Wilson-Rich on May 9, 2010, just six weeks after founding The Best Bees Company. Photo credit: Izzy Berdan
Pollinator decline is a grand challenge in the modern world. We are losing 40% of beehives annually nationwide, and more in places with tough winters, which are now at 50% or higher. Can you imagine if we lost half of our population each year? And if those we lost produced food for the rest of us? It’s untenable. I predict that at this rate, bees will be gone in 10 years. Furthermore, we will be without fruits and vegetables, causing global hunger, economic collapse, and a total moral crisis worldwide … if not for beekeepers, who replace those dead bees,
When I finished up my doctorate at Tufts University in honey bee immunology, I needed to find a laboratory, field sites, data points, and funding! It was 2009, in the deepest throws of the recession, so grant funding was more competitive for less resources, and the job market for academia was just as scarce. So I set up a laboratory of my own in the living room of my apartment in Boston, and started a Facebook page offering to install beehives at people’s home gardens and business rooftops in exchange for research funding. I’d volunteer my time to manage the beehives, they’d get all the honey, and I’d get the data.
And so our de factocitizen science journey began. We’d created a new way to engage the general public to own these little living data factories, pollinating gardens and farms, allowing everyone to participate in research.
When I told my apartment landlord in Boston that I’d set up a bee research lab in my living room, I was admittedly nervous. I must have caught him on a good day. He replied not with an eviction notice, but with a big smile and said, “Let’s put those bees in the back alley!” I was shocked. To all of our delight, that little data factory produced more honey that first year than any other beehive I’d ever worked. Over 100 lbs.! We were filling up pickle jars with the stuff! Since honey never goes bad, some of the tenants are still sharing it with their loved ones and the greater community.
That beehive and this citizen science approach, shifted my research question forever. It moved me away from why bees were dying, as so many researchers ask, and toward what is it about this beehive – this urban beehive – that’s allowing these bees to live and thrive?
With that, The Best Bees Company was born! As we grew, more people and companies got our research-based beekeeping services throughout urban, suburban, and rural towns alike. Meanwhile, the more data we got, the more accurate our maps became. Trends began to emerge for precisely where bees were thriving best.
Nine years later, The Best Bees Company and I oversee 1000 beehives, in 10 greater metro areas, with 65 beekeepers on our team in this little company that we made up. We’ve brought in 25 million pollinators nationwide, enhancing the properties of citizen scientists. That’s 10 million data points, this year alone, a sum of nearly 20 million data points since the first pickle jar beehive. For my team, that scale meant more accurate maps, which we now share with NASA and Google Earth. And now I can report what’s saving bees to you.
You, too, can be part a citizen scientist – If you have a balcony in your apartment, a backyard at your home, you can participate in stabilizing our food system! To become a citizen science client and purchase The Best Bees Company’s beekeeping services nationwide, visit www.BestBees.comor contact info@bestbees.comor (617) 445-2322.
