Speaker 1: Are bees thriving, barely surviving or somewhere in between? On
Speaker 1: today's episode of Parts Pervilion, we pose that question before
Speaker 1: a live audience of scientists. Hello, and welcome back once
Speaker 1: again to Parts per Billion, the podcast from Bloomberg Environment.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, David Schultz. So you may recall that
Speaker 1: last year we came out with Business of Bees, a
Speaker 1: special six part podcast series that looked at everything going
Speaker 1: on with bees and other pollinators from all angles. If
Speaker 1: you haven't listened yet, definitely check it out. Business of
Speaker 1: Bees was hosted by Bloomberg Environments Adam Allenton, who covers
Speaker 1: agricultural issues here. Well, Adam just got back from Seattle,
Speaker 1: where he spoke about bees at the Annual Conference of
Speaker 1: the American Association for the Advancement of Science also known
Speaker 1: as Triple AS. This is a really big event not
Speaker 1: just for scientists from all over the world, but also
Speaker 1: companies and advocacy groups. So today we're bringing you Adams
Speaker 1: on stage discussion from Seattle about the current state of
Speaker 1: pollinators in the environment. Joining him is Peter Nelson, the
Speaker 1: director of a new documentary film called The Pollinators about
Speaker 1: commercial bee pollination, and Donna McDermott, a PhD student from
Speaker 1: Emory University studying the impact of pesticides on bumblebees. Let's
Speaker 1: head over to Seattle right now to hear the discussion. Peter,
Speaker 1: I think like me In my podcast, I spent you know,
Speaker 1: quite a bit of time speaking to commercial pollinators and beekeepers,
Speaker 1: and I was curious how you got exposed to this
Speaker 1: interesting community of people and what your connection was, and
Speaker 1: why you decided to make a film about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm a thirty plus year beekeeper backyard beekeeper in
Speaker 1: New York State, and then I'm also a cinematographer is
Speaker 1: my day job, and so it's kind of a combination
Speaker 1: of passions for me. Got me interested in the story
Speaker 1: of moving bees, particularly with these commercial migratory beekeepers. The
Speaker 1: movement of managed bees was a story that a lot
Speaker 1: of people didn't really know, and how important it is
Speaker 1: to our food system was not really, I think, as
Speaker 1: well understood as it could be. So I decided to
Speaker 1: take a crack at it. Indeed, it is quite the
Speaker 1: site to see how how these bees are moved around
Speaker 1: the country on these big semis, and they're put out
Speaker 1: in these fields and the you know, palettes of hives,
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds and hundreds and Donna, you know the
Speaker 1: same question to you, how did you get connected with
Speaker 1: bee research? And then I guess, what is it about
Speaker 1: the bumblebees that you study that makes them like an
Speaker 1: ideal candidate for this kind of animal behavior study. So
Speaker 1: as an undergraduate, I started doing research in an animal
Speaker 1: behavior lab and that was fascinating the different ways that
Speaker 1: insects have this incredibly sophisticated cognition even though they're so small,
Speaker 1: And I decided that I wanted to apply that work
Speaker 1: to a study system that had some relevance to human
Speaker 1: needs and human well being, which is pollinators. So bumblebees
Speaker 1: are actually a great intersection of both really cool complicated
Speaker 1: behavioral dynam and also really sophisticated cognition. So we can
Speaker 1: learn about how bees can count, or how bees identify
Speaker 1: one another and how that changes with the environment and Peter.
Speaker 1: It should be noted that you know, honey bees, in
Speaker 1: relation to all of the best species you know, close
Speaker 1: to twenty thousand bee species in the world, honey bees
Speaker 1: are really, you know, the only ones who are able
Speaker 1: to exist in these massive communities, these massive colonies, and
Speaker 1: then also produce honey in the quantities that they do.
Speaker 1: And so you know, historically humans and bees got together
Speaker 1: way back, and you know, even the connection between putting
Speaker 1: bees and orchards and things is you know, goes back
Speaker 1: hundreds of years. But tell me how this sort of
Speaker 1: modern pollination economy got started. Yeah, Well, it's important to
Speaker 1: note that honey bees are not native to North America,
Speaker 1: which is which is a key point. But the movement
Speaker 1: of bees around the country is really changed with the
Speaker 1: simplification of agriculture post World War Two. They've moved bees
Speaker 1: for many, many decades, but post World War Two they
Speaker 1: really started amplifying the increase and betterment of transportation, better roads,
Speaker 1: and then the change again the simplification of agriculture, the
Speaker 1: more chemically dependent agriculture has kind of led to this
Speaker 1: combination of things to move bees around the country in
Speaker 1: for pollination. And is there a particular crop that jump
Speaker 1: started this or what crops and specifically our honeybees sort
Speaker 1: of critical for well, right now as we sit here,
Speaker 1: there are over two million bee hives that are in
Speaker 1: almonds in California and Central Valley of California, and that's
Speaker 1: the biggest pollination event in the world, and the majority
Speaker 1: of those came from different parts of the country, from Florida,
Speaker 1: from Idaho, from North Dakota, and they're moved in on
Speaker 1: trucks for that pollination. And it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: biggest monoculture that is dependent upon honey bees that we have,
Speaker 1: But they are about four hundred crops common crops, fruits, vegetables,
Speaker 1: and nuts in our diet that are dependent or very
Speaker 1: very important to be pollinated by bees. The statistic that
Speaker 1: I've heard quoted quite often is that you know, one
Speaker 1: in three bites of food that we eat is dependent
Speaker 1: on pollination. But within those foods, you know, many of
Speaker 1: the fruits and vegetables and donna are bumblebees is overlapping
Speaker 1: on these agricultural landscapes in any way. Yeah, so bumblebees
Speaker 1: are actually commercially reared for greenhouse tomato pollination. They have
Speaker 1: a pollination technique where they vibrate their wings at the
Speaker 1: resonant frequency of a flower. This is the buzz pollination. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't study bees in the field. I study them
Speaker 1: in the lab, but I get my bees from the
Speaker 1: same company that supplies them to greenhouses. Well, that's an
Speaker 1: interesting jumping off point for you know, the ways that
Speaker 1: honey bees APIs malifera aren't the only species who pollinate
Speaker 1: flowers who are beneficial to agriculture. Are there other bees
Speaker 1: that are also acting in some of these fields, these
Speaker 1: orchards that are beneficial pollinators. Absolutely, There are thousands of
Speaker 1: bee species in North America, and many of them are
Speaker 1: more accurate or more persistent pollinators than honeybees on a
Speaker 1: range of different crops. So some of those can be managed,
Speaker 1: like the blue orchard mason bee or bumble bees, but
Speaker 1: many of them live in wild plant arrangements, live in
Speaker 1: the dirt, and come out by their own initiative. But
Speaker 1: what's related to that is what makes honeybees. And I'm
Speaker 1: not a totally honeybee person, but the honeybees have that
Speaker 1: unique ability to be able to scale up their population
Speaker 1: really quickly in the warm time of the year, and
Speaker 1: they have the ability to be moved in massive amounts
Speaker 1: without too much ill effect on them. So they kind
Speaker 1: of farmers, I think, look at them as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to bring in almost like an insurance policy to ensure pollination. Well,
Speaker 1: and you had mentioned almonds, which are you know as
Speaker 1: we speak, you know, in February is typically the time
Speaker 1: many bees throughout the country are not that active. So
Speaker 1: bees actually do not hibernate. They stay in their hives
Speaker 1: all year long, kind of buzzing and keeping warm. But
Speaker 1: we started moving them around and sort of waking them
Speaker 1: up because of almonds. And then after that, is it
Speaker 1: correct that other farmers found a sort of benefit in
Speaker 1: commercial pollination that they didn't know existed or that was
Speaker 1: sort of you know, you kind of hint at like
Speaker 1: an insurance policy. Talk a little bit about that if
Speaker 1: you could. Yeah, So once the almond pollination is done,
Speaker 1: we'll start there because it's the biggest and first big
Speaker 1: pollination of the year. Once that is done, those orchards
Speaker 1: become basically a food desert for bees for any bee,
Speaker 1: and so the beekeepers have to move the bees out
Speaker 1: somewhere else so that they can live, or they have
Speaker 1: to feed them, and so they've sort of worked to
Speaker 1: find other crops that bees will work with. So right
Speaker 1: after pollination of the almonds, then the beekeepers will move
Speaker 1: of them off to cherries, to apples, to plums, to
Speaker 1: citrus in different parts of the country, and they create
Speaker 1: these roots around the country that where the bees are moved,
Speaker 1: and some of them go directly into honey production, but
Speaker 1: a lot of them get moved into other pollinations, or
Speaker 1: there's blueberries or cranberries. I think something a lot of
Speaker 1: people might be interested to hear is that these commercial
Speaker 1: pollination operations, you know, you know thousands of hives, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't even harvest the honey in most cases, that's
Speaker 1: kind of they leave it in the hives for the
Speaker 1: bees as feed. Was there a time when commercial beekeeping
Speaker 1: stopped being about honey and started being about pollination. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the commercial beekeepers have a dual revenue stream,
Speaker 1: so they have the pollination services, which is the majority
Speaker 1: for many of them, sixty percent or more of their
Speaker 1: annual income, and then forty percent for honey production. Depending
Speaker 1: on the beekeeper, some of them go after almos, will
Speaker 1: go directly in honey production. Other ones will go and
Speaker 1: do secondary or third pollinations or fourth pollination, so they
Speaker 1: do the kind of it depends on the bee keeper
Speaker 1: and who their clients are and where they live. But
Speaker 1: like almond honey, I asked people, I said, why almond honey?
Speaker 1: I've never even heard of almond, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really taste very good, so they don't really
Speaker 1: sell it, but they use that to feed the bees.
Speaker 1: And you had mentioned this earlier, Peter, the fact that
Speaker 1: these bee hives which are put in orchards are then
Speaker 1: moved later on, and Donna, I assume that is obviously
Speaker 1: not true for the native bees who are living in
Speaker 1: these ecosystems. The farmers may wait to spray until the
Speaker 1: commercial bees are out of the field, but if you're
Speaker 1: a ground nesting bee, maybe you're out of luck. Right.
Speaker 1: They might be nesting in the fields themselves. And because
Speaker 1: of that, obviously, like many of these bees are exposed
Speaker 1: to proesticides and chemicals, the honey bees aren't. And is
Speaker 1: there anything that we can do to manage against that
Speaker 1: or is it hard to maintain a ecosystem where native
Speaker 1: bees have enough food to eat agricultural landscape. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the first challenge is identifying how many native bees
Speaker 1: are exposed to these pesticides and what the effects of
Speaker 1: that is the issue with many native bees in terms
Speaker 1: of research and understanding how to help with be conservation
Speaker 1: in that way is that they're really hard to find,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to find their nests. Honey bees
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a couple of days, but you
Speaker 1: can find where honey bees are coming from, but you
Speaker 1: can't do that with native bees. It's been explained to
Speaker 1: me that, I mean, in some sense, honey bees are
Speaker 1: almost like livestock. You know, we shelter them, we feed them,
Speaker 1: we take care of them, we build structures to put
Speaker 1: them in. You know, they're kind of like an agricultural animal,
Speaker 1: and we can grow their population as we need to. Peters,
Speaker 1: is that kind of the distinction that you see between
Speaker 1: native bees and honey bees? Oh, definitely. Yeah. The USDA
Speaker 1: considers honey bees livestock, and so it is interesting. And
Speaker 1: I think that you know, the honey bees, the beekeepers
Speaker 1: have the ability to as you say, they feed them
Speaker 1: and take care of them and treat them for diseases,
Speaker 1: but the native pollinators really can't move away from that
Speaker 1: chemical exposure or the habitat loss through agriculture that affects
Speaker 1: a lot of the native bees. I think that's a
Speaker 1: really important thing. I think this issue of the role
Speaker 1: of pollinators and bees in ecology and environmental issues actually
Speaker 1: really was triggered and came out during the colony collapse.
Speaker 1: Scare of you know around two thousand and six, two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, I know that's when I sort of
Speaker 1: started hearing about bees a lot in relation to the environment.
Speaker 1: And so I'm curious, Donna, what if anything has really
Speaker 1: changed since that time. Have we learned more about the
Speaker 1: link between either pesticides or agriculture and colony collapse? You
Speaker 1: know what causes it is? It's still an issue today
Speaker 1: from what I understand, honey bee losses over winter between
Speaker 1: seasons are still happening and at quite high levels. But
Speaker 1: I think one of the best things that we got
Speaker 1: out of the colony collapse disorder, one of the silver
Speaker 1: linings was understanding that honeybees are a great indicator species
Speaker 1: because people are checking their numbers so often, but really
Speaker 1: they're only the tip of the iceberg for understanding how
Speaker 1: these changes in our environment are changing lots of different species.
Speaker 1: And we're going to pause things right there for a
Speaker 1: brief moment to bring you this message. Okay, thank you,
Speaker 1: and now back to the podcast. And it should be noted,
Speaker 1: I mean, the colony collapse scare was an environmental issue
Speaker 1: specific to APIs malifera to honeybees, but that isn't to
Speaker 1: say that there isn't maybe some overlap between issues that
Speaker 1: impact honeybees and issues that impact native bees, right, Peter,
Speaker 1: would you say that there's some synergy that exists between
Speaker 1: the species that make them, you know, not entirely different
Speaker 1: from one another. Oh, totally think that. You know, the
Speaker 1: as Donna said that, if you can look at it
Speaker 1: as a benefit, it was a money that came into
Speaker 1: pollinator studies as a result of the colony class, which
Speaker 1: scared everybody. And is there's still losses. There are still
Speaker 1: high these beekeepers. Depending on the state. I think the
Speaker 1: you know, their losses can go up to sixty percent.
Speaker 1: I think the average was just under thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: last year for an annual loss, which is pretty devastating
Speaker 1: to think about what business can support that. But it's
Speaker 1: also it's led to, I think, to a general awareness
Speaker 1: about not only honey bees, but all the native bees.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like there's sort of a gateway insect
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways for many people. And I
Speaker 1: think that's it's kind of the honey bees are easy
Speaker 1: to study because they are movable and their population does.
Speaker 1: It is much harder to get those native bees and
Speaker 1: figure out where they live and how they because their
Speaker 1: life cycle is very different as solitary bees or semi
Speaker 1: social bees like bumble bees, it's much harder to study them.
Speaker 1: And the threats that are aligned against bees are it's
Speaker 1: not just pesticides. This is something we've learned about colony
Speaker 1: collapse that it could be multiple threats, pesticides, habitat loss,
Speaker 1: and also invasive species like the varroa mite, an invasive
Speaker 1: mite from Asia that has really devastated commercial beekeepers specifically.
Speaker 1: Is there a connection at all between these different issues
Speaker 1: that may be explaining some of these higher than normal
Speaker 1: losses because in the eighties beekeepers told me, you know,
Speaker 1: it was normal to see ten percent annual die off
Speaker 1: and now we're seeing upwards of forty in some cases.
Speaker 1: So could there be a link in that case? Well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned habitat loss, and I think that that must
Speaker 1: be huge in terms of both loss of places for
Speaker 1: bees to forage, so wildflowers and things like that, and
Speaker 1: also places for bees to make nests, particularly these wild
Speaker 1: bees that nest in the ground, or nest in rotting logs,
Speaker 1: or nest in you know, plant stems. Those are the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that a lot of people clean up
Speaker 1: out of their and Peter, same question for you Veraes.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming since you sort of spent this time so
Speaker 1: much time with commercial beekeepers, that was something they must
Speaker 1: have talked a lot about. Yeah, every beekeeper has a
Speaker 1: problem with vera might unless you live in Australia, and
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a big problem for all
Speaker 1: beekeepers and if you don't treat for it, you're basically
Speaker 1: out of business. And what and what do the mites do?
Speaker 1: I mean do they kill the bees? Out right? They
Speaker 1: feed out the fat body of the bees, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of like they sort of suck the liver out,
Speaker 1: if you will, almost of the of the bees. And
Speaker 1: so it weakens them. And if you don't treat them,
Speaker 1: if they get to a certain level. And they also
Speaker 1: transmit viruses, which is very important. They transmit viruses to
Speaker 1: the bees, and so that when when bees are exposed
Speaker 1: to pesticides which maybe weaken their immune system and then
Speaker 1: they're exposed to viruses. Plus the feeding on the of
Speaker 1: the veram and poor nutrition which is another factor of
Speaker 1: a diversity of nutrition for pollenant for bees is really important.
Speaker 1: So all those things conspire and it creates this sort
Speaker 1: of feedback loop that is really difficult for bees to handle.
Speaker 1: And here we are taking in some cases, you know,
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the commercial beehives in the country and
Speaker 1: putting them all together in one spot, kind of creating
Speaker 1: the ideal way to spread a virus, right, very true.
Speaker 1: Something that scares me is like when you have one
Speaker 1: species that we're dependent upon in one place at one time.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen that with other things with potatoes
Speaker 1: famously in Ireland, bananas in the past. So it's really
Speaker 1: kind of makes me nervous. Donna. I know you're not
Speaker 1: an environmental toxicologist, but talk a bit if you could,
Speaker 1: about the difficulty of sake treating for mites and you know,
Speaker 1: trying to in a sense kill a bug on a bug.
Speaker 1: It must be very difficult to do. Sure well, and
Speaker 1: you know there are treatments for varroamites, but I've been
Speaker 1: told quite difficult to kill them outright, Yeah, totally. It's
Speaker 1: they've there's some new work that's I just read about
Speaker 1: that they're working on the gut biome on vera might
Speaker 1: which looks very encouraging. But it's interesting to know that
Speaker 1: the veroa is a mite that jumped from one species
Speaker 1: of honeybee, the APIs serana, onto APIs malifera, which is
Speaker 1: an Asian thing. So the Asian serrana has dealt with
Speaker 1: vera might for a long time and it sort of
Speaker 1: co evolved and learned how to deal with it, and
Speaker 1: Verroa malifera, the European honeybe is still trying to figure
Speaker 1: that out, and so they're not really prepared or they
Speaker 1: haven't gotten there yet how to do it, and they're
Speaker 1: working on it with genetics that make bees that are
Speaker 1: better at grooming off the veroa mite and things like that,
Speaker 1: but it takes some time. And you had mentioned viruses obviously, Donna,
Speaker 1: if a bee is weakened by, say, a virus, does
Speaker 1: that make it more susceptible than to the impacts of pesticides?
Speaker 1: Could you talk a bit about that, Oh, sure, in
Speaker 1: the same way that if a human is weakened by
Speaker 1: a virus, they maybe are not necessarily as good at
Speaker 1: collecting food for themselves or overcoming a particularly cold warning.
Speaker 1: And in terms of pesticides and agriculture, there is a
Speaker 1: big shift right maybe about you know, in the last
Speaker 1: twenty years away from older insecticides. The organophosphate insecticides which
Speaker 1: were quite toxic not only to insects but also to
Speaker 1: some mammals, to this newer generation of systemic insecticides called neonicottonoids.
Speaker 1: Could you talk about how neonicotinoids or neonics differ in
Speaker 1: their motive action compared to some of these older pesticides.
Speaker 1: So these neonicotinoids are doing a more specialized thing in
Speaker 1: the insect brain, which is really effective in getting rid
Speaker 1: of insects and as you said, less effective in killing
Speaker 1: other animals. But even if these pesticides have a lot
Speaker 1: of sublethal effects on bees and on other insects that
Speaker 1: are harder to pin down, right, So sublethal effects is
Speaker 1: not killing the bee outright, You don't see these massive
Speaker 1: die offs that you know outside of beehives, but maybe
Speaker 1: impacting their ability to sort of navigate or is that
Speaker 1: what talk about how your research is trying to assess
Speaker 1: the impact of neoniks specifically on be behavior. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I study bumblebees, and bumblebees do a thing where if
Speaker 1: they're foraging, they look for what flowers other bees are visiting,
Speaker 1: and they follow that social queue to go visit the flower.
Speaker 1: But when bees, when I expose bees to neonicotinoid pesticides
Speaker 1: biomathox sam Specifically, they totally ignored social cues from other bees,
Speaker 1: which takes away, you know, a handy shortcut that they
Speaker 1: might otherwise be using to identify the best flowers and
Speaker 1: peter these neon a contonoids. It should be noted that
Speaker 1: like these are the most common class of insecticides and
Speaker 1: agriculture today, and I mean there's been they've been called
Speaker 1: the bee killing pesticide by some people. The people at
Speaker 1: the at the pesticide and chemical companies would disagree. They
Speaker 1: would say that the way these chemicals are applied is
Speaker 1: actually a much more targeted way of applying pasticide since
Speaker 1: in many cases they're actually coated right on the seed
Speaker 1: that seeds planted in the ground. Does that negate the
Speaker 1: impact of these chemicals on bees, Well, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a different thing. I mean, because one thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: about the neonix is they're safer for humans to handle.
Speaker 1: It's one advantage of them. But they also work systemically,
Speaker 1: so they go through the vascular system of the plant,
Speaker 1: and so if a pest bites on the plant, it
Speaker 1: would pick up the neonicket to noids and theoretically die.
Speaker 1: The problem for bees is that it goes into the
Speaker 1: nectar and into the pollen, and so the bees pick
Speaker 1: it up. Even if it's on corn, that corn blows
Speaker 1: onto other stuff and bees do use corn pollen, and
Speaker 1: so they pick up sometimes lethal doses and sometimes sublethal doses,
Speaker 1: often sublethal doses. But the application on coated seeds is
Speaker 1: really important because that's not considered a pesticide application. So
Speaker 1: if it's coated on the seed before it's put in
Speaker 1: the ground, and that's interesting, and so the dust that
Speaker 1: comes off of that during the application sometimes can lead
Speaker 1: to you know, byproducts because it's they're very lethal for
Speaker 1: bees and even you know, in high amounts. But the
Speaker 1: sublethal does is something that's really interesting and also much
Speaker 1: more persistent in the environment itself. Even if you plant
Speaker 1: it below the ground, Donna, these chemicals are getting into
Speaker 1: the water table, into neighboring plants, and into the soil
Speaker 1: where they could potentially come into contact with native bees. Again,
Speaker 1: this is a threat that they're exposed to sort of
Speaker 1: on a consistent basis, right if they're getting into the nectar,
Speaker 1: if they're getting into the pollen. In the time, we
Speaker 1: have left. I've wanted to sort of touch on policies
Speaker 1: that may help us protect bees. You know, in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: the EPA listed or added the rusty patch bumble bee,
Speaker 1: the first bee was that was added to the endangered
Speaker 1: species list, which is kind of a big, big moment
Speaker 1: for bee conservation. But bumble bees are quite different, and
Speaker 1: say a gray wolf in a national park. You know,
Speaker 1: they're everywhere. So are there things we can do to
Speaker 1: help provide the habitat they need? Sure? Actually, I was
Speaker 1: just talking to a good friend of mine who is
Speaker 1: an environmental consultant, and since the rusty patch bumble bee
Speaker 1: was placed on the Endangered Species list, that's now a
Speaker 1: species that she needs to look out for when consulting
Speaker 1: with companies that want to do construction. But it's such
Speaker 1: a different animal from most other species on the list
Speaker 1: that you know, they don't know how to find the
Speaker 1: rusty patch bumblebee, or if they do find it, how
Speaker 1: big of an area that limits construction on? Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's not a simple question of establishing a preserve
Speaker 1: and then helping that species sort of slowly grow, right,
Speaker 1: Peter Like, Unlike a lot of environmental issues, which seem
Speaker 1: very big and overwhelming at times. Helping bees is something
Speaker 1: we can all do, right, you know, Is there a
Speaker 1: way you can do that on your own property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many things that people can do, and you know,
Speaker 1: personal use of pesticides and fungicides on your lawn, getting
Speaker 1: rid of your lawn is a huge thing, because that
Speaker 1: is a monoculture, right, It's the biggest monoculture I think
Speaker 1: we have in North America. And so you could introduce
Speaker 1: other species like clover and time flowering time into a
Speaker 1: lawn to make that better. Getting involved in policy on
Speaker 1: a state level is important Washington where we are right now,
Speaker 1: as a pollinator protection for habitat, for establishing native plants
Speaker 1: and establishing those floral resources even if they're weeds, which
Speaker 1: is really important. Herbicides are a big factor because when
Speaker 1: they spray the side of a road, you're killing forage
Speaker 1: and therefore good nutrition for bees by killing what is weeds,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's really something everybody can do about this.
Speaker 1: In fact, that seems to be the case in a
Speaker 1: lot of cities now are becoming these pollinator refuges right
Speaker 1: downa where weedy areas and meetings and so forth are
Speaker 1: being converted into the habitat. Yeah, so people become interested
Speaker 1: in making corridors so like a string of gardens that
Speaker 1: bees can move along, or patches that support be nesting
Speaker 1: and be foraging. We're almost out of our time here,
Speaker 1: but you know, a lot of people are into beekeeping
Speaker 1: and backyard beekeeping. But it's just the thing I find
Speaker 1: that's so interesting is the ways that bees, honeybees and
Speaker 1: native bees are both these really charismatic animals that have
Speaker 1: these very fascinating life cycles, and how the two are
Speaker 1: kind of doing a lot of the heavy pr work,
Speaker 1: if you will, for some of these issues imp impacting insects. Well,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to thank you both so much for
Speaker 1: coming here and talking to me about this. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That was Adam Allenton speaking in Seattle at the annual
Speaker 1: meeting of Triple As. If you're into this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: definitely check out Business of Bees, our six part podcast
Speaker 1: breaking down everything going on with pollinators. We also have
Speaker 1: much more about pollinators and lots of other topics at
Speaker 1: our website News dot Bloomberg, Environment dot com. If you
Speaker 1: want to chat with us on social media use the
Speaker 1: hashtag parts per B. That hashtag, once again is parts
Speaker 1: per B. Today's episode of Pars Pavillion was produced by
Speaker 1: myself along with Marissa Horn, Jessica Coombs, and Josh Block.
Speaker 1: Music for this episode is a Message by Jazzar and
Speaker 1: It's That Simple by Frank Novon, Peter Bento and Jim Harbor.
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Speaker 1: The cases and controversies is all about the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, well, I agree you serious. We
Speaker 1: sit down with leading practitioners and scholars to break down
Speaker 1: these cases. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up
Speaker 1: so I didn't have to. But that's interesting. I guess
Speaker 1: my imagination is running wild. Tune in every week for
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