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