EP 26: Bee in the City
We've all heard about the hard times that honeybees are going through and the huge implications for us all. But how do cities fit into all this? There's a surprising compatibility between cities and bees, and a role local governments can play. This episode comes just ahead of National Pollinator Week (June 19-25, though some honor it all month). To celebrate, we're joined by Bee Downtown, Bee City USA, and other voices covering the North Carolina cities of West Jefferson, Davidson, Asheville, Durham and beyond. Loads of trivia and insights on this one. Show notes: Bee Downtown - http://beedowntown.org Bee City USA - http://www.beecityusa.org The Town of Davidson Becomes the 37th Bee City USA in the Nation - http://www.ci.davidson.nc.us/CivicSend/ViewMessage/message?id=33089 USDA Colony Collapse Disorder and Honey Bee Health Action Plan - https://www.ree.usda.gov/ree/news/CCD-HBH_Action_Plan_05-19-2015-Dated-FINAL.pdf Agriculture Research Service info on honeybee health - https://www.ars.usda.gov/oc/br/ccd/index/#public Skeptoid episode and transcript, "Colony Collapse Disorder: Science and Pseudoscience" - https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4524 Pollinator Week - http://pollinator.org/pollinatorweek/ News story, "A third of the nation's honeybee colonies died last year. Why you should care." - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/26/third-nations-honeybee-colonies-died-last-year-why-you-should-care/348418001/
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. 70 of the top 100 food crops are pollinated by these bees, and they're dying around the world. When we say PC, we mean pollinator conscience. I think the bees can be a great way to bring people back together. There are beekeeper groups everywhere.
And the implications for that are huge because pollinators can really thrive in urban environments given the chance. And we can show this in even New York City, which you you can't imagine a more densely developed area. We've all heard about the hard times that honeybees are going through and about the huge implications of it. But how do municipalities,
cities, urban areas fit into all of this? There's a surprising compatibility and a role for local government. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Episode 26. Back in episode 17, about the intersection of civic data and bluegrass, I mentioned that part of my family background is in the mountain town of West Jefferson, North Carolina. It's a really beautiful part of the state that was waking up with all kinds of bright vegetation during my last visit. It was over Easter weekend. And I brought with me my fuel recording gear just in case I could get some interesting audio of any kind. Birds, distant howling, downtown activity. But it wasn't all that long before my grandmother tells me to go stand underneath the big flowering crab apple tree in the backyard. It was like stepping under a dome of bees. They were hopping from flower to flower and just a constant droning wind buzz. So many bees. And this recording definitely doesn't do it justice, partly because I didn't have the appropriate equipment on me for something like this. So while you can hear the drone of bees, it's hard to make out how warm the sound actually was and how musical it was. It all kind of buzzed around the notes of f, g, a, and appropriately, b. And after about thirty minutes of trying to capture the best audio I could, grandmother tells me about another place to check out some b activity, and it was right downtown. So I'm in Downtown West Jefferson. That's in Ashe County, North Carolina. I'm walking toward a place called the Honey Hole, and they have bees on-site. They and literally, there is a hole in the side of the building where bees are coming and going, and it had to be a couple thousand bees. The destination on the inside was a hive. The store itself sold all kinds of honey and bee related merchandise, but the hive on the inside behind glass was actually the first thing that anybody would notice. And it was really crowded in there. On the hive was a warning sign reminding everybody that, yeah, bees do sting, so be careful. Don't provoke. But if you just stood there and took in what was happening behind the glass, it was really hypnotic. My name is Shelly Felder. And you're the owner? I'm the owner. And I'm the beekeeper. And she's an animal lover in general. She told me that morning and for a long time prior, she'd been consumed by that live video feed of April, the pregnant giraffe, which was also on the screen at my grandmother's house. The giraffe had just given birth on camera, and Shelly was loving it. It's great. Before that, it was e nine the
eagle. The South Yeah. The Southwest Florida Eagle Camp. That's right. He's getting ready to pledge for good. Oh, man. He's getting ready to go off into the wild. Yeah. He has he is shaping up to be just a magnificent, spectacular eagle. Yeah. They have taught him so well. Just I I did every time I watch it, I get tears. Just, oh, why can't people be like you? Is is conservation kind of a, I mean, is that sort of a a a drive for you Yes. As a yeah? Yeah. Is it a life on campus? No. Just just since, I had stage three colon cancer fifteen years ago. Mhmm. That puts the world in perspective. Okay. So, that pretty much started it. And then when I started keeping bees, bees are really quite spiritual themselves. And, you know, the druids believed that honeybees were the messenger between this life and the afterlife.
And the Honeybees were the messenger between this life and the afterlife. That's what the druids believed. That's what the druids believed.
And there are times when I'm in that hive that I think there might be some validity to that. So What what gives you that feeling? There's just a there's a spiritual communication, and you feel it. You see it. You know? These these bees have been on the planet for a hundred million years. They have changed very little, if at all. And they have traits that have kept them on the planet that long.
They know what they're doing, and that doesn't happen just by mistake. One thing I didn't know before researching for this episode was that honeybees are not native to America. According to the US Agricultural Research Service, that's a federal agency, honeybees came over with colonists from Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the same time, so did a lot of our crops. Even though there are native pollinators here in The US, honeybees turned out to be easier to raise and deal with in large numbers. Here's a quote from the research service. Commercial production of many high value and specialty crops like almonds and other trees, nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables depend on pollination by honey bees. These are the foods that give our diet diversity, color, and flavor, end quote. Almonds, by the way, rely almost entirely on honey bee pollination. But scientists, conservationists, and the media have made it pretty clear that bees have seen some pretty hard times. You might have heard of something called Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD, which, oh, boy, as a conversation is a can of bees, to quote the title of my favorite Softboys album. We've seen headlines over the years about huge percentages of bee colonies dying, like the most recent one last month, reporting a third of honeybee colonies lost in The US last year. And that gets our attention because bees as pollinators have a big hand in the food we eat, meaning they're also worth a lot to us economically. But the global dialogue about the cause of the population impacts with honeybees is filled with misinformation and distortions and agendas and industrial blame games. Basically, what I'm saying is I gotta be real careful about the information I communicate in this episode because summing up what's impacting the bee populations isn't all that simple, and people really argue over it. But it's also inaccurate to say that scientists don't know what's going on. And you hear that all the time that scientists are stumped by it, but there's actually a lot that's understood. Granted, there's also a lot of continuing research. For instance, when people say it's all because of the pesticides we spray, well, that's definitely not the whole story. There may be some pesticides that aren't causing any harm, but there's certainly a lot of research left to do. And by most accounts, some pesticides are at least a player in colony collapse disorder. Let me go ahead and point to my sources for this part because I think it's important to do some myth cracking here, but that also means it's important to point out where I'm getting my information. One is the US Department of Agriculture's Honey Bee Health Action Plan. Another is a science podcast called Scatoid, which works to dispel common myths or erroneous popular beliefs that we all hear about. For instance, one is that colony collapse disorder is either caused by or made worse by cell phones and cell phone towers, despite there being no science to back that up, no credible science. Usually, those claims come from distortions of reports that, you know, once you actually find them and read them, don't say anything to connect bee health and cell phones. The Honeybee Action Plan from 2015 says The US bee colonies are actually up against a number of different things. Invasive mites, insect pests, viruses, nutritional deficiencies like lack of forage diversity, genetic issues, and as a lot of the conversation focuses on, lethal and sublethal pesticide exposure. That doesn't mean all pesticides, and scientists are actually all over trying to sort out what's what. But pesticides are categorically cited as a contributor.
Back to Shelley. You know, we have we we have created this toxic mess that they're in, and so it's up to us to clean it up. Are are you optimistic? Absolutely. Yes. Backyard beekeepers such as myself and the people that we service and teach, backyard beekeepers are doing a wonderful job.
We're bringing numbers back up. We're able to keep bees alive. We're more attentive to their issues. And even though we sort of often equate bees and pollination with more green floral areas, cities do have an important place here. There are even programs around the country that specifically deal with leveraging the power of cities to help bees rebound. There are beekeeping groups
everywhere. I had a lady call me and told me she was in New York, and I figured up state New York. And she said, well, you know, here in Manhattan, I said, so you are you have a beekeeping group in Downtown New York. She said, absolutely. We have 1,200 members, and we all all have rooftop hives. Where do the bees forage? I asked. Central Park, of course. Well, that obviously is enough in Central Park to support New York's be rooftop beehives. A lot of people, a lot of involvement.
Alright. So I'm in Downtown Durham and I'm walking toward the American underground building that houses the offices of B Downtown, And that's Durham, North Carolina. And Bee Downtown is a group doing amazing work connecting cities and honeybees, as in bees thriving in urban areas.
My name is Lee Catherine Bonner. I'm the founder and CEO of a business or beesness, as we like to say, called Bee Downtown, and we are based out of the Raleigh Durham area. And what is Bee Downtown? What was the origin of it? What's the story behind it? What Bee Downtown does is we install and maintain be hives for businesses in cities to help rebuild honeybee populations. I am a fourth generation beekeeper. I started Bee Downtown when I was a junior at North Carolina State University as a passion project. I put, the first beehives at American Tobacco Campus in Durham, and then we started working with Burt's Bees and companies around the triangle, around the state, started seeing how great of a marketing tool it was for them, how much employees cared about having initiatives on their campus that were green, that cared for the environment. So it just kind of snowballed into something more than just a passion project, into a business, and a business that, you know, means the world to me. And, studies show pollinators thrive in urban areas. So it's a great way for us to be able to help rebuild honeybee populations, not just through adding beehives, but through education and within the community and, you know, at the businesses and and that kind of thing. So
what is it about urban areas?
What helps honeybee populations thrive, or why are hives good in urban or downtown areas? Yeah. So a lot of the studies, you know, have been done around around rural versus urban areas. North Carolina State University has a lab that's run by doctor, Tarpy, and he is absolutely fantastic. He's one of the best labs in the country. And, you know, a lot of the studies show that when honeybees are in urban areas, they have more diverse food sources. They have better balanced diets, therefore their digestive systems are healthier than they would be in rural areas when they're on one crop at a time. They're in stable living environments. The beehives we have on the rooftops, we don't wanna move if we don't have to. So it just reduces stress for them, and, the studies show that the bees are more likely to survive the winter in urban areas than rural ones.
And so, practically,
what do you do in an urban area? How do you install a beehive? Do people come to you? Do you go out and solicit locations? How does all that work? Yeah. So we it's a little bit of both, what we do. We, you know, we send emails out to corporations. Other times, businesses find us. We've got a great lineup of new businesses this year ranging from, you know, Bandwidth, NC State, North Carolina Museum of Art, SAS, Blue Cross Blue Shield, IBM, you know, like, all the big names this year wanted hives because they saw how positive it was within the community. And so, you know, as bee downtown grows, it gets easier to sell the beehives. But the first couple hives, you know, companies like American Tobacco, Capital Broadcasting Company, Burt's Bees, they really they took a risk on us, and, you know, we're doing well. So I think it was a good a good risk that they took, but, you know, it's just a learning process for us. How you sell something that generally doesn't have your, quintessential return on investment that companies are looking for. But as we get more and more hives places, I think the companies are starting to see that the return on investment is within the community. It's within their employees, you know, happiness and well-being. And that, I I think, goes much farther than, you know, a capital return on investment. You mentioned the education angle of it too.
There might be some hesitancy
as well, you know, from people who, you know, their first instinct is to say, I'm gonna get stung. Well, I mean, how do you dispel that, and and what's your messaging? Yeah. A little bit of education goes a very long way. And, you know, we we tell people honeybees can sting you, and, you know, but they are very docile. If a honeybee stings you, it's gonna die, and it knows that it will. So it really doesn't want to sting you. It knows that it will. It knows that it will. Mhmm. So it's like last last resort for a honeybee to sting you. And when they're out pollinating flowers and they're away from their beehive, they're not protecting anything. So you have to really scare a honeybee for it to sting you. We get a lot of calls from people, you know, or or comments from people saying, oh, no. I don't like honeybees. You know, I was mowing my, yard one day and got just nailed by, you know, hundreds of honeybees. And, you know, honeybees don't live in the ground. Those are yellow jackets. So, you know, a little bit of education goes a long way. And we've seen in a city, you know, so many, not just children, but adults, there's a disconnect with agriculture. And North Carolina is the eighth largest agricultural state. Like, we were built our history is built upon agriculture. So to bring agriculture back into a city, people feel connected to where they're from. People feel connected to where they live, and there is a newfound respect farmers. And that, you know, that's really the root of what we want to do. We want to bring this city, you know, back to a place of where there's a respect and there's a knowledge for agriculture.
And in urban areas, I I get a sense, you know, that there's the Bee City USA program and, municipalities that are making efforts to kinda you know, they're they're doing their part, so I get a sense that they don't wanna necessarily interfere with the kind of work that could restore honeybee populations. But were there any rules or zoning issues or anything like that that you had to, address before you're able to put a a beehive in a certain area, in an urban area? Yeah. So,
the Durham Beekeepers Association, there used to be an ordinance in Durham where you couldn't have beehives. Beehives. And, a woman named Donna Deveny came, went to, you know, the city council, went to the board and and said, you know, this we need pollinators, and beekeepers are great to have in your city. It's a wonderful community aspect to a city, and they changed the ordinance. The the general ordinance for ordinance for North Carolina is five beehives per, you know, per land area. Durham changed that rule and, you know, some other cities have changed that rule to where you can have more. There are a couple cities, you know, that you you aren't allowed to have bees in the city. So we've done some work with that, where we're, you know, there's places we want to put beehives, but we haven't been able to yet because of those ordinances. So we've been trying to change the thought process, and and it is. It's it's a change in the mindset for people. And North Carolina has some of the strictest, and it has the largest beekeepers association in the country, the strictest testing guidelines. I mean, it is not easy. And so, the beekeepers that are here are really high caliber beekeepers. And so, to have bees in the city, if you're working with beekeepers that know what they're doing, it's not a danger. You know, it's not something for people to be scared about. It's a way for the community to come together for a common good. And people love bees. They're like baby otters. You know, like, everyone loves honeybees and they love the honey. And it's really fun to see. We've got some clear beehives that we have in different areas around North Carolina. And, a man named Bill Faring builds them and he's he's just a fantastic, you know, craftsman, but he's also a master beekeeper. And to see kids, like, walk up to this clear beehive, like, you know, they're they're inches away from it. So it's behind glass? It's behind glass and they can see the bees. The queen, you know, is marked and the amount of learning a child does in a split second, I think, just shows parents, like, oh, like, my kid likes science. My kid likes learning about something new and these bees are really good at math and it's a way for me to get my child excited about math and, you know, they talk with each other. The bees dance with each other and it's a great way for kids to say, you know, like, well, I like ballet and and the bees dance and that's how they talk and Mhmm. There's just a great way for children to dispel fears and then the parents start to get a little looser around the beehive. It's usually the kids first that are like, yeah, bees. You know? So it's fun.
And the bee's role in our welfare, I I don't feel like it was common knowledge ten years ago. I feel like it kind of is now and maybe maybe just sort of a a general five sentences kind of way. Oh, agriculture, blah blah blah. Could you talk a little bit about what everyday people can do practice wise that would be beneficial, to honeybees?
Absolutely. So one of the things that we, you know, we always say is you do not have to become a beekeeper. We actually are not encouraging, you know, everyone to go out and buy a beehive because it's agriculture. It's a lot of work and there are a lot of things that can go wrong. But, when, you know, when we go to a school and we teach children and then the teacher goes and has, you know, the kids plant sunflower seeds that they can take home and then the kids talk to their parents about it and the, you know, the parents then want to plant more pollinator friendly plants, it it makes this, you know, ripple effect that is much bigger than just one child planting a sunflower seed. Effect that is much bigger than just one child planting a sunflower seed. But then, you know, getting your kids outside, letting them see nature, see agriculture. We do tours in the summer where you can bring your family out, put on a bee suit, work beehives, and plant pollinator friendly plants. When you see a honey bee or another pollinator, you know, don't scream and run. Take time to tell the people around you what's going on. I remember there was one summer, there were honey bees at a at a pool, and they were in the water. And, you know, people were trying to, like, drown the honeybees. And I walked around and, like, silently started to just take the honeybees out of the water, put them on the side, let them dry off, and fly away. And people were like, why are you doing that? You know, they they'll sting you. And I was like, well, you know, every third bite of food you eat comes from that little lady right there. And, 70 of the top 100 food crops are pollinated by these bees and they're dying around the world. Well, you know, last year, we lost forty four percent of our honeybees. And, you know, it was not aggressive towards people. It was just, you know, moving a honeybee out of the water. And by the end of the day, you saw all these people scooping honeybees out of the water and letting them dry off compared to, like, them trying to drown them earlier. So a little bit of education and, and, you know, not attacking people. And I think what Bee Downtown does on our social media pages is so much of what's happening to honeybees is in the news. As you see, it's very negative. It's very, you know, all the chemicals, you know, chemical based, and this is bad. They're killing the pollinators. And it's true. There are a lot of things that are killing the pollinators, but we have enough hate and hurt in our world right now that I think bee downtown has done really well because we work to bring happiness and hope and excitement to something to where it doesn't feel like this issue that nobody can fix and nobody can make a difference in. It feels like I can plant some pollinator friendly plants, and I can make a difference. And our favorite saying is, by herself, one honey bee makes a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her whole life. But together, a hive can generate over, you know, 80 pounds of honey in a matter of months. So if we as a community can work together like a beehive, we can collectively create lasting change in the world that we're all proud to be a part of. It's it's not one bee trying to do it all. It's that everyone has a different job, everyone has a different role that they play in the good of the hive. And, to have a mindset of a beehive in a community, in a region can drastically change the outlook of, you know, the health of pollinators, but also how you interact with your community and how you how you grow, you know, to to love things and and to think past just what money is something gonna make me, but how will this affect my children and my children's children years to come?
And when you were talking about the sort of, the the negativity you see out there, I I was doing some reading on some of the research in colony collapse disorder. There's a lot of competing narratives out there on what's causing it, what's contributing to it, what's not, what's the exception, what and and it's tough for me, you know, if if I wanna educate and if I wanna relay these messages, you know, what's what? How do I sort that out? What are some good resources that you are science based, trustworthy, aren't necessarily, agenda driven by any sort in sector who might stand to benefit by saying, we're not part of colony collapse disorder or they are or, you know, how do you sort that out? Yeah. I mean, that's so tough. I a beekeeper that I am, you know,
I look up to so much, he, told me one time I heard him speaking to people that asked that same question, and he said there is no one smoking gun. There are so many factors contributing to honeybee decline. You know, chemicals do play a role in it, but not all chemicals. And so it's learning, like, okay. Well, what chemicals actually play a role in it? Let's not just blanket something as this is what's happening. You know, there's, my undergraduate thesis is actually on honeybee decline. I'm not a scientist by any means, but I wanted to know, you know, what's going on? What's happening to the bees? Nobody can figure this out. And, you know, there's there's a parasite, the Varroa destructor. You know, it's super ominous name, but it's tearing through beehives. And we've you know, the bees don't have as much food as they used to have. There's not as many wild colonies as there used to be. And, and so what we're doing is we are we're we lost 44% of our bees last year, but we have about the same number of bees as we've ever had. So there's a common misconception, you know, like, oh, well, since the bees aren't on, you know, endangered species list, they're fine. You know, this is just a bunch of hoopla and people are building this up. But what we're doing is we're now mass producing honeybees to keep the number of pollinators where we need them to pollinate the food that we need to pollinate because we have such big ag now. And so the bees, their genetic diversity is being wiped out. And, you know, they say, like, we have a little dog that's a mutt, and she is never gonna die. Like, she's gonna live forever. And, you know, they say that purebreds don't have much more complications. They don't live as long. And so because we're wiping out genetic diversity over years of natural selection, to me, that's the underlying problem is that we aren't taking the time to build strong honeybees. We're just trying to put a band aid on the situation right now. You know? We need to we need to put in the work to try to figure out what's going on. But I think at the root of all change is education and awareness. So, you know, doing watching, you know, watching movies with your kids, watching the Bee Movie, you know, it's actually pretty accurate, which is interesting. I I just watched that for research. Yeah. It's it's a great movie. You know, having your kids go outside and plant something or taking them on a walk and and showing them what honeysuckle is and, you know, taking them to the the farmer's market to talk to a farmer and learn. Okay. This is a North Carolina farmer. This is really good food. And Mhmm. You know, we should it might be a little bit more, but we're supporting agriculture and we're we know our farmer. We know where this is coming from. And that as a chain reaction, you know, makes a huge difference. Everything in a beehive is built off of a hexagon. And I think every time, you know, in North Carolina, as we we start to, you know, choose farmers' markets. We start to, you know, take our kids outside. We're building hexagons in our community. And, you know, that's the strongest bond. That's such a strong structure. And you see that in chemistry, and you see that with the bees. It's efficient. It holds the most space. And so as the region, as North Carolina, you know, the triangle starts to build these hexagons and connect with the rest of North Carolina, we have a very strong state with very intelligent children that support farmers, that support agriculture, and that, you know, will take the time to learn, really learn about what's happening in the world before they make assumptions.
Another national group out of Asheville, North Carolina is working directly with local governments to improve the situation for honeybees and other pollinators. The group is called Bee City USA, and they honor municipalities that are doing their part, whether through education or policy changes or other means. Official bee cities include Davidson, North Carolina, named the thirty seventh bee city USA in the nation just recently. The press release that went out from the town of Davidson about that designation inspired this episode. Phyllis Stiles is the founder of Bee City USA, and I caught up with her right after she had given a talk with a number of colleagues at the Smithsonian. My goodness. It was just
a weekend packed with all kinds of inspiration from people working on restoring the ocean, if you can imagine, to, helping, end the struggles between farmers in East Africa with elephants, using bees, by the way, to do that. And, you know, some of my conservation, heroes were there from the Smithsonian and elsewhere. It it was very, very uplifting. And we we just don't hear those positive stories enough.
So bees and and elephants, what what what's the story there?
Well, the elephants are big and heavy and hungry, and so, whenever farmers plant fields of crops, the bee I mean, the, elephants see those crops and come running. They they like to eat those crops, and they can destroy a field in a matter of minutes. I bet. Yeah. And so throughout time, bees and elephants have not gotten along. The elephants are are terrified of bees because they know where the elephants are most vulnerable. So if an elephant approaches a beehive in Africa, the bees, very instinctively attack the elephant's eyes and inside their trunk. And elephants have 60 muscles inside their trunks. They're very, very sensitive, and it is extremely painful to the elephants when the bees attack them. And so the farmers are hanging beehives all around the perimeters of their, their farm fields and just smelling the beehives or hearing the bees humming is enough to keep the elephants out. But now the elephants have gotten smart, and they realize the bees don't generally come out at night, And so they're they're attacking the fields at night. Strategic. So I had a conversation with a a woman who's working on this project in Tanzania, and she was asking for my advice about, what they could do because they just couldn't keep enough bees in the hives around the fields in Tanzania. So we had a really nice conversation about that.
So tell us the backstory on you and how Bee City USA came into existence.
Well, it all through the headlines, in 2007, we kept hearing more and more about a new thing, a new phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. And that decline in bees has been continuing ever since. In some countries, it's worse than others. In America right now, last year, they recorded forty four percent on average.
Forty five percent?
Were, yeah, on average. And it depends on the type of beekeeper, the location of the hives. It it varies a lot. But on average across America, forty four percent were lost last year. And obviously, that's not very sustainable despite the best efforts of the beekeepers to divide their hives and create new hives and all of that. There's a limit to how much you can do that. So anyway, my husband became a beekeeper after that announcement came out because he wanted to help, And he asked me if I would join him in that effort, and, at first, I said no, that I thought it was great that he was, keeping bees. But, I was terrified because I really swell up, and the swelling lasts for a long time when I get stung by a bee. And so I have great respect for them, but, I didn't wanna get stung. And so he begged and begged and begged. And I went to bee school, which every county has. Their local beekeeping association usually host it sometime in the winter. And, oh my goodness. They just captured me. I was totally enchanted by the bees, and that led to more and more education, learning about them. And, by 2011, I decided, I couldn't stand on the sidelines anymore. I was tired of hearing about, the bees dying, and, they had introduced me to their fellow bees, the the non honeybees, and, the other pollinators, the butterflies and moths and bats and, keeping wasp and flies and beetles. And I would I just felt like something else could be done. And I approached our local bee club and said, I have this idea about something called Bee City USA. I don't really know what it looks like yet, but I can't do it by myself.
Would anybody like to help me? And they did. So what are the qualities of a b city? What what's the process that a city goes through with you to be designated a b city?
It's deceptively simple. You can, fill out our application which is online and you can take the resolution to your city council or county commission. Counties are are welcome to apply as well And they can adopt the resolution which outlines all the commitments that they're making. And I would say that the most important two commitments are that they have a standing committee that's gonna be the voice of the pollinators and that the city or the county is giving them credibility. They're gonna listen to that committee going forward as decisions are made about landscaping and, pesticide use particularly. And the implications for that are huge because pollinators can really thrive in urban environments given the chance, and we can show this in in even New York City, which you you can't imagine a more densely, developed area than New York City, and they found 200 plus native bees when they surveyed, when they inventoried New York City. So, so once they make that commitment and we certify certify them as an affiliate, then every January, they have to submit an annual report telling us what they accomplished the previous year. And then that becomes public information on their web pages about their BC to The USA program and on our web page. And, the idea is accountability. And, once you put up that sign claiming or, announcing that you have committed to be a BC USA affiliate, the public will hold you accountable. If they see something going on that doesn't jive with that, they'll bring it up to the attention of the the city staff and the elected officials and say, wait a minute. I thought we were obesity USA. Why are we using all these pesticides on our school grounds? Why are we using non native plants whenever we plant an area of city property? And so it's all about raising awareness about what it means to be pollinator friendly and, making that commitment. And then you get a lot of people on board. It's a grassroots effort as well as a grass tops effort.
And so this might involve a little bit of reiteration, but so a city becomes a bee city. It demonstrates its willingness to help pollinators. But in asking a local government to make that commitment, what's the payoff? Could give us some actual examples of of or actual benefits from these efforts?
Well, it's it's just a question of credibility. Now you could say as many, as many communities do initially, oh my goodness. It's dangerous to invite bees into our environment because they stay Right. That's perception. Yeah. Right. But the alternative is much scarier. I mean, who would say because sometimes a tree limb falls or or a tree falls and damages, personal property or damages people that we shouldn't have trees. We would never say that. Good point. Yeah. We know how important the urban canopy tree canopy is as well as just, trees around the world providing oxygen and, shade cooling and, you know, helping mitigate flooding on and on and on. We can go on about the value of trees and other plants. Well we wouldn't have 90% of those trees and shrubs and plants if it weren't for the pollinators around the world. They can't reproduce without the help of those pollinators. So once you realize the significant role that the pollinators play, it's kind of hard to argue against making your community a welcoming environment for them.
So the first b city was Asheville, North Carolina in 2012, if I'm correct. And how has the roster of b cities grown since then? And is it mainly through your outreach, or are people in certain communities beginning to reach out to you first?
You know, we we have almost never actively recruited a city, and I'll tell you why. Because, we feel like that for the effort to be significant and long standing that it needs to have local champions. And so if we go out and ask people to become a VCU USA, then the impetus is coming from us. And so we just haven't had to do that. We don't wanna do that. We would rather grow slowly than grow too quickly. And the word-of-mouth effort, that's happened has worked really effectively for us. A city will hear about another city, and, they'll they'll contact us. And then the process starts, and we encourage them to build their their stakeholder base, go around, make the rounds, answer all the questions with all the committees in their community, and so that by the time it gets up to the city council level for a vote, it has been fully vetted with city staff, with with city departments, and with the community at large so that their eyes are wide open, and they're doing this because this is something they really want to do. And I'll give you a a a really cool example of, Thousand Oaks in California. The school told, the first graders that they wanted them to choose something that was important to the community as their project, and they were supposed to, as family, study that issue and come back and report to their classes. And so this, first grade student got interested in bees. Mhmm. And so he he, with the help of his mom, wrote it to wrote a letter to the mayor and said, you know, there's this thing called Bee City USA, and we think Thousand Oaks should be a Bee City USA for all these good reasons. A first grader started that. A first grader started it. And as a result, the mayor, had his staff conversations started, and now Thousand Oaks is a BCD USA affiliate.
Back to Shelley. You don't have to be a beekeeper to be a bee steward. You know, put water out for them. When there's a drought, take a saucer of water, put some rocks in it, put some water out for them. They need water. If there's nothing blooming, put out a a saucer of one to one sugar water for them to eat because they have to eat too. They will eat the same thing that hummingbirds do. So everybody's fair game on the humming on the one to one sugar water. Watch your sprays. Read labels. Your own your own local cooperative extension is a wonderful source. They can introduce you to their beekeeping group for your area. They're they're everywhere. Even if you even if you're not worried about yourself, at least be worried about the environmental bugs because they're all beneficials, Don't like a yellow jacket.
Thanks for listening. As usual, I'll have links to all kinds of supporting material in the show notes at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. It's where you can find all the past episodes as well. You might have some feedback or supplementary info related to this episode. Please send it along to me. That's bbrown@nclm.org or via Twitter. The handle is at muni equation, at m u n I equation. After the, last episode about inclusive innovation, we heard from the Institute for Emerging Issues in Raleigh, which is about to release something called the Innovate NC, community innovation asset map. I believe that's coming out on June 8. It's being billed as a first of its kind turnkey tool for communities of all sizes seeking to enhance their innovation ecosystems, and it'll be widely applicable to both rural and urban communities of all sizes. Inclusive innovation is a key part of it. We'll keep you posted on that, and we will put out a link when it goes live. Thanks to the Institute for Emerging Issues for reaching out about that. Also, check out our Instagram page, which we finally set up. The handle is municipal equation. It's heavy on picks right now from London and Paris, but if you send me picks from your hometown of something cool going on there, I'll post it and I'll credit you. This podcast is made possible by the North Carolina League of Municipalities online at nclm.0rg. Keep in touch and send me your ideas, and I'll talk to you soon. This is Ben Brown.
