Happy World Honey Bee Day!
The buzz is that more than one-third of the world’s fruits, vegetables and flowers are dependent on bees – and they are disappearing. It’s the mission of one of the world’s most preeminent experts, entomologist Dr. Marla Spivak to change that.
A chance encounter with a library book on bees had her hooked. In college she worked for several commercial beekeepers and after graduation she headed to Venezuela to study the infamous killer bees. Her life’s work centers on studying honeybee biology and behavior to understand ways to prevent viruses and disease from wiping them out.
In her popular TED talk, Dr. Spivak explains that of the almost 20,000 types of bees, honey bees are the stars. The live in highly complex social groupings, where they work to build their hives, maintain them, feed and protect each other collectively, something bees have been doing for over 100 million years. Due to a variety of factors, including bee health, we are losing about 30% of our bee population every year.
Spivak and her team at the University of Minnesota have bred a line of honey bees that are better able to defend themselves against disease and parasites, increasing their chances of survival. It is work like this that earned her a MacArthur Fellowship (the “genius” grants) in 2010.
Shortly after receiving the grant, Dr. Spivak started the Bee Squad, an organization that works with community beekeepers to promote conservation and bee health. Thanks to the warning bells rung by Dr. Spivak and others, beekeeping hobbyist numbers are rising throughout the world.
While she continues her work to save the bees, there is something we can all do at home. Planting decorative native blooming flowers in gardens, terraces and pots gives the bees a better chance to thrive.