This is our life with bees, and this is our life without bees. Bees are the most important pollinators of our fruits and vegetables and flowers and crops like alfalfa hay that feed our farm animals. More than one third of the world's crop production is dependent on bee pollination.
Ovo je naš život sa pčelama, a ovo bez pčela. Pčele su najvažniji oprašivači našeg voća, povrća i cveća, i biljaka poput deteline koje hrane naše domaće životinje. Više od jedne trećine svetske proizvodnje useva zavisi od pčelinjeg oprašivanja.
But the ironic thing is that bees are not out there pollinating our food intentionally. They're out there because they need to eat. Bees get all of the protein they need in their diet from pollen and all of the carbohydrates they need from nectar. They're flower-feeders, and as they move from flower to flower, basically on a shopping trip at the local floral mart, they end up providing this valuable pollination service. In parts of the world where there are no bees, or where they plant varieties that are not attractive to bees, people are paid to do the business of pollination by hand. These people are moving pollen from flower to flower with a paintbrush. Now this business of hand pollination is actually not that uncommon. Tomato growers often pollinate their tomato flowers with a hand-held vibrator. Now this one's the tomato tickler. (Laughter) Now this is because the pollen within a tomato flower is held very securely within the male part of the flower, the anther, and the only way to release this pollen is to vibrate it. So bumblebees are one of the few kinds of bees in the world that are able to hold onto the flower and vibrate it, and they do this by shaking their flight muscles at a frequency similar to the musical note C. So they vibrate the flower, they sonicate it, and that releases the pollen in this efficient swoosh, and the pollen gathers all over the fuzzy bee's body, and she takes it home as food. Tomato growers now put bumblebee colonies inside the greenhouse to pollinate the tomatoes because they get much more efficient pollination when it's done naturally and they get better quality tomatoes.
Ali ironično je to što pčele ne oprašuju našu hranu namerno. One to rade jer moraju da jedu. Pčele dobijaju sve proteine koji su im potrebni u ishrani iz polena i sve ugljene hidrate koji su im potrebni iz nektara. One se hrane cvećem, i dok se kreću od cveta do cveta, kao da kupuju u lokalnoj cvećari, one pružaju vrednu uslugu oprašivanja. U delovima sveta gde nema pčela, ili gde rastu biljke koje nisu privlačne pčelama, ljudi su plaćeni da ručno vrše oprašivanje. Ovi ljudi prenose polen sa jednog cveta na drugi pomoću četke. Danas ovaj posao ručnog oprašivanja zapravo nije tako neobičan. Uzgajivači paradajza često oprašuju cvetove svojih biljaka pomoću ručnog vibratora. Dakle, ovako se golica paradajz. (Smeh) S obzirom da se polen u cvetu paradajza čuva na sigurnom, unutar cveta, u muškom delu cveta, prašniku, jedini način da se taj polen oslobodi je vibracija prašnika. Bumbari su jedna od nekoliko vrsta pčela na svetu koje su sposobne da se drže za cvet i da ga vibriraju, a to rade trešenjem svojih mišića za letenje na frekvenciji koja je slična muzičkoj noti C. Dok vibriraju cvet, oni ga rastvore i to oslobađa polen, i polen se skuplja po čupavom telu bumbara i on ga odnosi kući kao hranu. Uzgajivači paradajza sada postavljaju kolonije bumbara unutar plastenika da bi oprašili njihov paradajz, jer dobiju mnogo efikasnije oprašivanje kada se vrši prirodnim putem i dobiju kvalitetnije plodove.
So there's other, maybe more personal reasons, to care about bees. There's over 20,000 species of bees in the world, and they're absolutely gorgeous. These bees spend the majority of their life cycle hidden in the ground or within a hollow stem and very few of these beautiful species have evolved highly social behavior like honeybees.
Postoje i drugi, možda više lični razlozi, za brigu o pčelama. Postoji preko 20 000 vrsta pčela na svetu i sve su apsolutno predivne. Pčele provedu većinu svog životnog ciklusa skrivene u zemlji ili unutar šupljih stabala, i mali broj ovih prelepih vrsta je razvio visoko društveno ponašanje kao medonosne pčele.
Now honeybees tend to be the charismatic representative for the other 19,900-plus species because there's something about honeybees that draws people into their world. Humans have been drawn to honeybees since early recorded history, mostly to harvest their honey, which is an amazing natural sweetener.
Ove pčele su harizmatični predstavnici ostalih, preko 19 900 vrsta, jer postoji nešto kod medonosnih pčela što privlači ljude u njihov svet. Ljude su pčele privlačile još od početka zabeležene istorije, uglavnom da bi ubirali njihov med, koji je izvrstan prirodni zaslađivač.
I got drawn into the honeybee world completely by a fluke. I was 18 years old and bored, and I picked up a book in the library on bees and I spent the night reading it. I had never thought about insects living in complex societies. It was like the best of science fiction come true. And even stranger, there were these people, these beekeepers, that loved their bees like they were family, and when I put down the book, I knew I had to see this for myself. So I went to work for a commercial beekeeper, a family that owned 2,000 hives of bees in New Mexico. And I was permanently hooked.
Mene je svet pčela privukao potpuno slučajno. Imala sam 18 godina i dosađivala se, i u biblioteci sam pokupila knjigu o pčelama i provela sam noć čitajući je. Nikad nisam razmišljala o insektima koji žive u složenim društvima. Bilo je to kao da se obistinila najbolja naučna fantastika. I da bude još čudnije, postojali su ljudi, pčelari, koji su voleli pčele kao da su porodica, i kada sam odložila knjigu, znala sam da sama moram to da vidim. Tako sam počela da radim za jednog komercijalnog pčelara, porodicu koja je posedovala 2000 pčelinjih košnica u Nju Meksiku. I trajno sam se "navukla".
Honeybees can be considered a super-organism, where the colony is the organism and it's comprised of 40,000 to 50,000 individual bee organisms. Now this society has no central authority. Nobody's in charge. So how they come to collective decisions, and how they allocate their tasks and divide their labor, how they communicate where the flowers are, all of their collective social behaviors are mindblowing. My personal favorite, and one that I've studied for many years, is their system of healthcare. So bees have social healthcare. So in my lab, we study how bees keep themselves healthy. For example, we study hygiene, where some bees are able to locate and weed out sick individuals from the nest, from the colony, and it keeps the colony healthy. And more recently, we've been studying resins that bees collect from plants. So bees fly to some plants and they scrape these very, very sticky resins off the leaves, and they take them back to the nest where they cement them into the nest architecture where we call it propolis. We've found that propolis is a natural disinfectant. It's a natural antibiotic. It kills off bacteria and molds and other germs within the colony, and so it bolsters the colony health and their social immunity. Humans have known about the power of propolis since biblical times. We've been harvesting propolis out of bee colonies for human medicine, but we didn't know how good it was for the bees. So honeybees have these remarkable natural defenses that have kept them healthy and thriving for over 50 million years.
Medonosne pčele se mogu smatrati super-organizmom, gde je kolonija organizam koji se sastoji od 40 000 do 50 000 pojedinačnih pčelinjih organizama. Njihovo društvo nema centralni autoritet. Niko nije glavni. Kako one dolaze do zajedničkih odluka, i kako dodeljuju zadatke i dele posao, kako komuniciraju o poziciji cvetova, svo njihovo kolektivno društveno ponašanje je zapanjujuće. Meni omiljeni, i predmet mog dugogodišnjeg proučavanja, je njihov sistem zdravstvene zaštite. Dakle, pčele imaju društvenu zdravstvenu zaštitu. U mojoj laboratoriji proučavamo kako pčele održavaju svoje zdravlje. Na primer, proučavamo higijenu, gde su neke pčele sposobne da lociraju i izdvoje bolesne jedinke iz kolonije i tako održavaju koloniju zdravom. Nedavno, proučavali smo smolu koju pčele skupljaju sa biljaka. Pčele lete do određenih biljaka i stružu veoma lepljivu smolu sa listova, i odnose je natrag u košnicu, gde je ugrađuju u konstrukciju košnice, a mi je nazivamo propolisom. Otkrili smo da je propolis prirodno sredstvo za dezinfekciju. Prirodni je antibiotik. Ubija bakterije i gljivice i druge klice u koloniji, i tako podstiče zdravlje kolonije i zajednički imunitet pčela. Ljudi poznaju moć propolisa od biblijskih vremena. Skupljali smo propolis iz pčelinjih kolonija za lečenje ljudi ali nismo znali koliko je koristan za pčele. Pčele imaju izvanrednu prirodnu odbranu koja im čuva zdravlje i napredak preko 50 miliona godina.
So seven years ago, when honeybee colonies were reported to be dying en masse, first in the United States, it was clear that there was something really, really wrong. In our collective conscience, in a really primal way, we know we can't afford to lose bees. So what's going on? Bees are dying from multiple and interacting causes, and I'll go through each of these. The bottom line is, bees dying reflects a flowerless landscape and a dysfunctional food system.
Pre sedam godina, kada je zabeleženo masovno izumiranje pčelinjih kolonija, prvo u Sjedinjenim Državama, bilo je jasno da se dešava nešto veoma, veoma loše. U našoj kolektivnoj savesti, na zaista primaran način, ne smemo sebi priuštiti gubitak pčela. Šta se dešava? Pčele umiru zbog mnogobrojnih međusobno povezanih uzroka, i proći ću kroz svaki od njih. Suština je, da izumiranje pčela odražava pejzaž bez cveća i disfunkcionalan sistem ishrane.
Now we have the best data on honeybees, so I'll use them as an example. In the United States, bees in fact have been in decline since World War II. We have half the number of managed hives in the United States now compared to 1945. We're down to about two million hives of bees, we think. And the reason is, after World War II, we changed our farming practices. We stopped planting cover crops. We stopped planting clover and alfalfa, which are natural fertilizers that fix nitrogen in the soil, and instead we started using synthetic fertilizers. Clover and alfalfa are highly nutritious food plants for bees. And after World War II, we started using herbicides to kill off the weeds in our farms. Many of these weeds are flowering plants that bees require for their survival. And we started growing larger and larger crop monocultures. Now we talk about food deserts, places in our cities, neighborhoods that have no grocery stores. The very farms that used to sustain bees are now agricultural food deserts, dominated by one or two plant species like corn and soybeans. Since World War II, we have been systematically eliminating many of the flowering plants that bees need for their survival. And these monocultures extend even to crops that are good for bees, like almonds. Fifty years ago, beekeepers would take a few colonies, hives of bees into the almond orchards, for pollination, and also because the pollen in an almond blossom is really high in protein. It's really good for bees. Now, the scale of almond monoculture demands that most of our nation's bees, over 1.5 million hives of bees, be transported across the nation to pollinate this one crop. And they're trucked in in semi-loads, and they must be trucked out, because after bloom, the almond orchards are a vast and flowerless landscape.
Posedujemo najbolje podatke o pčelama, pa ću ih koristiti kao primer. U Sjedinjenim Državama, broj pčela opada od Drugog svetskog rata. Imamo upola manje košnica u Sjedinjenim Državama danas u odnosu na 1945. godinu. Pretpostavljamo da smo u minusu za oko 2 miliona pčelinjih košnica. A razlog je taj što smo nakon Drugog svetskog rata, promenili svoju poljoprivrednu praksu. Prestali smo da sadimo biljke koje proizvode humus. Prestali smo da sadimo detelinu, koja je prirodno đubrivo koje reguliše nivo azota u tlu, a umesto toga, počeli smo da koristimo veštačka đubriva. Detelina i lucerka su za pčele veoma hranjive biljke. Nakon Drugog svetskog rata, počeli smo da koristimo i herbicide da iskorenimo korov na našim farmama. Mnogi od tih korova su biljke koje cvetaju, pčelama neophodne za preživljavanje. I počeli smo da uzgajamo sve veće i veće monokulture useva. Danas govorimo o pustinjama hrane, mestima u našim gradovima, kvartovima koji nemaju prodavnice voća i povrća. Farme koje su nekad održavale pčele sada su poljoprivredne pustinje hrane, kojima dominiraju jedna ili dve biljne vrste poput kukuruza ili soje. Od Drugog svetskog rata, sistematski smo eliminisali mnoge cvetajuće biljke koje su pčelama neophodne za preživljavanje. Ove monokulture se šire čak i do useva koji su dobri za pčele, kao što su bademi. Pre pedeset godina, pčelari bi postavili nekoliko kolonija pčelinjih košnica u voćnjake badema, radi oprašivanja, a takođe i zato što je polen bademovog cveta zaista bogat proteinima. Stvarno je dobar za pčele. Danas, veličina monokulture badema zahteva da većina naših pčela, preko 1,5 miliona pčela, bude prevezena preko čitave zemlje da bi oprašila ovu jednu vrstu useva. Prevoze se kamionima, zatim se istovaraju, jer nakon cvetanja voćnjaci badema postaju ogromna područja bez cveća.
Bees have been dying over the last 50 years, and we're planting more crops that need them. There has been a 300 percent increase in crop production that requires bee pollination.
Pčele izumiru tokom poslednjih 50 godina, a mi sadimo više useva nego što nam je potrebno. Proizvodnja useva koja zahteva oprašivanje uz pomoć pčela povećala se za 300 posto.
And then there's pesticides. After World War II, we started using pesticides on a large scale, and this became necessary because of the monocultures that put out a feast for crop pests. Recently, researchers from Penn State University have started looking at the pesticide residue in the loads of pollen that bees carry home as food, and they've found that every batch of pollen that a honeybee collects has at least six detectable pesticides in it, and this includes every class of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and even inert and unlabeled ingredients that are part of the pesticide formulation that can be more toxic than the active ingredient. This small bee is holding up a large mirror. How much is it going to take to contaminate humans?
A tu su i pesticidi. Nakon Drugog svetskog rata počeli smo da koristimo pesticide u velikoj meri i to je postalo neophodno zbog monokultura koje predstavljaju gozbu za štetočine. Nedavno, istraživači sa univerziteta Pen Stejt počeli su da traže ostatke pesticida u tovarima polena koje pčele nose kući kao hranu, i otkrili su da svaka serija polena koju medonosna pčela sakupi sadrži barem šest pesticida koje je moguće otkriti, uključujući sve vrste insekticida, herbicida, fungicida, i čak inertne i neoznačene sastojke koji su deo formulacije pesticida, te mogu biti više toksični nego aktivni sastojci. Ova mala pčela drži veliko ogledalo. Koliko će vremena proći dok ne zagadi ljude?
One of these class of insecticides, the neonicontinoids, is making headlines around the world right now. You've probably heard about it. This is a new class of insecticides. It moves through the plant so that a crop pest, a leaf-eating insect, would take a bite of the plant and get a lethal dose and die. If one of these neonics, we call them, is applied in a high concentration, such as in this ground application, enough of the compound moves through the plant and gets into the pollen and the nectar, where a bee can consume, in this case, a high dose of this neurotoxin that makes the bee twitch and die. In most agricultural settings, on most of our farms, it's only the seed that's coated with the insecticide, and so a smaller concentration moves through the plant and gets into the pollen and nectar, and if a bee consumes this lower dose, either nothing happens or the bee becomes intoxicated and disoriented and she may not find her way home. And on top of everything else, bees have their own set of diseases and parasites. Public enemy number one for bees is this thing. It's called varroa destructor. It's aptly named. It's this big, blood-sucking parasite that compromises the bee's immune system and circulates viruses.
Jedna vrsta ovih insekticida, neonikotinidi, nalazi se upravo sada u naslovima širom sveta. Verovatno ste čuli za njih. To je nova vrsta insekticida. Kreće se kroz biljku, tako da štetočina, insekt koji jede listove, kada zagrize biljku, dobije smrtnu dozu i ugine. Ako je jedan od ovih neonika, kako ih zovemo, prisutan u velikoj koncentraciji, kao u ovoj primeni na tlu, dovoljno jedinjenja se kreće kroz biljku i dospeva u polen i nektar, gde pčela može konzumirati, u ovom slučaju, visoku dozu neurotoksina, od kojeg se pčela grči i ugine. Na većini poljoprivrednih dobara, na većini naših farmi, samo je seme obloženo insekticidom, tako da se manja koncentracija kreće kroz biljku i dolazi u polen i nektar, i ako pčela konzumira ovu manju dozu, ili se ništa ne desi ili se pčela otruje i postaje dezorijentisana i možda nikad ne nađe put kući. I povrh svega ostalog, pčele imaju svoj skup bolesti i parazita. Ovo je javni neprijatelj broj jedan za pčele. Zove se varoa razarač. Ime mu odgovara. To je veliki parazit koji siše krv i kompromituje imuni sistem pčela i širi viruse.
Let me put this all together for you. I don't know what it feels like to a bee to have a big, bloodsucking parasite running around on it, and I don't know what it feels like to a bee to have a virus, but I do know what it feels like when I have a virus, the flu, and I know how difficult it is for me to get to the grocery store to get good nutrition. But what if I lived in a food desert? And what if I had to travel a long distance to get to the grocery store, and I finally got my weak body out there and I consumed, in my food, enough of a pesticide, a neurotoxin, that I couldn't find my way home? And this is what we mean by multiple and interacting causes of death.
Dozvolite da vam pojasnim. Ne znam kakav je osećaj biti pčela i imati velikog parazita koji siše krv, i ne znam kako je biti pčela i imati virus, ali znam kakav je osećaj imati virus gripa, i znam kako je teško doći do prodavnice i nabaviti dobru hranu. Ali šta da živim u pustinji hrane? I šta da moram da putujem daleko da dođem do prodavnice, i kad napokon dovučem svoje slabo telo do tamo, da konzumiram, u svojoj hrani, dovoljno pesticida, neurotoksina, da ne mogu pronaći put kući? Na to mislimo kad govorimo o mnogobrojnim meuđupovezanim uzrocima smrti.
And it's not just our honeybees. All of our beautiful wild species of bees are at risk, including those tomato-pollinating bumblebees. These bees are providing backup for our honeybees. They're providing the pollination insurance alongside our honeybees. We need all of our bees.
A to nije slučaj samo sa medonosnim pčelama. Sve naše predivne divlje vrste pčela su u opasnosti, uključujući i bumbare, oprašivače paradajza. Ove pčele obezbeđuju rezervu za naše medonosne pčele. Obezbeđuju osiguranje oprašivanja paralelno sa našim medonosnim pčelama. Potrebne su nam sve naše pčele.
So what are we going to do? What are we going to do about this big bee bummer that we've created? It turns out, it's hopeful. It's hopeful. Every one of you out there can help bees in two very direct and easy ways. Plant bee-friendly flowers, and don't contaminate these flowers, this bee food, with pesticides. So go online and search for flowers that are native to your area and plant them. Plant them in a pot on your doorstep. Plant them in your front yard, in your lawns, in your boulevards. Campaign to have them planted in public gardens, community spaces, meadows. Set aside farmland. We need a beautiful diversity of flowers that blooms over the entire growing season, from spring to fall. We need roadsides seeded in flowers for our bees, but also for migrating butterflies and birds and other wildlife. And we need to think carefully about putting back in cover crops to nourish our soil and nourish our bees. And we need to diversify our farms. We need to plant flowering crop borders and hedge rows to disrupt the agricultural food desert and begin to correct the dysfunctional food system that we've created.
Pa šta ćemo uraditi? Šta ćemo uraditi u vezi sa ovom velikom pčelinjom neprijatnošću koju smo mi stvorili? Ispostavlja se da ima nade. Ima nade. Svako od vas može pomoći pčelama na dva veoma direktna i jednostavna načina. Zasadite cveće koje je prijatelj pčelama, i nemojte pesticidima zagađivati to cveće, tu hranu za pčele. Pretražite na internetu koje je cveće domaće u vašem području i zasadite ga. Zasadite ga u saksiji na vašem kućnom pragu. Zasadite ga u vašem dvorištu, na vašim travnjacima, u vašim ulicama. Zauzmite se za sadnju cveća u javnim vrtovima, otvorenim prostorima u vašoj zajednici, na livadama. Izdvojite poljoprivredno zemljište. Potrebna nam je predivna raznovrsnost cveća koje cveta tokom cele sezone, od proleća do jeseni. Potrebni su nam prostori sa cvećem za naše pčele pored saobraćajnica, ali takođe i za migracije leptira i ptica i ostale prirodne vrste. I trebalo bi pažljivo razmisliti o povratku biljaka koje proizvode humus, da bi negovale naše tlo i negovale naše pčele. I potrebna nam je raznolikost farmi. Potrebno nam je da zasadimo cvetajuće granice i ograde među usevima, da bismo narušili pustinje hrane i počeli da ispravljamo disfunkcionalni sistem ishrane koji smo stvorili.
So maybe it seems like a really small countermeasure to a big, huge problem -- just go plant flowers -- but when bees have access to good nutrition, we have access to good nutrition through their pollination services. And when bees have access to good nutrition, they're better able to engage their own natural defenses, their healthcare, that they have relied on for millions of years. So the beauty of helping bees this way, for me, is that every one of us needs to behave a little bit more like a bee society, an insect society, where each of our individual actions can contribute to a grand solution, an emergent property, that's much greater than the mere sum of our individual actions. So let the small act of planting flowers and keeping them free of pesticides be the driver of large-scale change.
Možda se čini kao zaista mala protivmera, naspram velikog, ogromnog problema - samo zasaditi cveće, ali kad pčele imaju pristup dobroj ishrani, mi imamo pristup dobroj ishrani kroz njihovu uslugu oprašivanja. I kada pčele imaju pristup dobroj ishrani, sposobnije su da se angažuju u svojoj prirodnoj odbrani, svojoj zdravstvenoj zaštiti, na koju su se oslanjale milionima godina. Lepota u pomaganju pčelama na ovaj način, po meni, je u tome što bi svako od nas trebalo da se ponaša malo više poput pčela u zajednici, u zajednici insekata, gde svaki od pojedinačnih postupaka može da doprinese velikom rešenju, organizovanom sistemu, koji je mnogo veći od prostog zbira naših pojedinačnih postupaka. Neka mali čin sadnje i čuvanja cveća od pesticida bude pokretač promene većih razmera.
On behalf of the bees, thank you.
U ime ovih pčela, hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Chris Anderson: Thank you. Just a quick question. The latest numbers on the die-off of bees, is there any sign of things bottoming out? What's your hope/depression level on this?
Kris Anderson: Hvala. Samo jedno kratko pitanje. Poslednje brojke o izumiranju pčela - ima li ikakvih pokazatelja da se stvari privode kraju? Koje su Vaše nade i strahovi po ovom pitanju?
Maria Spivak: Yeah. At least in the United States, an average of 30 percent of all bee hives are lost every winter. About 20 years ago, we were at a 15-percent loss. So it's getting precarious.
Maria Spivak: Da. U Sjedinjenim Državama, prosečno 30 posto svih pčelinjih košnica biva izgubljeno svake zime. Pre dvadesetak godina, imali smo gubitke od 15 procenata. Tako da postaje nesigurno.
CA: That's not 30 percent a year, that's -- MS: Yes, thirty percent a year.
KA: To nije 30 procenata godišnje, to je - MS: Da, 30 posto godišnje.
CA: Thirty percent a year. MS: But then beekeepers are able to divide their colonies and so they can maintain the same number, they can recuperate some of their loss.
KA: 30 posto godišnje. MS: Ali pčelari mogu da podele svoje kolonije, i da tako zadrže isti broj, mogu povratiti neke svoje gubitke.
We're kind of at a tipping point. We can't really afford to lose that many more. We need to be really appreciative of all the beekeepers out there. Plant flowers.
Na neki način smo na prekretnici. Zaista više ne možemo sebi priuštiti tako velike gubitke. Moramo biti zaista zahvalni svim čuvarima pčela. Sadite cveće.
CA: Thank you.
KA: Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)