- The world's pollinators are in trouble.
Without them, what will the future of food bee?
Pollen does a lot more than just make you sneeze.
It's also a really effective reproductive strategy,
and plants have been relying on it
for more than 375 million years.
Several species have co-evolved
along with plants to be great pollinators.
Some examples are honey bees, wild bees,
butterflies, beetles, birds, and bats.
They're all superheroes of pollination.
But you most frequently hear about honey bees.
Honey bees in general are just plain awesome.
They can tell time. They can see polarized light.
And they communicate with sweet dance moves.
(electric dance music)
But they're also responsible for 15 billion dollars
in revenue in food crops in the United States alone!
Worldwide, they create or contribute about
a third of all the food we eat.
But bees have been disappearing.
The phenomenon is called colony collapse disorder,
and scientists are still not
entirely certain what causes it.
In general, worker bees leave the hive and never return.
And that leaves the queen and larva to starve to death.
According to the Bee Informed Partnership,
from 2010 to 2014 we saw bee colonies
decline by 30%, year over year.
So what could be the cause?
Well, it might be a collection of things.
Like climate change, fungal infections,
insecticides, urbanization, and more.
Without these pollinators, we won't starve,
but certain foods could become very rare
or extremely expensive, and some might disappear forever.
So what can we do to protect food and bees?
Well, in 2014, the White House launched
the Pollinator Health Taskforce under the leadership
of the Environmental Protection Agency
and the Department of Agriculture.
It's all about finding ways to promote the health of
pollinators in general, including helping honey bee losses
move to sustainable levels, and
protecting the monarch butterfly.
And this is not just a US centric effort, it's global.
In Norway, there's a project to make a bee highway in Oslow.
Public and private entities have come together
to turn rooftops and other lands into bee friendly zones,
with plants that promote bee colonies.
And airports are actually hiring beekeepers
to build hives on unused land.
Oh and uh, this wouldn't be an episode of Forward Thinking
if we didn't eventually work our way around to robots.
Yeah. People are building robo-bees. At Harvard.
Now, bees are really small, they're light,
and they're incredibly efficient.
Which are three things your typical robot isn't.
So there are some big design challenges.
The team has to figure out ways to miniaturize
all these components, to make wings that can
fold up like origami, to create ultralight circuitry
that works on very little power so
the device can fly around on it's own.
But they think that by the 2040s, their bees
will be able to autonomously fly around and forage
and even support colonies, how cool is that?
Meanwhile, there's stuff you and I can do to help bees,
like plant a flowering garden,
or even just a single flowerpot.
Now I've got a question for you.
What do you think we should do to help save the bees?
I want to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit like
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Big thanks to Toyota for sponsoring our show
and making it possible, and don't bee lame,
check out these other great videos right over here.
(upbeat music)