We are halfway through the second season of Walls Plus One and when this episode is done we are going to take a little break for the holiday season. We’ll be back in the new year with the second half of the conversations we’ve been having about our changing climate, the ways it’s impacting Louisiana, and how we can move forward in a more equitable way.
But before we go we’re going to sting you with some facts about our bee population. If you’re like me, you probably remember hearing a lot about colony collapse back in the mid-aughts. And if you’re like me, it probably gave you a good scare.
Bees are a super important part of our modern agriculture system as well as being a general indicator of the overall health of our environment.
Now for the good news. The EPA reports that Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has dropped from roughly 60% of total hives lost in 2008 to 31.1% in 2013.
But we’re not out of the woods yet and there’s a lot of work being done to try and save our bees. Today we’re going to talk to two women who are part of the battle.
Along with her day job in the medical field, Jennifer Bernard is a backyard beekeeper.
Honeybees are not native to the United States, but they were brought to North America by the early settlers. But the practice of collecting honey and beekeeping is a practice that goes all the way back to the stone-ages. Seriously, there are cave paintings!
The rise of Colony Collapse Disorder has actually increased the number of hobby beekeepers. Small hives started popping up all over the country, especially in our urban areas. And there are some really great health reasons to encourage that practice.
Next we go much deeper into the hive with Dr. Lanie Bilodeau, who is the research leader at the USDA Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge.
By the way, Lanie is going to mention some concepts we explored in Episode 4, called Our Farms.
The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the USDA’s chief scientific in-house research agency. The scientists and researchers are finding solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day. For example, they are responsible for seedless grapes and wrinkle-free cotton.
Lanie and her team are focused on creating healthier bees, which is largely dependent on genomics. Basically, they’re identifying markers that will help them fight against the pests that are killing them.
Recently, our artist in residence Ashli Ognelodh expressed her appreciation for nature with five mural designs for BREC, the East Baton Rouge Parish Park system. One of those murals has a bee as its central focus!
I talked with Ashli about her art and the organizations she’s worked with over the years. She has some very real and very beautiful things to say about the Walls Project and the business of art.
Supporting artists is the founding mission of the Walls Project, but over the last years that mission has grown so much larger. From crop fields to server farms… we use the creative mind to find solutions to our social problems.
By listening to this podcast, you’re now part of that mission. Please help share the message by telling your friends about Walls Plus One. We’re on all the social platforms and our website is walls-plus-one-dot-org.
We’ll be back in 2023 for the second half of season 2.
Additional Links
Louisiana Beekeepers Association
Terms
We’re building on this list with every episode. Below are the terms related to this episode. CLICK HERE to see the full glossary of terms.
Apiary - colonies, hives, and other equipment assembled in one location for beekeeping operations; also known as a bee yard.
Balling the Queen - If a newly introduced queen is not protected during the introduction period, it is almost guaranteed that the colony will kill her. The worker bees will approach her aggressively –quickly grabbing onto her and not letting go. First, one bee starts this behavior, then another, and another – before long, honeybees will surround the queen, grabbing on and not letting go. This is known as balling. When a newly introduced queen is being balled, she is in trouble. The worker bees will grab at her body parts, and very possibly, sting her to death. This is why queen honeybees are almost always introduced to a new colony while inside some sort of cage.
Bee Bread - a fermented mixture of collected pollen and nectar or honey, deposited in the cells of a comb. Pollen is the primary pollen source for bees and is used especially by the nurse bees to produce royal jelly to feed the young larvae.
Brood - immature bees that have not yet emerged from their cells Brood can be in the form of eggs, larvae, or pupae of different ages.
Brood chamber - the part of the hive in which the brood is reared; may include one or more hive bodies and the combs within.
Colony Collapse Disorder - Colony Collapse Disorder is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and the queen. Once thought to pose a major long term threat to bees, reported cases of CCD have declined substantially over the last five years. The number of hives that do not survive over the winter months – the overall indicator for bee health – has maintained an average of about 28.7 percent since 2006-2007 but dropped to 23.1 percent for the 2014-2015 winter. While winter losses remain somewhat high, the number of those losses attributed to CCD has dropped from roughly 60 percent of total hives lost in 2008 to 31.1 percent in 2013; in initial reports for 2014-2015 losses, CCD is not mentioned. CLICK HERE to learn more.
Genomics - is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes.
Social apoptosis - Apoptosis is the term used by cell biologists to describe a series of events that are also called programmed cell death seen, for example, in virus-infected cells. If a cell detects that it is virus infected, a cascade of signaling events result in it undergoing apoptosis (it dies), so preventing the infecting virus from replicating properly and spreading to neighboring cells in the organism. Social apoptosis is a similar process, the death of an infected – or infested – member of the superorganism, the honey bee colony. CLICK HERE to learn more.
Swarm - a large number of worker bees, drones, and usually the old queen that leaves the parent colony to establish a new colony.
Swarming - the natural process of propagating a colony of honey bees.
Winter cluster - a ball-like arrangement of adult bees within the hive during winter.
Why are the bees dying?