Marla Spivak: Why bees are disappearing

Summary

In this enlightening talk, the speaker underscores the indispensable role bees play in pollinating over a third of our crops, highlighting their unintentional yet crucial contribution to our food supply. The script delves into the fascinating world of bees, from their social structures to their natural healthcare practices, such as using propolis as an antibiotic. It also addresses the alarming decline in bee populations due to monoculture farming, pesticides, and diseases like the varroa mite. The speaker calls for collective action, urging us to plant bee-friendly flowers and avoid pesticides to support these vital pollinators, emphasizing that our individual efforts can make a significant impact on their survival and, consequently, our food security.

Takeaways

• 🐝 Bees are crucial pollinators for over one-third of the world's crops, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
• 🌼 Bees unintentionally pollinate while foraging for food, primarily collecting protein from pollen and carbohydrates from nectar.
• 👩‍🌾 In places without bees, humans must pollinate plants by hand, a practice still used in some regions.
• 🍅 Bumblebees are vital for pollinating certain crops, like tomatoes, as they can vibrate flowers to release pollen.
• 🐝 There are over 20,000 species of bees, though honeybees are often the face of bee conservation due to their social behavior and honey production.
• 🌿 Honeybees use plant resins to create propolis, which acts as a natural disinfectant and boosts colony health.
• 🔬 Bees face multiple threats, including pesticides, habitat loss, and parasites like the varroa mite, leading to widespread colony deaths.
• 🌾 Agricultural changes since WWII, including monocultures and the use of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides, have reduced bee-friendly plants.
• 🚜 Bees are essential for crops like almonds, where millions of colonies are transported to provide pollination, but the landscapes often become barren after blooming.
• 🌸 The solution to bee decline is simple: plant diverse, bee-friendly flowers without pesticides and support sustainable farming practices.

Q & A

What is the primary role of bees in agriculture?

Bees are the most important pollinators of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and crops like alfalfa hay that feed farm animals. More than one third of the world's crop production depends on bee pollination.

How do bees unintentionally contribute to food production?

Bees unintentionally contribute to food production by foraging for pollen and nectar, which are essential for their diet. As they move from flower to flower, they pollinate plants, providing a valuable service.

What is the significance of bumblebees in the context of tomato pollination?

Bumblebees are significant in tomato pollination because they can vibrate flowers at a frequency similar to the musical note C, which releases pollen from the anther. This natural method of pollination is more efficient and results in better quality tomatoes.

Why are honeybees considered a 'super-organism'?

Honeybees are considered a 'super-organism' because the colony operates as a single entity, with 40,000 to 50,000 individual bees working together without a central authority, coordinating their tasks and social behaviors.

How do bees practice social healthcare?

Bees practice social healthcare by maintaining hygiene within the colony, such as locating and removing sick individuals, and by using resins collected from plants to create propolis, a natural disinfectant and antibiotic that bolsters the colony's health.

What factors have contributed to the decline of honeybee populations since World War II?

The decline of honeybee populations since World War II is due to changes in farming practices, including the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and monoculture farming, which have reduced the availability of flowering plants necessary for bees' survival.

What is the impact of pesticides on bees?

Pesticides have a detrimental impact on bees, with research showing that every batch of pollen collected by bees contains at least six detectable pesticides. These chemicals can lead to bees becoming intoxicated, disoriented, or dying.

What is the role of varroa destructor in bee health?

Varroa destructor is a major threat to bees as it is a blood-sucking parasite that weakens the bee's immune system and spreads viruses, contributing to the decline in bee populations.

How can individuals help support bee populations?

Individuals can help support bee populations by planting bee-friendly flowers that are native to their area and avoiding the use of pesticides on these flowers, providing a source of nutrition and habitat for bees.

What is the current situation regarding the die-off of bees, and what is the speaker's hope or concern about it?

The current situation is precarious, with an average of 30 percent of all bee hives lost every winter in the United States. The speaker expresses concern about this trend and emphasizes the importance of beekeepers and the planting of flowers to help maintain bee populations.

Outlines

00:00

🌼 The Vital Role of Bees in Pollination

This paragraph highlights the crucial role bees play in pollinating crops, fruits, vegetables, and flowers, which are essential for human food supply and farm animal feed. It explains that bees don't pollinate intentionally but are driven by their need to consume pollen for protein and nectar for carbohydrates. It contrasts natural bee pollination with hand pollination in regions without bees or where crops are unattractive to bees. The text also mentions how specific bees, like bumblebees, have unique abilities to pollinate flowers such as tomatoes through vibration, enhancing the quality of the produce. Additionally, it describes the diversity and beauty of over 20,000 bee species, the attraction of honeybees to humans, and how beekeeping started as a personal journey for the narrator.

05:02

🛡️ Propolis: Bees' Natural Defense

This paragraph discusses how bees collect resins from plants to create propolis, a substance that acts as a natural disinfectant within the hive, protecting it from bacteria, molds, and other pathogens. Propolis has been known for its medicinal properties since ancient times, and while it has been harvested for human use, its benefits to bees were less understood until recently. The paragraph also touches on the alarming mass die-offs of honeybee colonies, first observed in the U.S. seven years ago, signaling a critical problem as bees have maintained their natural defenses for millions of years. It underscores that the decline of bees is symptomatic of broader environmental issues, including a lack of floral resources and an unsustainable food system.

10:02

🚜 Agricultural Practices and Bee Decline

This section explains how post-World War II agricultural changes have negatively impacted bee populations. Practices such as the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and the shift towards large monocultures have reduced the availability of bee-friendly plants like clover and alfalfa. The concentration of crop types, like the expansive almond orchards, necessitates mass bee migration for pollination, which further stresses the colonies. The paragraph outlines how these practices have contributed to a drastic decline in managed bee hives since the 1940s and emphasizes that while crop demands for pollination have increased, the use of pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids, has introduced neurotoxins into bee food sources, causing disorientation and death among bees.

15:05

🚨 The Impact of Pesticides and Parasites on Bees

This paragraph delves into the dangers posed to bees by neonicotinoid pesticides, which infiltrate plants' systems and can lead to lethal doses for bees that consume the contaminated pollen and nectar. Even at lower doses, these neurotoxins can disorient bees, impairing their ability to navigate back to their hive. The presence of other challenges, such as diseases and parasites like the varroa destructor mite, further exacerbates bee health issues. The combined stressors—poor nutrition due to food deserts, pesticides, parasites, and diseases—create a hostile environment for bees, leading to high mortality rates. The text urges collective action to support bees through planting bee-friendly flowers, avoiding pesticides, and encouraging diverse agricultural practices, all of which can contribute to restoring bee populations and, consequently, human food systems.

Keywords

💡Pollination

Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred from the male parts of a flower to the female parts, enabling fertilization and the production of seeds. In the video, it is emphasized that bees are critical pollinators for a vast array of crops, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The script highlights that over one-third of the world's crop production relies on bee pollination, showcasing the vital role bees play in agriculture and food security.

💡Protein and Carbohydrates

Proteins and carbohydrates are essential nutrients for bees. The script explains that bees obtain protein from pollen and carbohydrates from nectar, which are crucial for their survival and ability to pollinate. This illustrates the symbiotic relationship between bees and flowering plants, where bees feed on these nutrients while simultaneously facilitating pollination.

💡Hand Pollination

Hand pollination refers to the manual transfer of pollen from one flower to another, a process that is sometimes necessary in areas where bees are absent or insufficient. The video mentions that in such cases, people are paid to pollinate plants by hand using a paintbrush, which is labor-intensive and less efficient compared to natural bee pollination. This highlights the irreplaceable service that bees provide to ecosystems and agriculture.

💡Bumblebees

Bumblebees are a type of bee known for their ability to vibrate flowers, which helps release pollen. The script describes how bumblebees use their flight muscles to vibrate at a frequency similar to the musical note C, effectively sonicating the flower and releasing pollen. This behavior is important for the pollination of certain crops, like tomatoes, which is why tomato growers use bumblebee colonies in greenhouses for efficient pollination.

💡Honeybees

Honeybees are social insects known for their complex colony structure and their production of honey. The video script delves into the fascinating world of honeybees, highlighting their status as a 'super-organism' where the colony operates as a single entity. Honeybees are significant for their role in pollination and for the products they provide, such as honey and beeswax, which have been valued by humans for centuries.

💡Propolis

Propolis is a resinous substance that bees collect from plants and use to seal and protect their hives. The script explains that bees create propolis by mixing plant resins with their saliva, which they then use to line their hives. Propolis has antimicrobial properties, acting as a natural disinfectant and antibiotic within the hive, contributing to the health and social immunity of the bee colony.

💡Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) refers to the phenomenon where worker bees from a bee colony disappear, leaving behind the queen and a few nurse bees. The video script discusses the alarming decline in honeybee populations, which has been linked to multiple factors including pesticides, disease, and habitat loss. CCD is a significant concern because of the critical role bees play in pollination and the broader ecosystem.

💡Neonicotinoids

Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides that are systemic, meaning they are taken up by the plant and expressed in the pollen and nectar. The video script raises concerns about the impact of neonicotinoids on bees, as they can cause disorientation and death in bees that consume them. Neonicotinoids have been linked to CCD and are a significant factor in the decline of bee populations.

💡Varroa Destructor

Varroa destructor, commonly known as the varroa mite, is a parasitic mite that infests honeybee colonies and is a major threat to their health. The script describes varroa mites as blood-sucking parasites that weaken bees' immune systems and can spread viruses, contributing to colony deaths. Controlling varroa mite infestations is a critical part of beekeeping and bee health management.

💡Bee-Friendly Flowers

Bee-friendly flowers are plants that provide the necessary resources for bees, such as pollen and nectar, and are attractive to them. The video encourages the planting of such flowers to support bee populations. By planting native flowers and avoiding pesticides, individuals can contribute to creating a healthier environment for bees, which in turn supports pollination and the overall health of ecosystems.

Highlights

Bees are crucial pollinators for a third of the world's crops.

Bees unintentionally pollinate while foraging for food.

Hand pollination is labor-intensive and common in bee-less regions.

Tomato growers use 'tomato ticklers' to mimic bee pollination.

Bumblebees naturally vibrate flowers to release pollen.

Bumblebee colonies are used in greenhouses for efficient tomato pollination.

There are over 20,000 bee species, each with unique characteristics.

Honeybees have been a significant part of human history.

Honeybees are considered a 'super-organism' with complex social structures.

Bees practice social healthcare, including hygiene and use of resins for disease prevention.

Propolis, a resin used by bees, has antibiotic properties.

Honeybee colony deaths have been escalating since the 1940s.

Modern agricultural practices have led to a reduction in bee-friendly habitats.

Monoculture farming and the use of synthetic fertilizers negatively impact bee populations.

Pesticide use has been linked to bee deaths and health issues.

Neonicotinoid insecticides are particularly harmful to bees.

Bees face a combination of threats including disease, parasites, and contaminated food sources.

Individuals can help bees by planting bee-friendly flowers and avoiding pesticides.

Diversifying farm practices and planting cover crops can support bee health.

Bee health is directly linked to human nutrition and the health of our ecosystems.

Transcripts

This is our life with bees,

and this is our life without bees.

Bees are the most important pollinators

of our fruits and vegetables and flowers

and crops like alfalfa hay that feed our farm animals.

More than one third of the world's crop production

is dependent on bee pollination.

But the ironic thing is that bees are not out there

pollinating our food intentionally.

They're out there because they need to eat.

Bees get all of the protein they need in their diet

from pollen

and all of the carbohydrates they need from nectar.

They're flower-feeders,

and as they move from flower to flower,

basically on a shopping trip at the local floral mart,

they end up providing this valuable pollination service.

In parts of the world where there are no bees,

or where they plant varieties that are not attractive to bees,

people are paid to do the business of pollination by hand.

These people are moving pollen from flower to flower

with a paintbrush.

Now this business of hand pollination

is actually not that uncommon.

Tomato growers often pollinate their tomato flowers

with a hand-held vibrator.

Now this one's the tomato tickler. (Laughter)

Now this is because the pollen within a tomato flower

is held very securely within

the male part of the flower, the anther,

and the only way to release this pollen is to vibrate it.

So bumblebees are one of the few kinds of bees in the world

that are able to hold onto the flower and vibrate it,

and they do this by shaking their flight muscles

at a frequency similar to the musical note C.

So they vibrate the flower, they sonicate it,

and that releases the pollen in this efficient swoosh,

and the pollen gathers all over the fuzzy bee's body,

and she takes it home as food.

Tomato growers now put bumblebee colonies

inside the greenhouse to pollinate the tomatoes

because they get much more efficient pollination

when it's done naturally

and they get better quality tomatoes.

So there's other, maybe more personal reasons,

to care about bees.

There's over 20,000 species of bees in the world,

and they're absolutely gorgeous.

These bees spend the majority of their life cycle

hidden in the ground or within a hollow stem

and very few of these beautiful species

have evolved highly social behavior like honeybees.

Now honeybees tend to be the charismatic representative

for the other 19,900-plus species

because there's something about honeybees

that draws people into their world.

Humans have been drawn to honeybees

since early recorded history,

mostly to harvest their honey,

which is an amazing natural sweetener.

I got drawn into the honeybee world

completely by a fluke.

I was 18 years old and bored,

and I picked up a book in the library on bees

and I spent the night reading it.

I had never thought about insects

living in complex societies.

It was like the best of science fiction come true.

And even stranger, there were these people,

these beekeepers, that loved their bees like they were family,

and when I put down the book, I knew I had to see this for myself.

So I went to work for a commercial beekeeper,

a family that owned 2,000 hives of bees in New Mexico.

And I was permanently hooked.

Honeybees can be considered a super-organism,

where the colony is the organism

and it's comprised of 40,000 to 50,000

individual bee organisms.

Now this society has no central authority.

Nobody's in charge.

So how they come to collective decisions,

and how they allocate their tasks and divide their labor,

how they communicate where the flowers are,

all of their collective social behaviors are mindblowing.

My personal favorite, and one that I've studied for many years,

is their system of healthcare.

So bees have social healthcare.

So in my lab, we study how bees keep themselves healthy.

For example, we study hygiene,

where some bees are able to locate and weed out

sick individuals from the nest, from the colony,

and it keeps the colony healthy.

And more recently, we've been studying resins

that bees collect from plants.

So bees fly to some plants and they scrape

these very, very sticky resins off the leaves,

and they take them back to the nest

where they cement them into the nest architecture

where we call it propolis.

We've found that propolis is a natural disinfectant.

It's a natural antibiotic.

It kills off bacteria and molds and other germs

within the colony,

and so it bolsters the colony health and their social immunity.

Humans have known about the power of propolis

since biblical times.

We've been harvesting propolis out of bee colonies

for human medicine,

but we didn't know how good it was for the bees.

So honeybees have these remarkable natural defenses

that have kept them healthy and thriving

for over 50 million years.

So seven years ago, when honeybee colonies

were reported to be dying en masse,

first in the United States,

it was clear that there was something really, really wrong.

In our collective conscience, in a really primal way,

we know we can't afford to lose bees.

So what's going on?

Bees are dying from multiple and interacting causes,

and I'll go through each of these.

The bottom line is,

bees dying reflects a flowerless landscape

and a dysfunctional food system.

Now we have the best data on honeybees,

so I'll use them as an example.

In the United States, bees in fact have been

in decline since World War II.

We have half the number of managed hives

in the United States now compared to 1945.

We're down to about two million hives of bees, we think.

And the reason is, after World War II,

we changed our farming practices.

We stopped planting cover crops.

We stopped planting clover and alfalfa,

which are natural fertilizers that fix nitrogen in the soil,

and instead we started using synthetic fertilizers.

Clover and alfalfa are highly nutritious food plants for bees.

And after World War II, we started using herbicides

to kill off the weeds in our farms.

Many of these weeds are flowering plants

that bees require for their survival.

And we started growing larger and larger crop monocultures.

Now we talk about food deserts,

places in our cities, neighborhoods that have no grocery stores.

The very farms that used to sustain bees

are now agricultural food deserts,

dominated by one or two plant species

like corn and soybeans.

Since World War II, we have been systematically

eliminating many of the flowering plants

that bees need for their survival.

And these monocultures extend even to crops

that are good for bees, like almonds.

Fifty years ago, beekeepers would take a few colonies,

hives of bees into the almond orchards, for pollination,

and also because the pollen in an almond blossom

is really high in protein. It's really good for bees.

Now, the scale of almond monoculture

demands that most of our nation's bees,

over 1.5 million hives of bees,

be transported across the nation

to pollinate this one crop.

And they're trucked in in semi-loads,

and they must be trucked out,

because after bloom, the almond orchards

are a vast and flowerless landscape.

Bees have been dying over the last 50 years,

and we're planting more crops that need them.

There has been a 300 percent increase in crop production

that requires bee pollination.

And then there's pesticides.

After World War II, we started using pesticides

on a large scale, and this became necessary

because of the monocultures that put out a feast

for crop pests.

Recently, researchers from Penn State University

have started looking at the pesticide residue

in the loads of pollen that bees carry home as food,

and they've found that every batch of pollen

that a honeybee collects

has at least six detectable pesticides in it,

and this includes every class of insecticides,

herbicides, fungicides,

and even inert and unlabeled ingredients

that are part of the pesticide formulation

that can be more toxic than the active ingredient.

This small bee is holding up a large mirror.

How much is it going to take to contaminate humans?

One of these class of insecticides,

the neonicontinoids,

is making headlines around the world right now.

You've probably heard about it.

This is a new class of insecticides.

It moves through the plant so that a crop pest,

a leaf-eating insect,

would take a bite of the plant

and get a lethal dose and die.

If one of these neonics, we call them,

is applied in a high concentration,

such as in this ground application,

enough of the compound moves through the plant

and gets into the pollen and the nectar,

where a bee can consume, in this case,

a high dose of this neurotoxin

that makes the bee twitch and die.

In most agricultural settings, on most of our farms,

it's only the seed that's coated with the insecticide,

and so a smaller concentration moves through the plant

and gets into the pollen and nectar,

and if a bee consumes this lower dose,

either nothing happens

or the bee becomes intoxicated and disoriented

and she may not find her way home.

And on top of everything else, bees have

their own set of diseases and parasites.

Public enemy number one for bees is this thing.

It's called varroa destructor.

It's aptly named.

It's this big, blood-sucking parasite

that compromises the bee's immune system

and circulates viruses.

Let me put this all together for you.

I don't know what it feels like to a bee

to have a big, bloodsucking parasite running around on it,

and I don't know what it feels like to a bee to have a virus,

but I do know what it feels like when I have a virus, the flu,

and I know how difficult it is for me to get

to the grocery store to get good nutrition.

But what if I lived in a food desert?

And what if I had to travel a long distance

to get to the grocery store,

and I finally got my weak body out there

and I consumed, in my food,

enough of a pesticide, a neurotoxin,

that I couldn't find my way home?

And this is what we mean by multiple

and interacting causes of death.

And it's not just our honeybees.

All of our beautiful wild species of bees

are at risk, including those tomato-pollinating bumblebees.

These bees are providing backup for our honeybees.

They're providing the pollination insurance

alongside our honeybees.

We need all of our bees.

So what are we going to do?

What are we going to do about this big bee bummer

that we've created?

It turns out, it's hopeful. It's hopeful.

Every one of you out there can help bees

in two very direct and easy ways.

Plant bee-friendly flowers,

and don't contaminate these flowers,

this bee food, with pesticides.

So go online and search for flowers

that are native to your area and plant them.

Plant them in a pot on your doorstep.

Plant them in your front yard, in your lawns,

in your boulevards.

Campaign to have them planted in public gardens,

community spaces, meadows.

Set aside farmland.

We need a beautiful diversity of flowers

that blooms over the entire growing season,

from spring to fall.

We need roadsides seeded in flowers for our bees,

but also for migrating butterflies and birds

and other wildlife.

And we need to think carefully about putting back in

cover crops to nourish our soil

and nourish our bees.

And we need to diversify our farms.

We need to plant flowering crop borders and hedge rows

to disrupt the agricultural food desert

and begin to correct the dysfunctional food system

that we've created.

So maybe it seems like a really small countermeasure

to a big, huge problem -- just go plant flowers --

but when bees have access to good nutrition,

we have access to good nutrition

through their pollination services.

And when bees have access to good nutrition,

they're better able to engage their own natural defenses,

their healthcare,

that they have relied on for millions of years.

So the beauty of helping bees this way, for me,

is that every one of us needs to behave

a little bit more like a bee society, an insect society,

where each of our individual actions

can contribute to a grand solution,

an emergent property,

that's much greater than the mere sum

of our individual actions.

So let the small act of planting flowers

and keeping them free of pesticides

be the driver of large-scale change.

On behalf of the bees, thank you.

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: Thank you. Just a quick question.

The latest numbers on the die-off of bees,

is there any sign of things bottoming out?

What's your hope/depression level on this?

Maria Spivak: Yeah.

At least in the United States,

an average of 30 percent of all bee hives

are lost every winter.

About 20 years ago,

we were at a 15-percent loss.

So it's getting precarious.

CA: That's not 30 percent a year, that's -- MS: Yes, thirty percent a year.

CA: Thirty percent a year. MS: But then beekeepers are able to divide their colonies

and so they can maintain the same number,

they can recuperate some of their loss.

We're kind of at a tipping point.

We can't really afford to lose that many more.

We need to be really appreciative

of all the beekeepers out there. Plant flowers.

CA: Thank you.

(Applause)