Honeybees from Cape Cod to Mars | Noah Wilson-Rich | TEDxProvincetown

Before sending bees into space, we must shift our perspective away from why bees are dying, toward why they are surviving: Habitat diversity. Engaging speaker and bee ecologist Noah Wilson-Rich uses bee hives, honey DNA and citizen science to capture data about our environment, our botanical mix and ways to take those lessons around the world and all the way to Mars. Noah Wilson-Rich, ecologist, unveils new research about honey DNA and how bees might be a required part of living on other planets.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Pollinator decline is a grand challenge
in the modern world.

Of the 200,000 species of pollinators,

honeybees are the most well-understood,

partly because of
our long history with them,

dating back 8,000 years ago

to our cave drawings
in what's now modern-day Spain,

and yet, we know that
this indicator species is dying off.

Last year alone, we lost 40%
of all beehives in the United States,

and that number is even higher
in areas with harsh winters,

like here in Massachusetts,

where we lost 47% of beehives
in one year alone.

Can you imagine if we lost
half of our people last year?

And if those were
the food-producing people?

And I predict that in 10 years,

we will lose our bees.

If not for the work of beekeepers
replacing these dead beehives,

we would be without foods
that we rely upon:

Fruits, vegetables,
crunchy almonds and nuts,

tart apples, sour lemons,

even the food that
our cattle relies upon to eat -

hay and alfalfa, gone -

causing global hunger, economic collapse,

a total moral crisis across Earth.

And it's going to take an effort
from every single one of you here

to become what we call
"citizen scientists,"

to activate all the things
that you're probably already doing -

Yes, planting flowers, getting beehives,

making bee hotels, habitats
for those lesser known pollinators,

but beyond that, going a step further,

and adding a data
collection element to it.

So, I'm going to show you
how to do this here today,

and I'm going to show you how
when my team shifted our perspective

away from bees that were dying

and toward maps and looking at
hot spots for bee health,

and shifting our perspective
away from honey

as just a sweet, sticky delicious food,

but to a source of information
that contains a blueprint

for healthy habitat suspended in time
in the only food that doesn't go bad.

That's where we find the hope

and that's what we'll do together today.

Now, I first started keeping bees
here in Cape Cod,

right after I finished my doctorate
in honeybee immunology.

(Laughter)

It was -

(Applause)

So, imagine getting such a degree
in a good economy -

(Laughter)

And it was 2009 - the great recession.

And I was onto something -

I knew that I could find out
how to improve bee health.

And that's when word started to spread
and I came here to Cape Cod

and I realized that this deep connection

that people have to the land here
is so true and long-standing -

probably because there's so little
of the land that is here,

we're connected to it.

And so the community on Cape Cod,
here in Provincetown,

was right for citizen science,

people looking for ways
to get involved and to help.

And so, we met with people
in coffee shops.

A wonderful woman named Natalie
got eight beehives at her home in Truro,

and she introduced us
to her friend Valerie,

who let us set up 60 beehives at
an abandoned tennis court on her property.

And so we started testing
vaccines for bees.

We were starting to look at probiotics.

We called it bee yogurt.

Ways to make bees healthier.

And our citizen science project
started to take off.

Word started to spread
and people started to think,

"Wow, I can get bees of my own
and their little data factory,

that's great!"

Meanwhile, back in my apartment here,
I was a bit nervous about my landlord.

I figured I should tell him
what we were doing.

(Laughter)

I was terrified.

I really thought I was going
to get an eviction notice

which really was the last thing
we needed, right?

I must have caught him
on a good day, though,

because when I told him what
we were doing and how we started

our non-profit urban
beekeeping laboratory,

he said, "That's great!
Let's get a beehive in the back alley."

I was shocked!

I was completely surprised.

I mean, instead of getting
an eviction notice,

we got another data point.

And in the back alley of this image,

what you see here, this hidden beehive,

that beehive produced
more honey that first year

than we had ever experienced
in any beehive we had managed.

Over a hundred pounds of honey
that one year alone.

We didn't know what to do with it.

I mean, we were filling up
pickle jars with the stuff.

And since honey is the only food
that never goes bad,

the residents and tenants
in the community

are still enjoying that honey today.

It shifted our research
perspective forever.

It changed our research question away

from how do we save
the dead and dying bees

to where are bees doing best.

And we started to be able
to put maps together,

looking at all of these
citizen science beehives

from people who had beehives
at home decks, gardens, business rooftops.

And we started to engage the public,

and the more people who got
these little data points,

the more accurate our maps became.

And so when you're sitting here thinking,
"How can I get involved?",

you might think about
the story of my friend Fred,

who's a commercial real estate developer

and he was thinking the same thing.

But even if you own a business,
you can be a citizen scientist too.

He was at a meeting
thinking about what he could do

for tenant relations
and sustainability at scale.

And while he was having a tea break,

he put honey into his tea
and noticed, on the honey jar,

a message about corporate sustainability
from the host company of that meeting

and it sparked an idea.

He came back to his office, an email,
a phone call later, and boom!

We went national together.

We put dozens of beehives
on the rooftops of their skyscrapers

across nine cities nationwide.

Nine years later -

(Applause)

Nine years later we have raised
over a million dollars for bee research.

We have a thousand beehives
as little data points across the country,

18 states and counting,

where we have created paying jobs
for local beekeepers - 65 of them -

to manage beehives
in their own communities,

to connect with people,
everyday people who are now data points,

together, making a difference.

So, in order to explain
what's actually been saving bees,

where they're thriving,

I need to first tell you
what's been killing them.

The top three killers of bees
are agricultural chemicals,

such as pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides;

diseases of bees, of which there are many;

and habitat loss.

So, what we did is we looked at our maps

and we identified areas
where bees were thriving,

and this was mostly in cities, we found.

Data are now showing
that urban beehives produce more honey

than rural beehives and suburban beehives.

Urban beehives have a longer lifespan
than rural and suburban beehives.

And bees in the city are more biodiverse;

there are more bee species in urban areas.

(Laughter)

Right?

"Why is this?"

That was our question.

So, we started with these 3 killers
of bees and we flipped it.

Which of these is different in the cities?

So, the first one: Pesticides.

We partnered up with the
Harvard School of Public Health.

We shared our data with them,
we collected samples

from our citizen science beehives
at people's homes and business rooftops.

And we looked at pesticides levels

and we thought there'd be less pesticides
in areas where bees are doing better.

That's not the case.

What we found here in our study
is that the orange bars are Boston,

and we thought those bars
would be the lowest,

there would be the lowest level
of pesticides and, in fact,

there are the most
pesticides in the cities.

So, the pesticide hypothesis
for what saving bees,

less pesticides in cities,

is not it.

And this is very typical
of my life as a scientist.

Any time I've had a hypothesis,

not only is it not supported,
but the opposite is true.

(Laughter)

Which is still
an interesting finding, right?

We moved on.

The disease hypothesis.

We looked at diseases
all over our beehives

and what we found in similar study
to this one with the North Carolina State:

There's no difference between disease and
bees in urban, suburban and rural areas,

diseases are everywhere;
bees are sick and dying.

In fact, there were more
diseases of bees in cities.

This was from Raleigh, North Carolina.

So again, my hypothesis
was not supported,

the opposite was true.

We're moving on.

(Laughter)

The habitat hypothesis.

This said that areas where bees
are thriving have a better habitat.

More flowers, right?

But we didn't know how to test this.

So, I had a really interesting meeting
and an idea sparked

with my friend and colleague,
Anne Madden, fellow TED speaker,

and we thought about genomics,
kind of like AncestryDNA or 23andMe -

Have you done these?

You know, you spit in the tube
and you find out, "I'm German," right?

(Laughter)

We developed this for honey, right?

And so we have a sample of honey

and we look at all the plant DNA
and we find out, "I'm Sumac."

(Laughter)

And that's what we found here
in Provincetown,

and so, for the first time ever
I'm able to report to you

what type of honey is from right here
in our own community.

Honey DNA, a genomics test.

Spring honey in Provincetown
is from Privet.

What's Privet?

Hedges.

What's the message?

Don't trim your hedges to save the bees.

(Laughter)

Right?

I know we're getting crunchy here,
and it's controversial,

so before you throw your tomatoes,

let's move to the summer honey,
which is water-lily honey.

If you have honey from Provincetown,
right here in the summer,

you're eating water-lily juice.

In the fall, sumac honey.

We're learning about our food
for the first time ever

and now we are able to report,
if you need to do any city planning,

what are good things to plant,

what do we know the bees are going to
that's good for your garden.

What's more interesting for us
is deeper in the data.

So, if you are from the Caribbean
and you want to explore your heritage -

Bahamian honey is from the Laurel family;
cinnamon and avocado flavors.

But what's more interesting
is 85 different plant species

in one teaspoon of honey.

That's the measure that we want.

The big data.

Indian honey.

That is oak.

Every sample we tested from India is oak

and that's a 172 different flavours
in one taste of Indian honey.

Provincetown honey goes
from a 116 plants in the spring

to over 200 plants in the summer.

These are the numbers that we need
to test the habitat hypothesis

in another citizen science approach.

You find out about your food
and we get some interesting data.

So, we're finding out now
that in rural areas

there are a 150 plants on average
in a sample of honey.

That's a measure for rural.

Suburban areas, what might you think?

Do they have less or more plants
in suburban areas with lawns -

that look nice for people
but they're terrible for pollinators?

Suburbs have very low plant diversity,

so if you have a beautiful lawn,

well, good for you, but you can do more.

You can have a patch of your lawn
that's a wildflower medow

to diversify your habitat
to improve pollinator health.

Anybody can do this.

Urban areas have the most habitat.

The best habitat they have -

As you can see here,
over 200 different plants.

We have, for the first time ever,
support for the habitat hypothesis.

We also now know
how we can work with cities.

The city of Boston has eight times
better habitat than its nearby suburbs.

And so when we work with governments,
we can scale this.

You might think on my tombstone it'll say,
"Here lies Noah, plant a flower," right?

(Laughter)

It's exhausting after all of this, right?

But when we scale together,

when we go to governments
and city planners -

Like, in Boston, the honey
is mostly Linden trees,

and we say, "If a dead tree needs
to be replaced, consider Linden."

So, when we take this information
to governments, we can do amazing things.

This is a rooftop from Fred's company.

We can plant those things
on top of rooftops worldwide

to start restoring habitat
and securing food systems.

We've worked with the World Bank,

and the presidential delegation
from the country of Haiti.

We've worked with wonderful graduate
students at Yale University in Ethiopia,

and in these countries we can add value
to their honey by identifying what it is,

but informing the people
of what to plant to restore their habitats

and secure their food systems.

But what I think is even more important
is when we think about natural disasters.

For the first time, we now know
how we can have a baseline measure

of any habitat before
it might be destroyed.

Think about your hometown.

What risks does
the environment pose to it?

This is how we're going to save
Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

We now have a baseline measure of honey,

honey DNA from before and after the storm.

We started in Humacao.

This is right where
Hurricane Maria made landfall.

And we know what plants to replace,
and in what quantity and where,

by triangulating honey DNA samples.

You might even think about right here,
the beautiful land that connected us,

that primed all the
citizen science to begin with.

The erosion, the winter storms
that are getting more violent every year.

What are we going to do about this,
our precious land?

While looking at honey DNA,

we can see what plants
are good for pollinators

that have deep roots
that can secure the land.

And together, everybody can participate
and the solution fits in a teaspoon.

If your hometown might get swept away
or destroyed by a natural disaster,

we now have a blueprint suspended in time
for how to restore that on Earth,

or perhaps even in a greenhouse on Mars.

I know it sounds crazy,
but think about this,

a new Provincetown,

a new hometown,

a place that might be familiar

that's also good for pollinators
for a stable food system,

when we're thinking about the future.

Now, together we know what's saving bees:

By planting diverse habitats.

We know how bees are going to save us:

By being barometers
for environmental health,

by being blueprints,
sources of information,

little data factories, suspended in time.

And now you all know exactly
what you can do as citizen scientists

to get beehives.

Thank you.

(Applause)