Science Friday - Pollination, Beekeeping How-To, Sunflower Project. April 2, 2021, Part 2

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

The Buzz Over Non-Bee Pollinators When you think of pollinators, bees are probably the first insect that comes to mind. But there are actually all sorts of insects and animals that contribute to pollination, like moths, beetles and many kinds of flies—from hoverflies to gnats. Pollination biologist Robert Raguso joins SciFri to explain how different pollinators have different ‘personalities,’ with different strategies and roles—and how they are being affected by climate change. So You Wanna Be A Beekeeper? Pollinators are one of our favorite things at Science Friday, and caring for our local bees means caring for the environment. While we can plant native wildflowers for our native wild bees, some pollinator enthusiasts may want to go the next step and care for their own honey bee hive. So how do you get started? Joining Ira to talk about tips for amateur beekeepers are Timothy Paule Jackson and Nicole Lindsey, beekeepers and co-founders of Detroit Hives, an organization that turns vacant lots into honey bee farms in Detroit, Michigan. They’re also joined by SciFri contributing editor John Dankosky, a first-time beekeeper. They discuss how to dive into this buzzy world, setting up your hive, and troubleshooting problems with pests. Who’s Pollinating Your Backyard? April is Citizen Science month, and Science Friday is celebrating with events and activities all throughout the month. SciFri’s Education Director Ariel Zych talks about our partnership with the Great Sunflower Project, which asks participants to observe a plant for five minutes, and record all of the pollinators that visit it. The data will be collected in a national database, helping scientists examine how pesticides are affecting pollinators—and how to improve pollinator habitats.     Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Iroflato. The days are getting longer. Temperatures are getting warmer, and that means spring is officially in bloom. To celebrate the season, we'll be talking all about our favorite pollinators. Of course, you're probably thinking bees, right? Well, we will be talking about beekeeping a bit later in the hour, but right now, did you realize there are all sorts of insects and animals that make up the pollination nation? And we want to highlight some, some of these lesser talked about pollinators, like moths, beetles, and all sorts of flies, from hoverflies to gnats. My next guest is here to guide us through this world of pollinators. Dr. Rabbit Raguso is a pollinator biologist and professor of neurobiology

and behavior at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Welcome to Science Friday. Hello, Ira. Really glad to be here. When we talk about pollination, there are pollinators that live in hives and those that are solitary. How does that affect their pollination lifestyles? Like, how do they pollinate plants differently? Wow, what an open question that is. The world of pollination is really diverse. If you think of flowers as investors, they have diversified portfolios. Some of their visitors are low-risk, you know, bonds that are just going to pay out, you know, pay off for them. Like, even self-pollination is a way to get your seeds on the ground when nothing else comes. But then some of other

Pollinators like the hawk moths that I study are high-risk, high-gain stocks in the sense that if and when they come and you can never quite bank on them, they might be the best thing to happen in a decade for that plant in terms of moving pollen from a distance and really effecting some important outcrossing and mixing the gene pool for that plant. And that's especially important if the plant's living in a fragmented landscape where it doesn't have that many neighbors and maybe some of the pollinators that are more stay-at-homes, like social bees might not move the pollen very far when they visit the plant. So when we study pollination as a spectrum of animals that have different reasons for visiting flowers, some of the

consequences of those reasons are what does it do for the reproductive outcomes of the plant? I never thought I'd get a Wall Street analogy when talking about pollinators, but you said that very well. We know that bees are an important pollinator, but are they the most efficient pollinator? You know, it depends on the bee, Ira. Almost all insects are very, very diverse. So we're kind of careful not to generalize too much. The bees that most people think of are the social bees, whether they're honeybees that are managed in agricultural systems or that have gone feral and are, you know, naturalized and wild. Or there could be bumblebees that are also social but have smaller hives. But they have divisions of labor. They have a local hive that they return to. And they are somewhat tethered by that location. They can disparate. up to a kilometer or so from their hive. But they tend to visit the same groups of flowers every day. So if you think about pollen mixing in a crop or in a population of wildflowers, the kind of animal that visits you is going to move in different ways between the flowers.

So social bees might be collecting pollen to bring back to the hive to feed their young, to feed their brood. Whereas hoverflies eat pollen themselves. You know, so in terms of efficiency or effectiveness, they do, a lot of insects do very different things when they visit flowers. Hummingbirds and hawk moths that I study don't have any interest in pollen. You know, so then what matters for the plant is, you know, how fastidious are they? Do they groom themselves after visiting a flower?

In which case, the likelihood of moving pollen very far is low. Or are they slabs like the moths that I study? In which case, they have pollen dangling all over their extremities and they, fly, you know, 200 meters or 1,000 meters or across the road to the other population, and they dangle 1,000 ponderance on the next flower of an evening primrose or a datura night blooming plant. That's magic for those plants, right? Moths as slobs never heard that before. They don't come back home. You know, you can't count on them every night, but when they come, they are magic. You mentioned the hawk moth. Can you talk more about that?

They are the insect world version of a hummingbird. They could be two or three or even four grams and size. They can hover 40 to 60 wing beats per second. They're amazing, incredible animals. Their tongues can be three times the length of their bodies. And they can disperth, you know, across bodies of water, across deserts. But I was interested in where flowers get scent and how do they produce strong perfumes and what is it? What are the functions of those perfumes? So I tended to study night blooming plants like, you know, jasmas and gardenias and evening primroses that have very strong fragrances. And invariably around the world, the pollinators of those wonderful plants are hawk moths. There's sphinx moths. You know, you put on your headlamp and you go out and you watch them at dusk.

You know, most people think they're seeing hummingbirds when they see them. They hover in front of flowers instead of landing on them. They keep their tongues out while they're drinking. So it looks like a dipstick. They've got like a little wad of pollen halfway up the tongue and they're just dipping in into, you know, moonflowers left and right. And you can see with your own eyes, like, wow, that guy just hit half of the open flowers in front of me, and then it flew across that sand dune to the next patch of flowers. So that, you know, sometimes what we do is put fluorescent powder out and then we let the moth move it, and then we take out a UV lamp and look at, like, look how far that pollen went just by one or two moths that came through in the last

15 minutes. I recently learned of beetles as pollinators. I hadn't thought of beetles as pollinators. Beatles have so many niches that you would be unwise to try to generalize for them. But like flies, there are beetles that are parasitic or that eat carrion and carcasses. There are other beetles that use flowers as places to mate as Tristing Sites. We were joking the other day in class that there's a whole category, is a whole niche of flower that we call love hotels, believe it or not, like Queen Victoria's water lily or some of the philodendrons that bloom at night, where they're big white chambers, they're very perfumed, and they get hot.

And what they do is they attract scarabed beetles in droves, and they give them protection. They keep them warm, and they feed them pollen and secretions and things. And they're beetles. They make a mess. They nibble on the petals of the flowers. But mostly what they do is they meet. You know, it's like spring break every night in these flowers. And the beetles, and it's a movable.

feast the next night or the next morning they leave the flower that the heat turns off the perfume goes away uh they sleep it off and then they go find another party the following night and in a rain forest that might be a kilometer away but they they're attracted to fragrance and they find the next flower and then they've they've got pollen all over their bodies so one of the big categories ends up being do you groom you know if are you fastidious if you visit a flower do you you know if you ever wash a hummingbird for example it'll visit 20 flowers in a row and then it might land on a twig and clean off its bill. You know, so, so, so, right?

So, so that's it. There's no more pollen moving on its bill. It might still have some on its chin. Some flies are extremely fastidious. And so you have to sort of be cautious about how good fly pollinators are. You know, you've got to watch them because there's things that you can't see or appreciate at night, at dusk, or at the scale, time scale and spatial scale of a fly or a beetle. Wow. Wow. I never realized how important flies were. You talked a little briefly about hoverfly as an important pollinator.

Hoverflies and bee flies are most similar to bees in the way they visit flowers, if not their lif cycles. So there are many cases where they're kind of co-pollinators with bees and some butterflies. There's some special cases like in South Africa where I've worked where there are horse flies and tangle wing flies that have extremely long tongues, maybe three times the length of their bodies. And they have a special guild. You know, South Africa didn't get glaciated like the North did. And so the habitats are older there. There's been a lot more evolution of specialized pollination in South Africa. And so I got to witness with my host, Steve Johnson, I got to see whole guilds of geraniums and orchids

and things that are very tubular flowers, really brightly colored with arrows leading toward the nectar hole and these long, long-tongued flies, you know, pollinating them. So those are the guys who behave like bees. Then there's fungus gnats and midges and carrion flies who visit flowers by mistake. You know, they visit flowers that I like to say are playing dead, you know, pretending to be, you know, rotting meat or feces or rotting fruits. And those are flies that live there, or mushrooms. Those are flies that live their lives. laying eggs in those rotting substrates and completing their life cycles. So forensic flies, forward flies that the, you know, the CSI would use to know how long a body has been dead. These are flies that end up pollinating some plants when the plants pretend to be, you know, stinking corpses. This is interesting. There's so much we can talk about. But I want to end on talking about honeybees, wild bees, managed honeybees are in decline. And the difference between them and what are the separate problems having to do with them? Sure, sure.

And that's the many billion dollar question across the world, isn't it? My understanding of the problem with managed bees is, you know, two or threefold. One is genetics. It's about, you know, do they get inbred? Do the market forces that drive the way that they're managed, sort of get them in trouble in terms of their ability to fight off pathogens and those mites, you know, that attack them? The second problem is stress. Various ways that managed bees are managed can affect their biology, including the transfer

of pathogens and diseases. Number three is, you know, a rapidly changing planet. There are challenges that managed bees face that weren't challenges 20 years ago or 40 years ago when some of the policies, you know, guiding their management were made. I want to stress the issue of diversity. You know, I began, we began our conversation talking about diversified portfolios and how plants, if they have generalized pollination strategies, you know, part of their, we hope that their ecological stability is bound up in having more than one pollinator. What we're learning,

though, colleagues like Rob Jagir at UMass, studying the fact that like not all bumblebees are the same, right? Bumblebees are diverse in their niches too. So I keep stressing that point, that beetles and flies and moths and bees are very, very diverse animals and they have different styles and behaviors and personalities and needs. Some very generalized, trashy, bea bees are doing really well with humans, there are other bees that are disappearing faster than we can figure out why. And one of the caveats that we all have is being careful about saying, well, we have another bumblebee species that visits that plant. Well, you know, hopefully there'll be some redundancy in terms of their, if there

services to the plant. And we don't know yet. Those are some of the projects that are being funded out there right now, not just by NSF, but by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, too. And they're really important. Well, Dr. Rugozo, we have run out of time. Boy, what an interesting discussion. I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today. Ira has been my pleasure. Thanks so much for talking with me about something that we really love. Robert Raguso is a pollination biologist and professor of neurobiology and behavior,

Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. We have to take a break, but when we come back, we'll talk with two beekeepers about what it takes to get into this busy hobby. See what I did there? Oh, never mind. And answer your questions about caring for our. pollinator friends. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We sure love our bees here on this program, from our native pollinators to our honeybees. While many of us lucky enough to have outdoor space can plant wildflowers for our pollinators, sometimes you just want to go one step

further. Start your own beehive. Like SciFry contributing editor, John Dan Koski. Hi, John. Ira, thanks for having me. Now, I want to know, you're diving into the world of beekeeping. this spring. Yeah, I am, although I should say I'm more of a deputy beekeeper, really. My wife has been wanting to do this for many years. And I'm just trying to learn everything I can to help her out. I have to say, Ira, I'm getting over a pretty healthy fear of getting stung by bees, and I'm putting on a bee suit for the first time. So yeah, this is a big step for me. Well, that is. You know, there are some hobbies where I can imagine you can easily jump in and learn on the fly, maybe painting, for example, but beekeeping seems like something you really need to prepare for on a really different

level. Yeah, there's a lot to learn. There's a lot of equipment to buy. And what I found is that everyone has advice, everyone who's kept bees has a lot of advice, and that advice can be pretty contradictory. Luckily, we've found some pretty wonderful mentors where we live, but it's still scary because more than anything else we want to do right by the bees. You know, we want these bees to survive and thrive and give us honey. Yeah, absolutely. Have you decided where are you going to put your hives? and how many you're going to have? Well, for the first year, we've just got a one hive set up, and we're doing the traditional Langstrath hive.

It's the kind where you have boxes stacked on top of one another, and it's in a corner of our yard that's kind of away from our house and near this old dairy barn, but we're in a neighborhood, so we're kind of close to neighbors. That's one of my worries. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. Well, John, you're not alone in wanting some tips about beekeeping. Some of our listeners came up with questions on social media

and on our Science Friday Vox Pop app. And as a bonus, we've got two beekeepers here to help us answer these pollinators questions. And perhaps some of yours, John. So let me introduce them. Timothy Paul Jackson and Nicole Lindsay are beekeepers and co-founders and co-executive directors of Detroit Hives in Detroit, Michigan. Welcome to the show. Hey, everyone. Thanks for having us today.

Yeah, you have plenty of experience setting up beehives because your organization, turns vacant lots into bee farms. Is that right? What makes Detroit the place to be for this? The one of many bad puns, I think, today. Right. Very great pun, by the way. But, you know, Nicole and I, we've been doing this for close to four years, so there's so much, you know, that we're still learning. But Detroit is a place to be due to the many vacant lots. And on these vacant lots is considered undisturbed land where no one is spraying any harmful chemicals on these vacant lots. There's very little to no noise or light pollution on these vacant lots. It's probably not the best idea for most communities due to them being vacant and unattended for so many years.

But in a positive way, something magical began to happen. It began to attract and boost pollinators and native bees. And in fact, there's been studies where University of Michigan, as well as Michigan State University, have studied where bee populations are higher in urban cities like Detroit and is contributed to its vacant lots. We wanted to find ways to reactivate these vacant lots, but find a way to create sustainable communities where they're inviting for the community, but also serve as habitats, continue to be habitats for our pollinators.

And Michigan is home to over 450 native bees. And we want to continue to provide those homes for them because the number one is the number one declining pollinators, most people will go straight to pests and diseases or chemicals, but the number one is displacement of their habitat. Our native insects has been displaced and they've been genderified due to construction, development, communities, and roadways. We've done away with their habitats and created streets, roads, highways, etc., leaving our native pollinators nowhere to go. So we want to be able to continue to provide those homes. Those numbers are high in the city of Detroit with data bees and pollinator populations.

How we secure that is that we buy back those vacant lots through our community partnership with the city of Detroit. So these spots are not just temporary. They will be here and it will stay there to support the next generation for the community and the next generation of pollinators. Sustainability, you got it. Let's go to our questions because there's so many from our listeners. Deborah from Aurora, Colorado on our sci-fi vox pop app, has a question.

about how much space is needed to keep a beehive? I would like to know what is the minimum amount of space recommended for keeping a beehive? And is it a good idea to do it in a suburban backyard? Thank you. Here in Detroit, once again, I know many cities vary, but bees need local food, just like communities. Look at bees as people. Call them people. You don't want to travel too far to go to a grocery store.

or you don't want to drive an hour to go get local food or groceries. You want to find something local within walking distance would be great, but within five to 10 minutes would be perfect. Same thing with honeybees. They need local food, local forests. They like to look for local groceries in form of nectar, pollen, water, and prophylos. In this case, if you can place a hive, you don't need to have, you personally don't need to have acres and acres of land for the bees,

but if you can place your hive in an area of a safe, six mile or preferably a one and a half mile radius or someone that may have a garden, a flower garden, or even areas of cover crops. That would definitely be helpful to pollinators. But you yourself, just a little backyard would be great, but definitely I recommend notifying your neighbors. But those bees, they like to travel. Like us, we don't want to sit in the same spot all day.

Bees like to travel. They like to forge all their life. They're inside the hive. They're not allowed to leave the hive until they're 21 days on the same. earth. Then they become a forger bee. So they get to go out. They get to get some sunshine. They get some fresh air view of many beautiful flowers, smell them, taste them. So they want to travel. They want to visit and see different things. It's a very dangerous job, but it's also a very exciting job because you get to lead. So keep that in mind that they will travel. They can travel

up to six miles, but that's extreme conditions. A good, a good radius for them is about a mile and a half. And they will travel and they want to visit different flowers. So plant some trees or place your hive next to a community garden, a floral garden, or in areas where you know there's some local native plants. Yeah. So also making sure there's a variety of food because they need like at least three different strands of flowers. Pollin sources. Pollin sources because it keeps them actually healthy. You know, even for us, if we have the same diet over and over again, it's not going to give us that balanced nutrition that we need. So it's the same thing with honeybees. So make sure in that they have a plethora of flowers. And plus they, like he said, this is their first time being

out from within the hive. So of course, they get a chance to taste a plethora of flowers. So giving them that a variety of flowers to sample and taste and bring back to the hive is great. Also, you don't want to have an overabundance of hives. So make sure you have enough source of nectar and pollen for them. So if you have three hives, but your habitat, doesn't support three hives, then your bees are going to be in trouble. They're going to compete against each other as well. They're not going to have enough nectar to build out honeycomb so that that hive is not going to do well. And it also competes with our native bees.

We're at Detroit House, we do believe in bee diversity and inclusion. So you want to make sure you have enough food for not only your honeybees, but the native bees as well. Yes. And, you know, the native bees are important as well. A lot of people forget about our native bees. So making sure you create habitats for them as well. So our native bees don't travel as far as honeybees. They pretty much travel extremely local.

So like with our mason bees and our leaf cutter bees, they only go about 300 feet. So making sure that you have enough for them as well. Also, high placement. So where you're placing your hive, make sure you place it in the southeast direction. So making sure, oh, I see you got something you about to say. Well, no, this is the first time we've ever kept bees here. And I'm so glad that you're giving us this information because for me and my wife, we've got this small little plot of land, but we're surrounded by trees.

It's not exactly a suburban neighborhood, but we're kind of like in a town in the country, right? And we only have a few places where we can put the hive. So if you could give us some tips of where exactly in a small yard we should put it so that it's most advantageous for the bees, that would be really helpful. Yeah. partially shady and sunny for one. Yeah, so in the southeast direction. So you want to make sure that when the sun comes up, that sun is hitting on to that hive.

So it kind of wakes up our forger bees and it can go to work. But you don't want to have it directly in the sunlight. That's why you place it in the southeast direction. Also, if you start noticing any mold or wetness with inside of that hive, that means it's an area that's full of moisture. So you would need to move that hive because you don't want them to have moisture inside of that hive. So if you, as you're doing hive inspection, you notice a little bit of water in there, make sure or it's moist in there. That's a good sign to move that hive from out of that area. Good tip.

Also, when you have your hives, make sure they are just a little bit tilted in the back end. So if it rains, that rain doesn't get down into hive, it kind of just flows off of the hive. It flows off. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, Ira, I'm already getting some good tips here. This is, this is fun. This is good. This is great. This is good. Well, another person who needs a tip is Stephen on Twitter who asks, what safety issues are there for keeping bees in relatively dense urban neighborhoods? Well, Michigan is homes of 450 native bees. Some sting. Bumble bees sting, but very few people get stung my bum bees unless you really do something bad to a bum bee. But there's also over 5,000 species of native bees in the United States and over 20,000 species of bees in the world. So you're not going to ever get away from bees in this communities or urbanized communities where there are bees everywhere. Bees, pollinators, insects, bees.

Yeah, yeah. You got to live with them. When most people hear the word bees, they think about wash, they think about hornets. Yellow jackets. They think about people maybe getting stung or maybe doing allergic reactions. actions. Most people just don't really have the, I would say the core ground of education on pollinage or about honeybees, so to speak. So I think it all starts with education or just communication, communicating with your residents, educating them on bee conservation. Maybe asking them,

hey, are you planting anything? Yes, I'm planting a lemon tree or I'm planning an apple tree, or I have a small garment my background. Well, guess what? My bees are going to help guarantee increasing your yield with this high back here. But also help support those fruits and vegetables for growing properly. Correct. And in an abundance. You're going to see an increase in your yield when you pair them with honeybees or native bees at that that pollinate those fruits and vegetables. And then one last thing is that another way to sweeten the deal is to reward them with some honey to all your residents.

They're going to love that local raw honey right within their own community. I guarantee it. I got to break in and remind our listeners that this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Yeah, it is really so much different. My brother is a beekeeper, and he gives me as much honey as I can get. But the one thing you notice immediately is it does not taste like the kind that you got in the store. This is really different and really much so much better. John, have you gotten your bee suit?

suit yet? I mean, how do you know when to get the bee suit? Things like that. So my wife bought me a suit. And so we each have our little bee suits. But then we went out to a hive installation with our mentor. And of course, he's been working with bees for years. And he's not wearing anything at all. And the bees are just all over him. And so I guess that that is a really good question. Do you need to have a bee suit? At what time of the year do you actually need to gear up and put on the veil and all the stuff so that the bees don't, you know, sting you. So that is a great question. So like you said, and I'm pretty sure your mentor has probably been beekeeping for some

time now. So they are very comfortable in just being in the hive with nothing. I mean, I've seen a guy on YouTube and he just has on his, like, cut off shorts, no shirt and in the hive. Now, as a first time, beekeeper, you are going to be kind of terrified of being stung. right? I mean, you have to get over that. You're telling me. That's like your, that's how you get initiated to me and to being a beekeeper is to be

stung. You might as well get it get it up with. But please buy you a beekeeping suit. Buy some protection because you're going to be a little more comfortable because you're going to be a little uneasy working with them at first. And once you kind of get comfortable, you get used to the bees, then that's your prerogative, whether or not you want to go inside the hive without a suit or with a suit. Now, our honeybees, they have personalities, different personalities just like we do. You might have a hive that is kind of real cool, cool, calm, collective. They chill and you can just go in without much gear. Then you have the one hive that might be, you know, they're a little antsy.

they're a little more defensive. So, you know, you just get a suit if this is your first time beekeeping. And then that allows you time to kind of get comfortable, be at ease. Because that's what you want to do. I mean, beekeeping is so relaxing. It's so therapeutic. You know, and you just want to kind of be calm and learn to hide, get inside, be as comfortable as you possibly can.

because when you're comfortable, they're comfortable. You know, to me, personally, I think bees read energy. And we have like this spiritual connection to bees. So like I said, when you're comfortable, they're comfortable. I like to talk to my bees. I speak affirmation over my bees. I like to read with my bees. Also, another key point in getting your bees familiar with you because they can

recognize your voice, your face, and your scent. When me and Timothy are in the hive, of course, in the summertime, it gets hot and those be keeping suits. So when we have a new hive, we like to wipe, you know, the sweater for our forehead with like a paper towel or a cloth. Stick that little cloth inside of the hive. So the garbys and the bees inside of the hive can get familiar with our scent. Like they're familiar with me talking to them. They get recognized my voice. That's cool.

And sometimes it's in their DNA. So it depends on what kind of bees that you have. Some are more hot and some are more chill. So if you're raising bees that are typically hot, it's in their DNA to be hot. They're going to be very defensive and very protective, but that's actually a very good trait to have because they have a better chance of surviving versus those that are more docile or less aggressive. Yeah. So we're seeing now like a lot of beekeepers who raise different types of strands of bees

that they're adding Africanized DNA within those strands, so they're more mite resistant. And so some might, like you said, might be a little more defensive than others, depending on the type of strand that you get. So no matter how chill you are, they're very defensive, isn't their DNA? Yeah.

I'm glad you're brought up the mites because that's definitely something we want to talk about. But first, we have to take a quick break. When we come back, more beekeeping questions for our bekeeping needs. guests, Timothy Paul Jackson, Nicole Lindsay, beekeepers and co-founders and co-executive directors of Detroit Hives in Detroit, Michigan. Stay with us. You're listening to Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato, and we are talking about beekeeping. You want to be a beekeeper? A lot of our listeners

do, as does Cy Frey's contributing editor John Dan Koski, who is sitting here with me. We're talking about bees, about beekeeping with our guests, Timothy Paul Jackson, Nicole Lindsay, beekeepers and co-founders and co-executive directors of Detroit Hives in Detroit, Michigan. And John, take advantage of having these experts sitting with us. You must have a million questions. Oh, I do. And, you know, one of the things that I was shocked by, I know you've been talking a lot about native bees that you work with. But when you order bees to start a hive, and if you live in a cold weather state, they'll often be sent from states further south. We're getting bees that are coming up from Georgia. So is it a problem to put southern bees in northern hives? I mean, is there some

sort of problem either for native bees or is there some sort of stress that the bees undergo from this long voyage? To be honest with you, yeah. You know, just like once again, like it treat bees like people. They're people. So to be quite frank with you, yes. It's not comfortable. You know, it's just that most, you know, bees, they're resistant. They've been around for so many years. They just make it happen. They make it happen. Yeah. But what we also tell people to kind of get experience working with packages. So, you know, like you said, a lot of packages come from either Georgia or California or Texas, but also working with a nuke. Explain what a nuke is for everyone.

So a nuke is a... It's short for nucleus. Yeah, short for nucleus, like a smaller hive box. So like you mentioned, you purchased a Langstraw 5. And you know, within a Langstraw 5, you either have 8 to 10 frames. Now with a nuke, you'll have about 4 to 5 frames. Sometimes people put 3 in there. But it's kind of like buying a home and it's already fully furnished.

So inside of that nuke, you have... the queen has already laying eight. She's already introduced to the hive. It's already ready to go. They already have honey. All you have to do is open up that box, pick out the hives, I mean the frames, and you place it inside of a bigger hive. Now with the package, of course, it depends on your style of installing a package.

You either have to, you know, take the queen out of her little queen cage, place her on a frame by herself, pull that cork out, put the, the marshmallow in or a piece of candy that they give you, and then place her on the hive. Then she has to be introduced to that colony because she doesn't belong to that colony. And then some people will either dump the bees in or they will place that whole box inside of the hive

and then just allow the bees to just crawl out. The other pros and cons include that those bees may not be climatized. That's what I would say. And that queen is not climatized. It takes her at least two years to become climatized to get used to that weather. So she has to adapt. What's best if you can as a new beekeeper is to buy your bees local for someone

that's been raising bees where they've already overwintered. They're raising them maybe mite resistant. That way that queen has already been climatized. In her memory, she already knows how to survive the winter and she can carry that DNA. And that will also help with the other bees and also future queens as well. So it's best to buy your bees local, but I know it's something. cases. We get it however we can, but it's best about your bees local where the queen is already being climatized, and she's already had success in overwintering. And then it's another way

to support your local beekeeper as well. I want to talk about potential pests that beekeepers might come across. I understand varroa mites. You mentioned them a little bit earlier. Can wreak havoc on hives. what do these mites do to the colony and how do you try to keep them away? Yeah. Wow. So they came from Asia. They hit here in the United States in the 80s. Everybody is pretty much in the world is dealing with mites.

Australia was the last to get mites. They got mites back in 2006. So if you are a beekeeper, you can't avoid mites. Mites are going to be there. They only pretty much for the for the main part attack honeybees. They like to go after the drones. Yeah. So they tend to go inside of the drone cells.

And that's because with drones, they're the longest to stay inside of the cell. It takes them 24 days to emerge from their cell. And they're also the thicker or the fattice. Juicier. one so they like to tend to go inside of their cell right before the nurse bees close them off so they become adults but they'll go inside of the worker bee sales as well also with mites now sometimes you may not see oh before you get to that okay so with with the drone this might whatever or whoever created mites it's pretty smart because they know that the drone doesn't feed themselves or clean themselves

within the first four days. Yes, and they can visit any hive. Any worker bee will let them in. And that's another reason why they can carry diseases that way by drones visiting hives. You know, we got a vox pop from a beekeeper, Carl from Long Island, who wants to bring attention to problems first-time beekeepers can cause for neighbors if their hives get mites. People in urban and suburban locations

can cause problems for their neighbors and their community if they try to manage honeybees when they don't know enough. For example, a colony being overwhelmed by tiny organ-eating mites is not only the bees and the beekeepers problem, but because a colony can become what we call a mite bomb, the untrained novice creates a problem for other beekeepers in the community as well as honeybees that have found a home in nearby wild.

He's concerned that if you're not a fastidious beekeeper, you're going to be creating problems for other beekeepers with the mites coming from your high. That's absolutely correct. As beekeepers, we are to be responsible with testing and managing and treating and monitoring the mites and pesting diseases because you can spread them. Okay. John, you got any last questions for our guests?

Well, because I've heard about these varol mites, ever since we started this IRA. I mean, this is really important. So what do you do to get rid of them? I've heard from some beekeepers who say, you know, you've got to just let nature take its course. Other people say there's chemicals that you use, but then there's harsh chemicals, there's more organic chemicals. What do you folks use to try to control the varomites? John, I will tell you this.

As a first time, beekeeper, every time you talk to a beekeeper, they all going to tell you something different. You know, I've learned this. far. So just come to a common consensus when you, you know, kind of put your research together, but it's all about how you want to treat your hive and what works best for you. For you. So what we, you know, our first year, we're naturalists. We wanted to find ways to not use chemicals. We wanted to find ways that, you know, that can create a habitat that will create ecological balance because whenever there's a problem in your environment, there may be lacking something that supports that biodiversity. So we wanted to give it a try. And we were doing pretty well

with our highs not treating our first year. It's just that we lost one of the hives for not treating. And that was a learning experience. Our first year, we kept three hives. Our second year, we ramped it up to 18. And now we're currently managing 45. And there's a lot of challenges but there are also a lot of successes. But one thing that we did learn is that we started treating. And we started learning about a more natural way or somewhat natural way using acid and vaporizing our hives, but not just doing it one time towards the late summer.

We start early in the spring. We test and we monitor in the spring, summer, and fall. We don't never stop. So I think that's one thing that separated us from the beginning. One of the differences that we learned is not, just looking for mites and just testing or testing for mites and then treating in the late summer, early fall. But starting this initiative early as possible, early spring right now, as soon as possible. Thank you. Well, John, I hope you got a lot of your questions answered today.

I got a lot answered. I'll come back. I'll send you guys some, some honey once we finally have some. Same here. We'll love to. Yeah, we'll do the same. Absolutely. Send some this way also. Absolutely, Ira. I got your address. John Dinkowski, along with Timothy Paul Jackson and Nicole Lindsay, beekeepers and co-founders of Detroit Hives in Detroit, Michigan. Thank you both for taking time to be with us today. Great stuff. Yeah, thanks for having us. We loved it. April is Citizen Science Month, and a really good way to get involved is some hands-on science. And why not, as we talk about pollinators, center our Science Friday's crowd science project for the month around pollinators.

Why not? Here to tell us about that project and how you can get involved is CyFRI's education director. Ariel Zich, welcome Ariel. Hi, Ray. How's it going? Tell us about Citizen Science Month. What's going on? Well, Citizen Science Month in the month of April is an opportunity for anyone to go out and do science. Share data, participate in the process of research and knowing our world a little better. And this month, we have partnered with SciStarter and the Great Sunflower Project to get you up and close with some pollinators in your area. It's a great month to watch pollinators do their thing.

No fooling. Okay, let's talk about it. Science Friday is teaming up with a project in particular called the Great Sunflower Project. What is that? So the Great Sunflower Project is a project that's asking anyone everywhere to go out and watch a flower and report back to scientists who is visiting that flower. So it can be a sunflower. You can plant sunflowers and watch sunflowers.

and watch sunflowers, which are pollinator magnets, but you can actually watch any kind of flower you want to, including in like bushes that are flowering, trees that are flowering, your daffodils, and you can watch them for as little or as long as you want, ideally like 15 or 20 minutes, sit there, look at a flower, and just record who visits, whether it's bees or flies, butterflies, hummingbirds. And what that does is it helps paint a picture

for how pollinators are doing around the country. You can participate in this project anywhere, any setting in your backyard, at a local park, at a restaurant table that has a big bouquet on it. It doesn't really matter. But what we're trying to do is help paint a picture of how land use changes and how the availability of different plants is influencing pollinator species. It's a massive data project that is perfect for really any age to participate in. So you don't have to use a sunflower, but it's called the Great Sunflower Project because you could grow a sunflower like I do. That's right. And there are,

The origins of the project really did start with using sunflowers as a single species to observe, but now the project's really blossomed, if you will, into covering really any flowering plant. And what do you report back? What are we looking for? Should you be taking notes about what you see? Yeah, so there's a really simple data sheet. You can print it out on our website or on the project website, and it's basically asked you how long have you been watching a plant? What plant are you watching? So what type of flower are you looking at? And then, you know, get your clipboard and just count any insects that visit. And actually, if no insects visit the flower that you're watching, that's also really important data.

So even if you end up with a very lonely flower, that is an important data point. So anyone can do this. And it's really, it's kind of meditative, actually. It's kind of like the perfect relaxation spring activity. You know, a lot of people think that honeybees are the only kinds of pollinators, but there are all different kinds of pollinators, right? So many different kinds of pollinators, and they're all wonderful and cool. Some of them look like honeybees, even though there are flies, some beetles look like wastes. There's a whole mess of pollinators, even bats. If you're one of the blessed folks who has a flowering agave or a century plant in the desert southwest, you can also do this. And maybe you'll see some bats visiting your plant. Maybe you'll see hummingbirds visiting a plant in your yard. So you'll really get a sense for how diverse pollinators are with this activity. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. All right, I'm eager to do this.

So I go out and I collect my notes and I put it on the form. What happens to all this data that I and all the rest of us are collecting? So this data goes into a national repository of pollinator species count data. And you've heard about this with like birds. You've heard about this with other species of plants, things like I naturalists, other projects that have done this sort of thing. But really what that allows is to observe changes over time and space in the number and species richness of pollinators, which that's really important data if you're trying to track how something like pesticide use or land development or agriculture or even, you know, butterfly gardening is influencing local pollinators. You need that data. And so what's so great about this data is it also becomes open access.

So anyone can access this data for research, including just the curious of mind. and spirit. And so it's, you know, it's really this, like, big collaborative project in supportive pollinators. Now, I know you studied entomology, and I know your beekeepers. Should I assume that these bees are your favorite pollinators, or do you have a secret other favorite pollinator? Well, bees are wonderful. They are not my favorite pollinator. I have a love of solitary wasps. I'm very, very fond of the Christodans, which are these, like, beautiful, metallic, blue, and green wasps that actually parasitized the nest and other wasps, which is super interesting. I also really like the sweat bees because they're beautiful and they co-evolved with mammals.

And so there's this really neat evolutionary history. I'm extremely partial to the pretty shiny and brightly colored mini bees, as you will, and wasps that are on flowers. They're so much cooler. All right. So if we want to get involved, give us the ABCs of how to get involved here. Yeah, it's really easy. So visit Science Friday.com slash citizen science to sign up for the project and print and download your data sheet.

You'll be able to register right there. You'll also get opportunities to visit a couple of events we've got going on online this month. So you can participate in a pollinator smackdown and listen to a bunch of different scientists, try to get you to vote for your favorite type of pollinator, whether it's bats or flies or bees. We also will have a Q&A session on how to participate in the project if you want to kind of meet other people who are participating and talk to the science. who are running that project. That's on our website. And it's going throughout the month of April. This project actually runs year-round, but we're really excited to partner with SciStarter and the Great Pollinator Project this month for that activity. So ScienceFrider.com slash Citizen Science will get you everything you need. That's great. Great way to kick off Spring, Ariel. Thank you for taking time to

tell us about this and for all the work you do for us. Oh, thanks so much. Yeah, it's a total pleasure. Get out there and watch some flowers, folks. It'll be fun. Ariel Zitch, Science Friday's education director. And if you want to participate in our crowd science project, as she says, or see the entire list of events and activities go to our website, science friday.com slash citizen science. That's about all the time we have for this hour. If you missed any part of the program or you'd like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts, or you can ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. And on the Science Friday Voxpop app this week, we want to hear from COVID-19 long haulers, people who have had COVID symptoms over a long period of time. What questions do you have about your experience? That's on the Science Friday Voxpop app. What questions do you have about your experience? You can download the Science Friday Voxpop app wherever you get your apps. Also, you can say hi to us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or email us. The address, SciFri at ScienceFri.com,

Send us feedback. Tell us what you'd like us to cover. We do want to hear from you. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flato.