Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Environment. This is the Business of Bees, a
Speaker 1: pop up podcast about the humble honeybee and the outsized
Speaker 1: role it plays in our economy. The business of bees
Speaker 1: is quite good, kind of like the panda, aren't they of?
Speaker 1: Kind of inverstbrate conservation. It's a big enough difference that
Speaker 1: without them there would be really no point in trying
Speaker 1: to farm almonds out here. In fact, these days, about
Speaker 1: one in three bites of food you eat wouldn't be
Speaker 1: possible without commercial bee pollination. You know, they'll go from
Speaker 1: almonds to plums, two cherries to apples, two wine crops
Speaker 1: to pitt fruits, to cotton, to lima beans to watermelons,
Speaker 1: and then their season is old. As important as bees
Speaker 1: have become for farming, there's also increasing signs that bees
Speaker 1: are in trouble. Adult bees leave the hive and never
Speaker 1: come back, leaving the babies to Researchers blame pesticides, disease,
Speaker 1: and parasites. In the decades since colony collapse disorder started
Speaker 1: making headlines across the country, bees are still dying in
Speaker 1: record numbers. This last year I had the most losses
Speaker 1: I have ever had in trying to track down answers
Speaker 1: to why this is still happening. We spoke with people
Speaker 1: at every corner of the honeybee ecosystem. I can't sleep
Speaker 1: at night a lot of times. You have to be
Speaker 1: paranoid to be a beekeeper these days. And we asked
Speaker 1: them big questions about things like is the way we're
Speaker 1: raising bees actually hurting them? We've put these colonies right
Speaker 1: next to each other, and we've sort of rewarded these
Speaker 1: parasites for their worst possible instincts. And after years and
Speaker 1: years of research, what have we found out about the
Speaker 1: connections between pesticides and be health? Literally thousands of studies
Speaker 1: suggesting that one way or another of these chemicals are
Speaker 1: having a really significant negative impact on our environment. And
Speaker 1: that has to be to way to grow food than
Speaker 1: applying incredibly persistent neurotoxins. If you, like us, find yourself
Speaker 1: fascinated by bees and concerned about what's happening with pollinators
Speaker 1: in our environment, take out your phone right now and subscribe.
Speaker 1: I'm Adam Ellington back to you very soon.