.

We're going to try another one of his drinks.

This one called Cappuccino Kisses.

Well, they've got the straw, but they've got also the salt, you know, on the rim.

I don't know.

It might be salt, it might be sugar, but let me tell you what this drink's about.

This one is made with smoked mezcal, interesting.

Some hibiscus water against a touch of lime.

It's got some Agave syrup, you know.

I don't know if I should mix it, 'cause you see that bottom.

Now I'm thinking that maybe that's why they had the straw for me.

Let me get straw again.

Well first let me just try it like that.

The top part is basically hibiscus wine.

Very refreshing.

I don't know if you had it.

In Mexico they call it Jamaica So let me mix that up so that the concoction, you know, becomes whole.

Okay, so let's try the concoction now.

Fully loaded, fully made.

- Mm.

- I like hibiscus water.

Once you mix the whole thing, it's a lot better.

Wow.

So let's try the last one.

And this one is the Onka drink and I don't know if this, it's probably sugar.

Also, are you guys seeing the sugar?

Is it blue?

Or is it just me?

Or have the other drinks already impaired my vision where I'm seeing colors.

Okay.

This looks really refreshing.

Look at it.

It's got some vegetation on it.

So this one is made with like apple liqueur, some cantaloupe liqueur, Sprite, mint liqueur, and some rum.

Pirate men like this, Matey.

All right, let's go.

Let's just try this.

- Oh wow.

- Very, very elegant drink.

Yeah.

It tastes like a lightly infused minty Rummy drink.

Look at that.

Okay.

So look at this monster pizza they brought me.

this is a pizza divided in two flavors, two different toppings.

So on this side, you've got your arrachera or flank steak, your flank meat.

You have your Spanish chorizo.

You've got onions.

You've got avocado.

Very, very interesting pizza.

And on this side, this would be like a quintessential Baja pizza, right?

'cause you've got your serrano peppers, you've got your octopus, you've got your shrimp.

As full as we are, we do this for a living.

We are going to try this.

So let's get into that.

Woo whoa, look at that.

The seafood is falling out.

How am I going to eat this?

Tell me folks, call it in.

Send me a YouTube tutorial.

Right?

This is fantastic folks.

This is phenomenal.

I mean, even if this wasn't on top of a pizza, it would be fantastic.

The shrimp and the octopus are just cooked to perfection, seasoned deliciously.

So oily.

Oh wow.

Mm.

Look at that.

Maybe I should have started with this one because that's a tall order to match.

This one with the Spanish Chorizo would see it.

These are like, these are top notch ingredients.

I mean, this is like top level.

This is top level Baja produce.

How in the world am I going to buy this?

You tell me, I mean, basically one piece it's it's a meal.

Literally look at this.

We have this knife to help us.

Would you believe me?

That it's equally fantastic parallel.

But in the meat side, seafood side, meat side, they push their burgers.

Their burgers are like their flagships and the pizza was like maybe something.

But this pizza right here that you see in front of me is phenomenal.

It's fantastic.

More Crossing South coming your way.

Don't go anywhere.

So we travel back up north to Ensenada, right in the middle of the city, where we meet this interesting fellow.

We're going to talk right now, to man named Robert, who actually is a beekeeper, here in the middle of Ensenada.

Robert, how did you get into bee keeping?

- Oh, it started with my grandfather.

He brought all, all his knowledge from Halisco.

He told me one day, if you want this, you can have it.

But then he gave it to a cousin of mine.

- Oh no.

- My cousin got married, - He forgot about the bees.

- Yeah.

He forgot about the bees.

And one day he told me, "Hey, so I have a family now and I have bees.

I can't take care of both of them."

- Right.

So one or the other.

- So, he told me, you take care of them.

And whenever you have a harvest, just gave me a little honey and that's it.

- Wow.

And you took it.

- And I took the deal.

- Did the knowledge your grandfather gave you, did that help to be able to handle the bees, When you got them from your cousin.

- It didn't help me that much, but a few things.

- You had to learn more after.

- Yeah.

I had to learn more.

I'm a lazy reader, but.

- Let me guess you YouTube.

- Yeah.

So I've learned a lot of things from them.

And then I have a friend here, he's from Zacatecas.

- Right.

And he taught me a few other things, how to make my apiary grow faster.

- You know what it's unique.

It's strange, you know?

- Yeah.

To have a beef farm in the middle of the city.

- Yeah.

- But it's cool as well.

So we wanna see what you got.

Can you go see it?

- Yeah.

- We're going to get to see his bee farm, right here in his house.

Let's go.

Let's go see.

- I just hope you're not afraid of heights.

- I am.

Okay.

I'm kind of heavy and these things look kind of flimsy.

What are we seeing here.

- So like, I have a view of the city, but the bees, they have the best view.

- They have the best view.

Man, poor burglar.

If somebody ever comes by at middle of the night.

- Yeah.

Our family has shopping center and we used to get a lot of burglars to go up on the roof and steal, like the copper wires.

So I told my, my uncle, Hey, why don't I put up some bee house right where they come up?

Perfect plan.

- No way, no way.

- The first day I put them up.

- Yeah.

- The next day and one of the lids were broken because a burglar thought it was a step or some kind of box.

And he put his foot on top of the lid.

- He must have paid the price for that.

- Yeah.

His jeans were left.

- The jeans.

He took off his jeans and he ran.

- And he ran.

Yeah, ran.

- Well, you know, serves him better.

- And they're better than guard dogs.

You can jump a fence.

The dog will stop.

- How far will bees chase you?

- The aggressive ones that can chase you out to a 100 meters, 200.

- All this be sting talk has motivated me to wear the right attire.

Well, we're going to get in the midst of these bees, let's hope that these work and are an actual deterrent or layer of protection for these bees.

Robert, I'm putting myself in your hands.

In your hands and in this suit's hands, do I need pants?

Or is this it?

- Yeah.

That's it.

- The pants.

Nothing on?

- Yeah.

- No cover.

Most of the stings.

- Most of the stings.

Man, I'm not wearing any socks underneath the sneakers.

Hopefully they don't squeeze in there.

We're not provoking them, right?

- No, we're going to.

- This is just preventive.

- We're going to be using the smoker.

- So what does that do?

It doesn't make them angry.

- The smoker prevents the hive from, from signaling their alert signal.

- Really?

- So the smoke calms them and down and makes all the whole hive dossel.

- Okay.

- Captain, we're seeing a hive of hostile insectoid beings about to rush our ship.

Shields up, Scotty.

Shields up.

Sorry, Mr. Shatner.

These are our shields.

Let's hope that they are enough.

We have a bet going on between the crew here who gets stung first.

- Putting the full suit on 'cause me and her are allergic.

So we have two beekeepers here that are both allergic to bee stings.

- Better, safe than sorry.

- They're kamikazes.

That's what they are.

- She looks like the Virgin Mary right there with that thing.

Rescue team is getting ready, suited up.

Getting focused, getting ready.

Let's try to be protected.

Okay.

So we're geared up and ready to go.

The entrance triumphant, the exit frantic and jumping.

I'm 45 years old.

I'm not used to.

Do bees attack any other insects?

Or they don't?

- They attack intruders.

Like each hive has their own unique scent.

And if a bee tries to go into another one, there are guard bees in the entrance.

- Oh my goodness.

They attack her and tell her, "Hey, you're you're not in your house.

You have to go to your house."

- Oh, gotcha.

It will happen.

- Yeah.

And eventually, you get bumblebees or those green bumblebees - Beetles?

- Yeah, and you see a couple dead on the ground.

- Oh, they were attacked?

- They were attacked by the hive.

- No way.

Check it out guys.

If you wanna see what happens to intruders, that poor beetle down there.

Look at this poor bugger.

Came too close to a beehive and got stung to death.

You know, their stings are not reserved for mammals or humans, you know.

If you're an insect and get too close, guess what, time to check out of the earth.

Your time here is over.

So when you take the top off, they don't get mad immediately off that.

- No, bees react to vibrations.

- Okay.

- So if you hit the hive.

- That will make them angry.

- They'll start coming out of it.

- Okay.

- I put this frame about a month ago.

- Each wood is a frame?

- Yes.

So they're bringing in honey on this one.

- Where's the honey?

Is it inside the combs?

- Yes.

- How many sides does each one of those combs have?

- I'll put it right against the mesh.

- Yeah.

- You can try it.

- Delicious.

Perfect shapes that they make, right?

- Yeah.

- Geometric shapes or hexagons, right?

- Yeah, and they hold up a lot of weight.

I mean these frames, each one can weigh about two or three kilos.

- Okay.

- Once it's full of honey.

- Yeah.

- You bring it out.

- Once full of honey.

And these are, these are normal frames.

These are 10 frames.

They can load up to six or seven kilos on - Oh wow.

That's almost 10 pounds.

- We can open up the main hive.

- Oh wow.

If you guys can see, there's a bunch trying to get into my face.

So if you wanna see the valley of these beehives, I mean, just look at, literally in front of my nose, look at how many are trying to proactively trying to get in.

- Because they're smelling the honey.

That's why.

- Okay.

- They're like, "Hey, you grab something from us."

- This, this bear, this Oso is stealing our honey.

- This is the mainframe, where they keep their brood and their babies and everything.

But when you take out honey, you never take honey out of this frame.

'cause this is their food.

They need it to feed their larvae.

- Okay.

So where do you get it out from the?

The middle ones?

- You get it out from those.

- Oh, you never get it from the bottom?

- No.

- Never?

- No.

- Oh, okay.

So the bottom one is their food.

- Yes.

- This is like extra.

- Yes.

- And actually bees, they gather up the honey and the nectar from flowers.

'Cause it's their food to survive in winter.

- Wow.

Now is there a time of year where you stop collecting honey or can you extract all year round?

- We can extract from, March until, down here, probably until September or mid October.

And that's it.

- And then you stop?

- Yeah.

You have to stop.

- And then you begin again when?

- Next March.

- Until March?

- Yes.

- The mainframe that you took, how long does it take for that to fill?

- Like right now we're we are in a drought season, so there's not enough flowers for them.

If they were up in New Orleans or Georgia - Where there is more flowers.

- There's a lot more flowers.

It'll rain more over there.

They can fill up this thing in a week.

- No way.

- Yeah.

- They're hard workers - And you're calling about 40, 50 pounds of honey.

- So this is their food.

We don't take this, right?

- No.

- These, all their food.

They have larva in here.

You see bees here?

- Yeah.

- They're cleaning the hexagon because that's where a bee came out recently.

They clean their own house.

so the queen can go by and put on a lot of larvae.

- No way.

Just bee cleaners who clean the hexagons.

Make sure it's nice and tidy.

And then the queen will go in and fill it with a larva.

- You see here, this is a drone, this big one right here.

- What does a drone do?

- It mates with the queen.

- Okay.

- And it only works for mating and eating honey.

That's it?

That's a stud right there.

Aren't those, the guys that have to chase the queen.

- Yeah.

- And then they die outside.

- Yeah.

They die outside.

Their reproductive system, It breaks off and stays in the queen.

- Wow.

- So they die after.

Put your fingers like this or your hand like this.

- Okay.

- Just straight like this.

- It's Crossing South folks.

Don't go anywhere.

Look at these little guys, hard workers, giving humanity an example of how to be industrious, how to be clean, how to do a good job.

Mommy and daddy ain't doing the dishes for them.

Take a lesson from the bees.

When the sun comes out, we all gotta hustle including these amazing creatures.

So this is, you know, exhilarating.

It's amazing just to be close to this.

This is the kind of thing that you see on TV for years.

You never think, you know, that this is possible without being an expert, which I am not.

So Robert is guiding us here showing us what to do and what not to do.

But I just feel privileged.

I feel privileged and honored to be with these hard working bees.

A noble animal that is so essential for the survival of the human species.

You believe that?

This right here.

And some people think this is by chance.

You know, without these guys, we die.

Seems very convenient.

There's a lot of things that keep us alive in the universe, in the cosmos and on earth.

Seems like a lot of coincidences just to keep us alive.

- So.

- Look at that honey, right there.

Is that, is that wax?

- No, that's honey.

- It's all honey.

- That's honey and wax.

If I want to induce them into eating their honey.

- Yeah.

- I can do this.

- And they'll start eating it.

- Yes.

They'll go directly to it.

- Sweet, delicious honey.

They're like, "we grew up with this all day, but more gobble gobble gobble."

Look at it.

Look at that drip.

Is it one queen per box?

Or there's queen for all of them?

- Just one.

But there's some unique times.

There's one working with the new queen or with the old queen and they eventually they kick her out or they have a fight until death.

- No way.

- The queen bee also has it's sting.

But instead of like the worker bees, the thing it's just like a barbed wire, but sting on the queen is smooth.

- It's smooth.

- So she can sting many times.

- The queen bee doesn't sting a human.

They're only really rare occasion that it's stinging a person.

- Okay.

- But they normally don't sting.

What they do is they grab the nectar.

- Yeah.

- And they put it into the hexagon.

They swallow up and they work it inside the bee stomach, and then they pull it out.

They swallow it again.

They're breaking it down, taking all the water out of the nectar.

- Okay.

- And inducing it into sugar where it's called honey.

It's natural.

Honey.

- It's bee vomit.

- This year has been a really hard year for most of the beekeepers here in Baja and also in California.

- 'Cause there's not a lot of flowers?

- There's not a lot of flowers.

There's a drought season.

Got a friend in LA.

She's struggling.

She's feeding them sugar water.

- No way.

- I also feed them sugar water.

But there's a special frame that you can put inside and you can feed them internally, 'cause you can feed them externally.

But the bucket doesn't need to be closed of the hives.

Yeah, I'm going to push them back into the box.

- You eating little buddy.

- Nice little bees.

Nice bees.

- What wonderful lessons in industriousness and hard work nature teaches us.

We can learn a lot from nature.

Jesse is showing us how, how you set up the machine to extract the honey from the panels.

Right now I was just mimicking, just showing how I do it.

- So you have your timer here.

Five minutes.

- That's how long it takes?

Fire it up.

See what it is.

So what happens when it spins?

Where does it throw the honey to?

- It goes to the wall and then it slips down the wall into that channel down below and I'll do I do it at night 'cause at night the bees don't fly.

So I don't have to worry about the bees.

- Them coming.

- Coming over here.

- You got our stuff, man.

- Yeah.

- Look at that.

Look at it go Well, are we going to take some honey right now?

- Yes.

- Let's go to it.

- The black honey is honey from, from winter.

- Oh, okay.

- So this is extracted at the last week of February into March.

- Okay.

- And this is what you get out of the hive.

It has more enzymes, has more vitamins.

It makes it also black because there's less of flowers in winter, the bees, they mix it up with propolis.

So this one is lighter.

This one is from summer.

- Summer, summer.

- Yeah.

Summer is.

And you can see on the bottom, it's starting to crystallize.

Okay.

- So that's normal.

- The process of crystallizing is the natural process of the honey.

If you have a honey on your shelf and you never see a crystallize, - It's not, - It's fake honey.

- Wow.

Is there a way to turn this into, - To solid again?

- Yeah.

- You just put the jar next to the window with the lid closed but not tight.

And the natural rays of the sun will melt it.

It will melt it back.

- Oh okay.

- To the natural state.

- Can I try that?

- Yes.

- There are different flavors.

You can smell this and the smell it's sugary but it also has a smell of wax.

If you have honey in your shelf and it doesn't smell like wax, - It's not real honey.

- It's not real honey.

- Nurturing.

Well.

- Now you can tilt the, jar, and grab a spoon of the bottom part, it has a different texture and a different flavor.

It's a different texture, different flavor.

- It's more consistent.

- Yeah.

Almost like a cream.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- Such different taste.

- Now you see why bears open the hives up.

- Yes.

- I am an Oso.

I'm a bear.

So I understand why.

Let me try the winter one.

- The winter one, the taste is stronger.

- Very strong.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Let's try this tonic.

- And you going to feel the propolis in the flavor.

- Okay.

So let's see what the propolis tastes like.

It's not bad.

Ooh.

It's also good.

Yeah.

I am a bear, you know?

- Yeah.

- 'Cause I liked all of it.

We, we came here for bees.

We're finding hidden treasures.

What year is this car?

- This is a 1931 model A.

- Well if you are a real tough cookie, she driving this car.

- Yeah.

My dad used to drive it to the weddings, but he has a problem with his eyesight now.

- He can't drive anymore like that.

- Yeah.

He can't drive it at night.

- Do you drive this?

- I drive it.

- Wow.

- I'm the driver for the weddings now.

- Let's open up the hood.

See what this baby's got in there.

Oh.

- Whoa.

- 1931.

Imagine that.

The advent of the motor vehicle is one of humanities accomplishments.

That's for sure.

- Whoa.

That's so cool.

You can smell the, is it normal gas or diesel?

- Normal gas.

- Normal gas?

- Yeah.

- Amazing.

It feels smooth.

I would've thought it would be more clunking, but no, this sounds smooth.

Yes.

Roberto is an interesting guy for sure.

A man of many interests.

So after getting to enjoy some amazing food at the Pai Pai Zoo and visiting beehives in the middle of town, we leave Ensenada wondering what experience we will have the next time we cross south.

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