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Pollinator decline is a grand challenge
in the modern world.

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Of the 200,000 species of pollinators,

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honeybees are the most well-understood,

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partly because of
our long history with them,

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dating back 8,000 years ago


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

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

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

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

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like here in Massachusetts,

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

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

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And if those were
the food-producing people?

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And I predict that in 10 years,

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we will lose our bees.

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

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we would be without foods
that we rely upon:

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Fruits, vegetables,
crunchy almonds and nuts,

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tart apples, sour lemons,

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even the food that
our cattle relies upon to eat -

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hay and alfalfa, gone -

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causing global hunger, economic collapse,

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a total moral crisis across Earth.

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

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to become what we call
"citizen scientists,"

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

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Yes, planting flowers, getting beehives,

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making bee hotels, habitats
for those lesser known pollinators,

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but beyond that, going a step further,

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and adding a data
collection element to it.

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

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

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away from bees that were dying

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

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and shifting our perspective
away from honey

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as just a sweet, sticky delicious food,

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but to a source of information
that contains a blueprint

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

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That's where we find the hope

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

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

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right after I finished my doctorate 
in honeybee immunology.

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(Laughter)

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It was -

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(Applause)

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

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(Laughter)

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And it was 2009 - the great recession.

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And I was onto something -

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

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

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and I realized that this deep connection

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

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

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we're connected to it.

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

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was right for citizen science,

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people looking for ways
to get involved and to help.

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And so, we met with people
in coffee shops.

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

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and she introduced us
to her friend Valerie,

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

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And so we started testing
vaccines for bees.

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We were starting to look at probiotics.

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We called it bee yogurt.

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Ways to make bees healthier.

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And our citizen science project
started to take off.

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Word started to spread
and people started to think,

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

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that's great!"

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

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I figured I should tell him
what we were doing.

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(Laughter)

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I was terrified.

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I really thought I was going
to get an eviction notice

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which really was the last thing
we needed, right?

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

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

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our non-profit urban
beekeeping laboratory,

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

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I was shocked!

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I was completely surprised.

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I mean, instead of getting 
an eviction notice,

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we got another data point.

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And in the back alley of this image,

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what you see here, this hidden beehive,

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that beehive produced 
more honey that first year

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

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Over a hundred pounds of honey
that one year alone.

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We didn't know what to do with it.

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

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

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the residents and tenants 
in the community

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are still enjoying that honey today.

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It shifted our research 
perspective forever.

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It changed our research question away

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from how do we save
the dead and dying bees

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to where are bees doing best.

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And we started to be able 
to put maps together,

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looking at all of these
citizen science beehives

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

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And we started to engage the public,

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and the more people who got
these little data points,

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the more accurate our maps became.

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

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you might think about
the story of my friend Fred,

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who's a commercial real estate developer

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and he was thinking the same thing.


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

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He was at a meeting
thinking about what he could do

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for tenant relations
and sustainability at scale.

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And while he was having a tea break,

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

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

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and it sparked an idea.

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

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We went national together.

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We put dozens of beehives
on the rooftops of their skyscrapers

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across nine cities nationwide.

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Nine years later -

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(Applause)

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

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

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18 states and counting,

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

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to manage beehives
in their own communities,

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

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together, making a difference.

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

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where they're thriving,

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

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The top three killers of bees
are agricultural chemicals,

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such as pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides;

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diseases of bees, of which there are many;

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and habitat loss.

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So, what we did is we looked at our maps

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and we identified areas 
where bees were thriving,

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and this was mostly in cities, we found.

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Data are now showing
that urban beehives produce more honey

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than rural beehives and suburban beehives.

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

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And bees in the city are more biodiverse;

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there are more bee species in urban areas.

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(Laughter)

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Right?

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"Why is this?"

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That was our question.

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

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Which of these is different in the cities?

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So, the first one: Pesticides.

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We partnered up with the
Harvard School of Public Health.

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We shared our data with them,
we collected samples

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

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And we looked at pesticides levels

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

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That's not the case.

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

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and we thought those bars
would be the lowest,

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

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there are the most
pesticides in the cities.

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So, the pesticide hypothesis
for what saving bees,

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less pesticides in cities,

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is not it.

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


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Any time I've had a hypothesis,

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

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(Laughter)

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Which is still 
an interesting finding, right?

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We moved on.

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The disease hypothesis.

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We looked at diseases
all over our beehives

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

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

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diseases are everywhere;
bees are sick and dying.

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

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This was from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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So again, my hypothesis 
was not supported,

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the opposite was true.

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We're moving on.

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(Laughter)

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The habitat hypothesis.

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

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More flowers, right?

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But we didn't know how to test this.

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

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

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

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Have you done these?

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

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(Laughter)

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We developed this for honey, right?

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And so we have a sample of honey

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

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(Laughter)

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And that's what we found here
in Provincetown,

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

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

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Honey DNA, a genomics test.

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Spring honey in Provincetown
is from Privet.

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What's Privet?

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Hedges.

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What's the message?

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Don't trim your hedges to save the bees.

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(Laughter)

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Right?

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

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so before you throw your tomatoes,

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

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

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you're eating water-lily juice.

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In the fall, sumac honey.

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

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

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what are good things to plant,

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

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

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

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

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But what's more interesting 
is 85 different plant species

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in one teaspoon of honey.

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That's the measure that we want.

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The big data.

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Indian honey.

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That is oak.

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Every sample we tested from India is oak

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

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Provincetown honey goes
from a 116 plants in the spring

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to over 200 plants in the summer.

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

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in another citizen science approach.

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

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

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

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That's a measure for rural.

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Suburban areas, what might you think?

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

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

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Suburbs have very low plant diversity,

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so if you have a beautiful lawn,

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

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

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to diversify your habitat
to improve pollinator health.

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Anybody can do this.

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Urban areas have the most habitat.

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The best habitat they have -

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As you can see here, 
over 200 different plants.

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

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We also now know 
how we can work with cities.

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

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

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

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(Laughter)

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It's exhausting after all of this, right?

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But when we scale together,

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when we go to governments
and city planners -

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

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

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

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This is a rooftop from Fred's company.

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We can plant those things
on top of rooftops worldwide

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to start restoring habitat
and securing food systems.

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We've worked with the World Bank,

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and the presidential delegation
from the country of Haiti.

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

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

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

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and secure their food systems.

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

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

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of any habitat before
it might be destroyed.

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Think about your hometown.

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What risks does
the environment pose to it?

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

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We now have a baseline measure of honey,

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honey DNA from before and after the storm.

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We started in Humacao.

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This is right where
Hurricane Maria made landfall.

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

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by triangulating honey DNA samples.

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

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that primed all the
citizen science to begin with.

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

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

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While looking at honey DNA,

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we can see what plants
are good for pollinators

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that have deep roots
that can secure the land.

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

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

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

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or perhaps even in a greenhouse on Mars.

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I know it sounds crazy,
but think about this,

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a new Provincetown,

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a new hometown,

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a place that might be familiar

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

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when we're thinking about the future.

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Now, together we know what's saving bees:

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By planting diverse habitats.

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We know how bees are going to save us:

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By being barometers
for environmental health,

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by being blueprints,
sources of information,

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little data factories, suspended in time.

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

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to get beehives.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)