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? [music] ?

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KIDS: Our World!

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EVAN: Hey Globey, have you ever
wondered how flowers are

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pollinated? What’s pollination?

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Pollination is the process of
moving pollen. All flowers

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and about 75% of plants need to
be fertilized in order to

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reproduce or create more
flowers and plants. Insects and

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birds carry the pollen on their
legs from one flower to another

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flower. As the pollen drops
into the flower,

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fertilization occurs, and the
plant forms a new seed.

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So insects such as honeybees,
and other animals like bats and

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birds, play important roles in
our ecosystem as pollinators.

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In this show we’re going to
concentrate on honeybees.

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Honeybees are part group of
arthropods called insects.

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All insects have six legs, one
pair of antennae,

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three body sections, and wings.

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Honeybees actually have 2 pairs
of wings and five eyes.

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The honeybee can fly about 32
kilometers per hour which is

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the same as about 20 miles per
hour.

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Did you know that honeybees
have been on Earth for about

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30 million years? A bee’s
habitat is very large.

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It includes the place where the
bee lives and the fields and

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forests where the bee searches
for flowers.

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Honeybees live in beehives that
can hold as many as

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50 to 70 thousand bees. If
these bees were people,

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that would fill up an entire
football stadium.

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RICHARD ANTCLIFF: Bees are
actually very important to

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our food systems.
EVAN: Richard Antcliff works

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for NASA and he’s also an
amateur beekeeper.

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RICHARD: About 30 % of what we
eat is actually dependent upon

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bees because they pollinate the
plants. So all of the apples,

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and fruits, and vegetables that
we eat are dependent upon the

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pollination of the bees. And
when I heard a couple of years

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ago bees were starting to
decline in this country,

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there was a real concern about
that. So I decided to take up

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bee keeping myself to help
build up the population and

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frankly they’re a lot of fun.
It’s kind of like a lot of

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pets. A typical beehive will
have 60 thousand bees,

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so I have 60 thousand pets.

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EVAN: Wow, would you want to
bee around that many honeybees

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all at once?, Uh ok, that was
just a bad joke. Sorry.

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Honeybees help pollinate
approximately 130 agricultural

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crops in the United States each
year.

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This represents more than 90%
of all commercial crops.

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Some of these crops include
berries, apples, cherries,

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oranges, watermelons, nuts, and
vegetables.

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These crops even feed cows,
which in turn produce milk

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and ice cream for us.

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So you can see how important
honeybees are to humans.

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Unfortunately though, the
population of the honeybee in

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North America is declining.
There are fewer bees here than

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there were in the past. And
scientists aren’t exactly

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sure why. Let me explain one of
the reasons scientists think

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the honeybee is dying.
Honeybees feed all year off the

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honey they produce in the
Spring. One of the main

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ingredients for honey is a
sugary liquid called nectar.

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Nectar is produced by plants
and flowers, and honeybees

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collect this nectar and then
bring it back to the beehive

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where they make honey.

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Unfortunately, nectar is only
produced by flowers at certain

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times during the year.
Honeybees have an internal

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instinct that tells them when
to go out and collect this

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nectar. But here’s the problem.

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Our Earth is experiencing
climate change.

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Things are warming up, so each
year the flowers’ production of

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nectar starts a little bit
earlier then the year before.

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In the Northeast for example,
flowers produce nectar about

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one full month earlier than it
did back in the 1970’s.

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So honeybees get confused by
this changing time and they

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usually end up with less time
to collect the nectar.

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This results in the honeybee
collecting less nectar than it

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needs to. The less nectar, the
less honey.

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The less honey, the less food
the honeybee has all year long.

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This lack of honey adds stress
to the honeybee,

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and the end result is that we
are seeing the number

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of honeybees get smaller.

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RICHARD: Bees in the wild are
disappearing very very fast.

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We’re not seeing bees in trees
anymore, or out in the open

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anymore. So, it’s important for
people the actually get

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into bee keeping such that we
have enough bees in order to

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have the population to do the
pollination.

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EVAN: Fortunately, NASA is
trying to help solve the

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problem. NASA is using
satellites measure climate

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change and predict the time
when the flowers’ nectar

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production will begin. NASA is
also partnering with beekeepers

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in the United States to help
with this study. The beekeepers

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are weighing their beehives to
determine how much honey is

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being produced by the
honeybees. If the honeybees

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are making a lot of honey, that
means the beehives will weigh

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more. But it also means the
honeybees are getting to the

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flowers’ nectar in time in
order to make the honey in the

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first place. The beekeepers
become citizen scientists and

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submit the information about
their beehives to a website at

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Goddard Space Flight Center
called HoneyBeeNet.

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So NASA and other beekeepers
can track whether or not

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honeybees are collecting the
nectar they need to survive.

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It’s amazing how humans,
animals, and insects are all

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dependent on each other to
survive. Without the little

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honeybee, our crops would be
much smaller, and we would not

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have as much food to eat. Wow
Globey, let’s hope that NASA

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and beekeepers across our
country work busy as bees to

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help solve this problem of the
declining honeybee population.

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? [music] ?

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KIDS: Our World!

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.