For this project, we needed to get into groups and focus on a topic that we are truly passionate about. My partners Winter and Kiley worked with me to focus on the pollinator decline - specifically bees. First we had to do an extensive amount of research on our topic and contact potential victims, experts, opposers, and advocates. We interviewed them about their knowledge about the bees and compiled the interviews to gain more first-hand information. Afterwards, we needed to do an immersive experience so we decided to spend a day "bee free". This meant absolutely no bee products could be consumed for a day. Truthfully, it was a bland and unsatisfactory day.
Interview example:
First, could you explain who you are and what you do relating to bees?
My name is Hilary Kearney. I am a SD native. I own my own beekeeping business called Girl Next Door Honey. I do beekeeping classes, live bee removal, apiary tour and kid's presentations.
What caused you to first be interested in bees? I picked up a book by chance and I just found bees so interesting the I decided to start keeping them so I could learn more about them.
We hear the word’s “colony collapse” a lot, could you explain what that means, and what is the cause. I stopped using this term because it is kind of outdated. I instead call it "The global pollinator decline. That's because all kind of bees not just honey bees are in trouble and other pollinators like butterflies and small birds as well. Check out this article: http://www.boerenlandvogels.nl/sites/default/files/JEIT%20Immune%20Suppression%20pdf_6.pdf I believe this pesticide class (neonicotinoid) is weakening pollinators because it surpassed their immune system. So exposure to this pesticide combined with other stressors like extreme climate events (hard winters, long droughts etc.) or parasites or viruses wipe them out when they would normally be able to overcome them. Colony Collapse refers to a specific set of symptoms leading up to the collapse of a honey bee colony. A lot of beekeepers were seeing the same symptoms for several years, but rarely do now. I think that there must have been some virus that was particularly strong during these years and combined with the pesticide to wipe out the bees. Now we are still seeing an increase in loss every year currently around 40%, but the symptoms are all different. I think this is because different stressors combine with the pesticide exposure depending on location.
Are there any actions your everyday citizens could take to help stop the decline in bees? Don't use products with neonicotinoid pesticides. Don't apply any pesticides to flowering plants. Plant flowers for bees. They need food and that is what flowers are for them.
What is the main reason the honeybee is slowly dying off?
The above mentioned pesticide.
What would the world look like without bees?
Our ecosystem as we know it would collapse. The bees and other pollinator are responsible for the reproduction of much of the world's plants.
I’ve seen some mixed information, some people say the bees are dying but some statistics show that the bee population has actually increased. Could you explain where these numbers come from?
These statistics are deliberately misleading and I believe the companies who make billions in profit from the pesticide that is killing the bees are propagating these statistics. If you think about it logically it actually means nothing. The rate of death per year is still at 40%. Average loss rate for commercial beekeepers is 20%. So, it doesn't matter how many more hives there are, beekeepers still lose half of them and that is a problem. I can take a small hive that is unhealthy and dying and split it into two hives today (put half in a new box with a new queen) and it would be called two hives, but it is the same number of bees. Beekeepers are making more hives because they are trying to mitigate the higher loss rate. Quantity is not quality.
Now that we had our background research completed on the project it was time for the next phase - how are we going to make a difference? We used a mapping method to determine that the root of our problem was really that the public wasn't as educated as they should be. The biggest impact we could do should include informing people somehow. We went to work trying to think of a prototype and came up with the following:
Instead we came up with a fantastic idea of making cost efficient user friendly seed bombs! These would come with info cards about the decline of the bee population while growing bee-friendly flowers across San Diego.