(Music)
(Muzika)
These bees are in my backyard in Berkeley, California. Until last year, I'd never kept bees before, but National Geographic asked me to photograph a story about them, and I decided, to be able to take compelling images, I should start keeping bees myself. And as you may know, bees pollinate one third of our food crops, and lately they've been having a really hard time. So as a photographer, I wanted to explore what this problem really looks like. So I'm going to show you what I found over the last year.
Ove pčele su u mom dvorištu u Berkliju u Kaliforniji. Do prošle godine, nikada nisam držao pčele, ali Nacionalna geografija me je zamolila da fotografišem prilog o njima i odlučio sam, kako bih napravio uverljive slike, da treba i sam da držim pčele. Kao što možda znate, pčele oprašuju jednu trećinu naših useva i u poslednje vreme im je prilično teško. Kao fotograf, želeo sam da istražim kako ovaj problem zapravo izgleda. Pokazaću vam šta sam otkrio tokom prošle godine.
This furry little creature is a fresh young bee halfway emerged from its brood cell, and bees right now are dealing with several different problems, including pesticides, diseases, and habitat loss, but the single greatest threat is a parasitic mite from Asia, Varroa destructor. And this pinhead-sized mite crawls onto young bees and sucks their blood. This eventually destroys a hive because it weakens the immune system of the bees, and it makes them more vulnerable to stress and disease.
Ovo čupavo malo stvorenje je mlada pčelica koja je izmilela napola iz svog legla a pčele trenutno imaju posla sa nekoliko različitih problema, uključujući pesticide, zaraze i gubitak staništa, ali najveća pretnja im je parazitska grinja iz Azije, Varroa destructor. A ova grinja veličine čiode se prikrade mladim pčelama i isisava njihovu krv. Ovo na kraju uništava košnicu jer slabi imuni sistem pčela i čini ih još podložnijim stresu i bolestima.
Now, bees are the most sensitive when they're developing inside their brood cells, and I wanted to know what that process really looks like, so I teamed up with a bee lab at U.C. Davis and figured out how to raise bees in front of a camera. I'm going to show you the first 21 days of a bee's life condensed into 60 seconds.
Pčele su najosetljivije kada se razvijaju unutar svojih ćelija legla i želeo sam da znam kako taj proces zaista izgleda pa sam zajedno sa laboratorijom za pčelarstvo na Univerzitetu Dejvis, otkrio kako da uzgajam pčele ispred fotoaparata. Pokazaću vam prvi 21 dan u životu pčele sabijen u 60 sekundi.
This is a bee egg as it hatches into a larva, and those newly hatched larvae swim around their cells feeding on this white goo that nurse bees secrete for them. Then, their head and their legs slowly differentiate as they transform into pupae. Here's that same pupation process, and you can actually see the mites running around in the cells. Then the tissue in their body reorganizes and the pigment slowly develops in their eyes. The last step of the process is their skin shrivels up and they sprout hair. (Music)
Ovo je jaje pčele koje se leže u larvu i sveže izležene larve plivaju u svojim ćelijama, hraneći se belom tečnošću koju za njih luče pčele dadilje. Onda polako počinju da se razlikuju njihove glave i tela dok se transformišu u pupe. Evo istog tog procesa pupljenja i zapravo možete da vidite kako grinje trčkaraju po ćelijama. Onda se reorganizuje tkivo u njihovim telima i polako se razvija pigment u njihovim očima. Poslednji korak procesa je taj da se njihova koža smežura i narastu im dlake. (Muzika)
So -- (Applause)
Dakle - (Aplauz)
As you can see halfway through that video, the mites were running around on the baby bees, and the way that beekeepers typically manage these mites is they treat their hives with chemicals. In the long run, that's bad news, so researchers are working on finding alternatives to control these mites.
Kako možete videti na polovini tog snimka, grinje su trčale oko malih pčela, a pčelari obično rešavaju problem sa ovim grinjama tako što košnice prskaju hemikalijama. Na duge staze, to su loše vesti, tako da istraživači rade na pronalaženju alternativnih rešenja kako bi se kontrolisale ove grinje.
This is one of those alternatives. It's an experimental breeding program at the USDA Bee Lab in Baton Rouge, and this queen and her attendant bees are part of that program.
Ovo je jedno od tih rešenja. To je eksperimentalni program uzgoja u Laboratoriji za pčele Ministarstva poljoprivrede SAD u Baton Ružu a ova kraljica i njene pčele sluge deo su tog programa.
Now, the researchers figured out that some of the bees have a natural ability to fight mites, so they set out to breed a line of mite-resistant bees. This is what it takes to breed bees in a lab. The virgin queen is sedated and then artificially inseminated using this precision instrument. Now, this procedure allows the researchers to control exactly which bees are being crossed, but there's a tradeoff in having this much control. They succeeded in breeding mite-resistant bees, but in that process, those bees started to lose traits like their gentleness and their ability to store honey, so to overcome that problem, these researchers are now collaborating with commercial beekeepers. This is Bret Adee opening one of his 72,000 beehives. He and his brother run the largest beekeeping operation in the world, and the USDA is integrating their mite-resistant bees into his operation with the hope that over time, they'll be able to select the bees that are not only mite-resistant but also retain all of these qualities that make them useful to us.
Istraživači su otkrili da neke od pčela imaju prirodnu sposobnost borbe protiv grinja, pa su krenuli da uzgoje vrstu pčela koja je otporna na grinje. Ovo je potrebno da bi se pčele uzgajale u laboratoriji. Kraljica koja je nevina se uspava i onda veštački oplodi koristeći ovaj precizni instrument. Ovaj zahvat istraživačima dozvoljava da kontrolišu tačno koje pčele se ukrštaju ali postoji kompromis kada imate ovoliko kontrole. Uspeli su da stvore pčele koje su otporne na grinje ali su u tom procesu te pčele počele da gube svojstva poput nežnosti i mogućnosti da čuvaju med, pa kako bi zaobišli taj problem, ovi istraživači sada sarađuju sa komercijalnim pčelarima. Ovo je Bret Adi koji otvara jednu od svojih 72 000 košnica. On i njegov brat vode najveću pčelarsku operaciju na svetu, i Ministarstvo poljoprivrede SAD ubacuje svoje pčele otporne na grinje u operaciju nadajući se da će vremenom moći da odaberu pčele koje su ne samo otporne na grinje, već zadržavaju i ostale osobine koje ih čine korisnim za nas.
And to say it like that makes it sound like we're manipulating and exploiting bees, and the truth is, we've been doing that for thousands of years. We took this wild creature and put it inside of a box, practically domesticating it, and originally that was so that we could harvest their honey, but over time we started losing our native pollinators, our wild pollinators, and there are many places now where those wild pollinators can no longer meet the pollination demands of our agriculture, so these managed bees have become an integral part of our food system.
Kada se to tako kaže, ispada kao da manipulišemo pčelama i iskorišćavamo ih, ali istina je da to radimo već hiljadama godina. Uzeli smo ovo divlje stvorenje i stavili smo ga u kutiju, praktično smo ga pripitomili, i to je prvobitno bilo zbog toga da bismo skupljali njihov med, ali smo tokom vremena počeli da gubimo prirodne oprašivače i divlje oprašivače i sada postoje mnoga mesta gde divlji oprašivači ne mogu više da zadovolje potražnju naše poljoprivrede tako da su ove ukroćene pčele postale ključni deo našeg sistema hrane.
So when people talk about saving bees, my interpretation of that is we need to save our relationship to bees, and in order to design new solutions, we have to understand the basic biology of bees and understand the effects of stressors that we sometimes cannot see. In other words, we have to understand bees up close.
Kada ljudi pričaju o spašavanju pčela, moje tumačenje toga je da moramo da sačuvamo našu vezu sa pčelama, a kako bismo našli nova rešenja, moramo da razumemo osnovnu biologiju pčela kao i efekte stresora koje ponekad ne možemo da vidimo. Drugim rečima, moramo da pčele razumemo izbliza.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)