9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Music) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These bees are in my backyard 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in Berkeley, California. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Until last year,[br]I'd never kept bees before, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but National Geographic asked me[br]to photograph a story about them, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I decided to be able[br]to take compelling images, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I should start keeping bees myself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And as you may know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bees pollinate one third[br]of our food crops, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and lately they've been having[br]a really hard time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So as a photographer, I wanted to explore[br]what this problem really looks like. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I'm going to show you[br]What I found over the last year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This furry little creature 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is a fresh young bee halfway emerged 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 from its brood cell, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and bees right now are dealing[br]with several different problems, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 including pesticides, diseases, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and habitat loss, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but the single greatest threat[br]is a parasitic mite from Asia, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Varroa destructor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this pinhead-sized mite[br]crawls onto young bees 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and sucks their blood. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This eventually destroys the hive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because it weakens[br]the immune system of the bees, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it makes them more vulnerable[br]to stress and disease. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, bees are the most sensitive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when they're developing[br]inside their brood cells, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I wanted to know[br]what that process really looks like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so I teamed up with a bee lab at UC Davis 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and figured out how to raise bees[br]in front of a camera. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm going to show you[br]the first 21 days of a bee's life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 condensed into 60 seconds. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is a bee egg[br]as it hatches into a larva, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and those newly hatched larva 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 swim around their cells 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feeding on this white goo 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that nurse bees secrete for them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then, their head and their legs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 slowly differentiate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as they transform into pupae. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Here's that same pupation process, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you can actually see the mites[br]running around in the cells. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then the tissue in their body reorganizes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the pigment slowly[br]develops in their eyes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The last step of the process 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is their skin shrivels up 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they sprout hair. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Music) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So -- (Applause) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So as you can see[br]halfway through that video, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the mites were running around[br]on the baby bees, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the way that beekeepers[br]typically manage these mites 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is they treat their hives with chemicals. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the long run, that's bad news, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so researchers are working[br]on finding alternatives 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to control these mites. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is one of those alternatives. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's an experimental breeding program[br]at the USDA Bee Lab in Baton Rouge, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and this queen and her attendant bees[br]are part of that program. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, the researchers figured out 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that some of the bees have[br]a natural ability to fight mites, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so they set out to breed[br]a line of mite-resistant bees. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is what it takes[br]to breed bees in a lab. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The virgin queen is sedated 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then artificially inseminated[br]using this precision instrument. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, this procedure allows the researchers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to control exactly[br]which bees are being crossed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but there's a tradeoff[br]in having this much control. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They succeeded in breeding[br]mite-resistant bees, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but in that process, those bees[br]started to lose traits 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like their gentleness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and their ability to store honey, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so to overcome that problem, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these researchers are now collaborating[br]with commercial beekeepers. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is Bret Adee opening[br]one of his 72,000 bee hives. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He and his brother run the largest[br]beekeeping operation in the world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the USDA is integrating 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 their mite-resistant bees 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into his operation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with the hope that over time,[br]they'll be able to select 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the bees that are not only mite-resistant 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but also retain all of these qualities 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that make them useful to us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And to say it like that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 makes it sound like we're manipulating[br]and exploiting bees, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the truth is, we've been doing that[br]for thousands of years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We took this wild creature 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and put it inside of a box, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 practically domesticating it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and originally that was[br]so that we could harvest their honey, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but over time we started losing[br]our native pollinators, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 our wild pollinators, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and there are many places now[br]where those wild pollinators 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can no longer meet the pollination[br]demands of our agriculture, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so these managed bees have become[br]an integral part of our food system. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So when people talk about saving bees, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my interpretation of that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is we need to save[br]our relationship to bees, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and in order to design new solutions, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we have to understand[br]the basic biology bees 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and understand the effects 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of stressors that we sometimes cannot see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In other words, we have[br]to understand bees up close. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thank you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Applause)