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.
如果有蜜蜂,生活就像這樣! 如果沒有牠們,生活會是這樣! 對蔬果花卉而言 蜜蜂是最重要的授粉者 受惠的還有苜蓿等牲畜賴以為生的飼料作物 三分之一以上的全球作物產量 有賴蜜蜂授粉
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.
但與我們所想的不同 蜜蜂是無意間幫糧食作物授粉的 他們飛出來是為了覓食 蜜蜂飲食中所需的蛋白質 全來自花粉 而碳水化合物則由花蜜供給 他們以花為食 從這朵飛到到那朵 他們就像在當地花市購物一樣 結果無意間促成授粉 但有些地方沒有蜜蜂 或植物多樣性不足吸引蜜蜂 便必須花錢請人來幫忙授粉 這些人正做著傳粉的工作 但用的是筆刷 目前手工授粉的工作 其實不算罕見 番茄農常用手持振動器 替番茄花授粉 這就是番茄搔癢器 之所以必須動用這種器材 是因為番茄的花粉 深藏在雄蕊的花藥中 要振動才能釋放花粉 少數能抓牢並搖動番茄花的蜂種當中 熊蜂是其中之一 牠們以近似Do音的頻率(約256 Hz) 抖動控制飛行的肌肉群 以音波振動花朵 花粉就在俐落的嗖嗖聲中釋放 毛茸茸的熊蜂因此滿身花粉 得以將食物帶回家 因此番茄農在溫室養熊蜂 替番茄授粉 因為順其自然的方式 授粉效率高很多 且番茄的品質也較好
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.
所以其他因素或個人考量 都讓人們有理由關切蜜蜂 共有兩萬多的蜂種遍布全世界 他們美極了 這些蜂的大半生 多蟄居地底或空心的莖稈內 這些美妙的蜂種中,只有少數 像蜜蜂一樣演化出高度的社會行為
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.
深具魅力的蜜蜂常被視為 其他一萬九千九百多種蜂的代表 因為牠們有一種特質 吸引人們去了解牠們 人類受蜜蜂吸引的歷史 可追朔到史料紀載之初 主要是為了採集蜂蜜 這種奇妙的天然甘味劑
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.
而我沉迷其中 則完全是無心插柳 那時我18歲,生活有些乏味 就在圖書館選了一本關於密蜂的書 然後花一整夜閱讀 在那之前我從不知道 昆蟲有複雜的社會結構 簡直就像暢銷科幻小說的翻版 更奇怪的是有一群人 一群愛蜂如親的養蜂人 當我讀完那本書,我覺得非得親眼看看不可 所以我到一家專業蜂場工作 業主一家在新墨西哥州有2千個蜂箱 我從此無法自拔
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.
蜜蜂群可說是一種超級社會組織 群體本身就是這個組織 由4到5萬隻 單獨個體組成 蜜蜂的社會組織沒有最高權威 個體間都是平等的 牠們是怎麼達成集體決策? 怎麼分配任務和分工? 還有牠們如何傳達花的位置? 牠們的種種集體社會行為都令人驚嘆 我個人的最愛,也是我研究多年的部分 是他們的醫療保健系統 沒錯,蜜蜂有社會保健制度! 我的實驗室研究蜜蜂怎麼保持健康 例如我們研究衛生 有些蜜蜂能夠找出病號 把牠們趕出蜂巢和蜂群 藉此維持群體健康 最近我們研究樹脂 蜜蜂從植物採集樹脂 牠們飛到某些植物上 把樹葉上粘稠的樹脂刮下來 然後帶回蜂巢 用來構築蜂巢結構 就是我們所謂的蜂膠 蜂膠已證實是天然的殺菌劑 是天然的抗生素 能殺死細菌、黴菌 以及蜂群裡的其他病菌 所以蜂膠改善了群體健康和免疫力 人類從聖經時代 就已知箇中奧妙 為了醫藥用途從蜂窩採集蜂膠 由來已久 但過去我們不知道它對蜜蜂有多大好處 蜜蜂以這些非凡的天然防禦機制 保持族群健康興旺 已有五千多萬年的時間
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.
所以七年前 美國開始傳出 有關蜂群大量死亡的報導 情況明顯不妙 若本能地以人類的共同文化來看 就會知道失去蜜蜂的後果不堪設想 到底發生甚麼事了? 其實蜂群死亡其來有自,且交錯紛雜 我會逐一說明 但根本的問題是 蜜蜂的死亡反映了環境中缺乏花朵 還有失能的糧食系統
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.
至於蜜蜂則有最可靠的數據 我會以這些數據為例 以美國來看 蜜蜂數量自二戰後持續減少 目前美國養蜂場的蜂箱數 是1945年的一半 我們估計總數已減少到約2百萬箱 原因是二戰後 我們改變了耕作方式 不再種覆土作物 像三葉草和苜蓿 它們能把土壤中的氮素鎖住,是天然肥料 而我們卻以化肥取代 但對蜜蜂而言,三葉草和苜蓿的營養價值很高 另外,二戰後除草劑的施用 雖除去農場上的雜草 但其中很多是開花植物 也是蜜蜂生存命脈 另外單一作物的種植面積擴大 所以我們要談談食品沙漠 城市中有些地方沒有雜貨店 而過去蜜蜂賴以生存的農場 反成食品沙漠 為一兩種作物寡占 例如玉米和大豆 二戰後人類就有計畫地 除去許多開花植物 可是蜜蜂仰賴它們維生 單一作物的農耕方式甚至使用在 像杏仁這樣對蜜蜂有益的作物 50年前,養蜂人會帶著數個蜂群(箱) 到杏仁園進行授粉 一個原因是杏仁花粉 富含蛋白質,對蜜蜂很好 目前杏仁的單一作物規模 需要動用全國大部分的蜜蜂幫忙 150萬多個蜂箱的蜜蜂 被送到全國各地 幫杏仁授粉 蜂箱是以半承載式卡車運達 事後送返 因為花期過後的杏仁園 是花影杳然的無垠景觀
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.
這50年來蜜蜂逐漸滅絕 我們卻種了更多需要牠們的作物 需要蜜蜂授粉的作物 近來產量已成長了三倍
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?
另一個致命傷是農藥 二戰後我們拼命使用農藥 而這演變為一種必要手段 因為單一作物的耕作方式 提供了害蟲豐盛的食物 最近賓州大學的研究人員 已著手研究蜜蜂帶回家吃的花粉中 農藥殘留的程度 他們發現 蜜蜂採集的每一批花粉 都測出至少6種農藥 包括各類殺蟲劑 除草劑和殺真菌劑 甚至還包括不知名的佐劑 這些佐劑雖是次要成分 卻可能比主成分更毒 借鏡這些小蜂的遭遇 可窺見農藥劑量對人體危害的比例
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.
有一類殺蟲劑 叫類尼古丁(新菸鹼Neonicotinoids) 正引起全球關注 你們可能早有耳聞 這是一類新型殺蟲劑 藥性可蔓延整株植物 因此食葉害蟲 只需一口 便足以喪命 如果任一種俗稱neonics(類尼古丁)的農藥 以高濃度施用 像這樣施用於土壤 植物所吸收的成分劑量 足以滲入花粉和花蜜 蜜蜂在此情況下吃進 高劑量的神經毒素 會抽搐而死 不過在大多農耕及農場環境中 只有種子表層包覆著殺蟲劑 循環於植物體內的劑量較低 花粉和花蜜所含藥量也較低 如果蜜蜂吃了較低的藥量 可能安然無恙 或是暈頭轉向 可能因此茫然不知歸途 禍不單行的是 蜜蜂還有疾病和寄生蟲的難題 這是蜂類的頭號公敵 叫做蜂蟎(varroa destructor) 恰如其名 蜂蟎是一種大型吸血寄生蟲 會弱化蜜蜂的免疫系統 並散布病毒
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.
我想為各位統整一下 我無法與蜜蜂感同身受 體會大型吸血寄生蟲在身上亂竄的感覺 我也不知道蜜蜂染上病毒的感受 但我有感染病毒和流感的切身經驗 我也知道奔波趕赴雜貨店 購買營養品的辛苦 若我住在食品沙漠 必須長途跋涉 才能抵達雜貨店 而當我終得以拖著疲憊身軀進門 找到食物吃 但食物中的殺蟲劑神經毒 卻足以讓我返家時迷路 這就是所謂 多重因素交戶作用致死
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.
而且不只蜜蜂 所有美麗的野生蜂種都身陷危機 包括替番茄授粉的熊蜂 牠們是蜜蜂的後援 和蜜蜂一樣 提供授粉保障 因此所有蜂種缺一不可
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.
那我們該怎麼辦? 我們給蜜蜂製造的大麻煩 該如何收拾? 事實上沒那麼糟,還有希望的! 你們每一個人都可以幫上忙 有兩種非常直接容易的方法 種植對蜜蜂無害的花 不要對花施用殺蟲劑 因為它們是蜜蜂的食物 上網搜尋資料 種植本土原生的花種 可種在門階上的花盆裡 或前院和草坪上 也可以種在林蔭大道上 鼓吹在公共綠地上種植這些花 社區空間及野地也行 還要撥出農地種花 因為我們需要多樣花種 從春到秋接續綻放 橫亙整個生長季 路旁也需要種花 為了蜜蜂,遷徙的候鳥和蝴蝶 及其他野生物種 我們同時需要慎重考慮 復植覆土作物來涵養土壤 並滋補蜜蜂 我們還需要多元化的農場 還有,把開花作物當農場邊界及圍籬 阻斷農業上的食品沙漠蔓延 著手修正我們一手創造 卻失能的糧食系統
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.
只以種花面對如此龐然的問題 看似螳臂擋車 但蜜蜂吃得好 人類才有營養來源 因為蜜蜂會傳粉 蜜蜂有營養可攝取 就能強化的自身抵抗力 還有牠們仰賴數百萬年之久的 醫療保健 對我來說,這種復育方式的精髓是 人人都需多投入一些 如同蜜蜂和昆蟲的社會 每一個體行動 都能幫忙解套 這是非常重要的特性 其價值遠勝 加總所有的個別行動 讓我們擺脫農藥栽培花種 這種小小舉動 將促成巨大的變革
On behalf of the bees, thank you.
我替蜜蜂謝謝你們
(Applause)
(掌聲)
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?
Chris Anderson:謝謝妳,請教一個簡短問題 有關蜜蜂滅絕的最新數據 有沒有否極泰來的跡象? 妳對此是比較樂觀或悲觀?
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:好的 至少在美國 每年冬季蜂箱數的損失率 平均是30% 而大約20年前 只有15% 因此情況岌岌可危
CA: That's not 30 percent a year, that's -- MS: Yes, thirty percent a year.
Chris Anderson::是每年30%嗎? Marla Spivak:是的,每年30%
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.
Chris Anderson:每年3成的損失 Marla Spivak:但養蜂人可以分散蜂群 以維持相同數目的蜂群 他們可以挽回部分損失
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.
但已逼近臨界點 真的不能再損失那麼多蜂群了! 我們真該感謝養蜂人 大家去種花吧
CA: Thank you.
Chris Anderson:謝謝妳
(Applause)
(掌聲)