Every city needs healthy honey bees Noah WilsonRich

this man is wearing what we call a bee

beard a beard full of bees now this is

what many of you might picture when you

think about honeybees

maybe insects or maybe anything that has

more legs than two and let me start by

telling you I got you

I understand that but there are many

things to know and I want you to open

your minds here keep them open and

change a perspective about honeybees

notice that this man is not getting

stung he probably has a queen bee tied

to his chin and the other bees are

attracted to it so this really

demonstrates our relationship with

honeybees and that goes deep back for

thousands of years we’re very co-evolved

because we depend on bees for

pollination and even more recently as an

economic commodity many of you may have

heard that honeybees are disappearing

not just dying but they’re gone we don’t

even find dead bodies this is called

colony collapse disorder and it’s

bizarre researchers around the globe

still do not know what’s causing it but

what we do know is that with the

declining numbers of bees the costs of

over 130 fruit and vegetable crops that

we rely on for food is going up in price

so honeybees are important for their

role in the economy as well as in

agriculture here you can see some

pictures of what are called green roofs

or urban agriculture we’re familiar with

the image on the left that shows a local

neighborhood garden in the south end

that’s where I call home have it beehive

in the backyard and perhaps a green roof

in the future when we’re further

utilizing urban areas where there are

stacks of garden spaces check out this

image above the orange line in Boston

let’s try to spot the Beehive it’s there

it’s on the rooftop right on the corner

there and it’s been there for a couple

of years now the way that urban

beekeeping currently operates is that

the beehives are quite hidden and it’s

not because they need to

be it’s just because people are

uncomfortable with the idea and that’s

why I want you today to try to think

about this think about the benefits of

bees in cities and why they really are a

terrific thing let me give you a brief

rundown on how pollination works so we

know flowers we know fruits and

vegetables even some alfalfa and hay

that the livestock for the meats that we

eat rely on pollinators but you’ve got

male and female parts to a plant here

and basically pollinators are attracted

to plants for their nectar and in the

process a bee will visit some flowers

and pick up some pollen or that male

kind of sperm counterpart along the way

and then travel to different flowers and

eventually an apple in this case will be

produced you can see the orientation

stem is down the blossom end has fallen

off by the time we eat it but that’s a

basic overview of how pollination works

and let’s think about urban living not

today and not in the past but what about

in a hundred years what’s it going to

look like

we have huge grand challenges these days

of habitat loss we have more and more

people billions of people and a hundred

years God knows how many people on how

little space there will be to fit all of

them so we need to change the way that

we see cities and looking at this

picture on the left of New York City

today you can see how gray and brown it

is we have route tarpaper on the

rooftops that bounces heat back into the

atmosphere contributing to global

climate change no doubt what about in a

hundred years if we have green rooftops

everywhere in gardening and we create

our own crops right in the cities we

save on the costs of transportation we

save on a healthier diet and we also

educate and create new jobs locally we

need bees for the future of our cities

and urban living here’s some data that

we collected through our company with

best bees where we deliver install and

manage honeybee hives for anybody who

wants them in the city and the

countryside and we introduce honeybees

and the idea of beekeeping in your own

backyard a rooftop or fire scape for

even that matter and see how simple it

is and how possible it is there’s a

counterintuitive trend that we noticed

in these numbers

so let’s look at the first metric here

overwintering survival now this has been

a huge problem for many years basically

since the late 1980s when the varroa

mite came and brought many different

viruses bacteria and fungal diseases

with it overwintering success is hard

and that’s when most of the colonies are

lost and we found that in the cities

bees are surviving better than they are

in the country a bit counterintuitive

right we think Oh bees countryside

agriculture but that’s not what the bees

are showing the bees like it in the city

furthermore they also produce more honey

the urban honey is delicious the bees in

Boston on the rooftop of the seaport

Hotel where we have hundreds of

thousands of bees flying overhead right

now that I’m sure none of you noticed

when we walked by are going to all of

the local community gardens and making

delicious healthy honey that just tastes

like the flowers in our city so the

yield for urban hives in terms of honey

production is higher as well as the

overwintering survival compared to rural

areas again a bit counterintuitive and

looking back historically at the

timeline of honeybee health we can go

back to the Year 950 and see that there

was also a great mortality of bees in

Ireland so the problems with bees today

isn’t necessarily something new it has

been happening Oh since over a thousand

years ago

but what we don’t really notice are

these problems and cities so one thing I

want to encourage you to think about is

the idea of what an urban island is you

think in the city maybe the temperatures

warmer

why are bees doing better in the city

this is a big question now to help us

understand why they should be in the

city perhaps there’s more pollen in the

city with the trains coming into urban

hubs they can carry pollen with them

very light pollen and it’s just a big

supermarket in the city a lot of linden

trees live along the railroad tracks

perhaps they’re fewer pesticides in the

cities than there are in urban areas

perhaps there are the things that we’re

just not thinking about yet but that’s

one idea to think about urban islands

and colony collapse disorder is not the

only thing affecting honeybees honey

bees are gone

and it’s a huge huge grand challenge of

our time what you can see up here is a

map of the world and we’re tracking the

spread of this varroa mite now the

varroa mite is what changed the game in

beekeeping and you can see at the top

right the years are changing we’re

coming up to modern times and you can

see the spread of the varroa mite from

the early 1900s

through now it’s 1968 and we’re pretty

much covering Asia 1971 we saw it spread

to Europe and South America and then

when we get to the 1980s and

specifically in 1987 the varroa mite

finally came to North America into the

United States and that is when the game

changed for honeybees in the United

States many of us will remember our

childhood growing up maybe got stung by

a bee saw bees and flowers think of the

kids today their childhoods a bit

different they don’t experience this the

bees just aren’t around anymore so we

need bees and they’re disappearing and

it’s a big problem what can we do here

so what I do is honeybee research I got

my PhD studying honeybee health

I started in 2005 studying honeybees in

2006 honeybee started disappearing so

suddenly like this little nerd kid going

to school working with bugs became very

relevant in the world and it worked out

that way so my research focuses on ways

to make these healthier

I don’t research what’s killing the bees

per se I’m not one of the many

researchers around the world who’s

looking at the effects of pesticides or

diseases or habitat loss and poor

nutrition on bees we’re looking at ways

to make these healthier through vaccines

through yogurt like probiotics and other

types of therapies in ways that can be

fed orally to bees and this process is

so easy even seven-year-old can do it

you just mix up some pollen sugar and

water and whatever active ingredient you

want to put in and you just give it

right to the bees no chemicals involved

just immune boosters humans think about

our own health in a prospective way we

exercise we eat healthy we take vitamins

why don’t we think about honeybees in

that same type of way bring them to

areas where they’re thriving and try to

make them healthier before they get sick

I spent many years in grad school trying

to poke bees and do vaccines with the

needles like years years at the bench oh

my gosh it’s 3:00 a.m. and I’m still

pricking bees and then one day I said

why don’t we just do an oral vaccine

it’s like oh so that’s that’s what we do

I’d love to share with you some images

of urban beehives because they can be

anything I mean really open your mind

with this you can paint a hive to match

your home you can hide a hive inside

your home these are three hives on the

rooftop of the Fairmont Copley Plaza

Hotel and they’re beautiful here it

means we matched the new color of the

inside of their rooms to do some type of

a stained wood with blue for their

sheets and these bees are terrific and

they also will use herbs that are

growing in the garden that’s what the

chef’s go to to use for their cooking

and the honey they do live events

they’ll use that honey at their bars

honey is a great nutritional substitute

for regular sugar because there are

different types of sugars in there we

also have a classroom hives project

where this is a non-profit venture we’re

spreading the word around the world for

how honeybee hives can be taken into the

classroom or into the museum setting

behind glass and used as an educational

tool this hive that you see here has

been in Fenway High School for many

years now the bees fly right into the

outfield of Fenway Park nobody notices

it if you’re not a flower these bees do

not care about you they don’t they don’t

the state excuse me flying around some

other images here and telling a part of

the story that really made open

beekeeping terrific is in New York City

beekeeping was illegal until 2010 that’s

a big problem

because what’s going to pollinate all of

the gardens and the produce locally

hands I mean locally in Boston there is

a terrific company called green city

growers and they are going and

pollinating their squash crops by hand

with q-tips and if they miss that

three-day window there’s no fruit their

clients aren’t happy and that people go

hungry so this is important we have also

some images of honey from Brooklyn now

this was a mystery in the New York Times

where the honey was very red and the New

York State forensics department

came in and they actually did some

science to match the red dye with that

found in a maraschino cherry Factory

down the street so you can tailor your

honey to taste however you want by

planting bee friendly flowers Paris has

been a terrific model for urban

beekeeping they’ve had hives on the

rooftop of their Opera House for many

years now and that’s what really got

people started thinking wow we can do

this and we should do this also in

London and in Europe across the board

they’re very advanced in their use of

green rooftops and integrating beehives

and I’ll show you an ending note here I

would like to encourage you to open your

mind what can you do to save the bees or

to help them or to think of sustainable

cities in the future will really just

change your perspective try to

understand that these are very important

that bee isn’t going to sting you if you

see it the bee dies honeybees die when

they sting so if they don’t want to do

it either it’s nothing to panic about

they’re all over the city you could even

get your own hive if you want there are

great resources available and they’re

even companies that will help get you

set up and mentor you and it’s important

for our educational system in the world

for students to learn about agriculture

worldwide such as this little girl who

again is not even getting stung thank

you

you