Goldenheart Unidiversity, a sustainable-living farm-based organization in Stamford, has made it to second place in this month's Pepsi Refresh grant competition for a $5,000 project about honeybees.
The project's page on the Pepsi Refresh website features a truly sweet video of the project's organizers conducting a "March of the Bees" as they populate a new hive with buzzing residents. (You can watch it above.)
The idea behind the proposal, which is called "No Bees, No Food," is to experiment with organic methods of bee-keeping as a bulwark against colony collapse disorder, which is slaughtering honeybees across the country. (The latest research on the mysterious disorder points the finger at a combination of a virus and a fungus, according to an excellent October article in the New York Times.)
Goldenheart's organic approach to combating CCD will involve raising bees without using pesticides in top-bar hives, an ancient alternative to modern hives that allows bees to suspend their honeycombs from slats (or "bars"). (Modern Langstroth hives use four-sided frames to hold honeycomb.) On the project's proposal page on Pepsi's website, its organizers write that top-bar hives "encourage natural bee behavior:"
The "No Bees No Food" project is designed to help the Honeybees survive against extreme circumstances. It will foster awareness of the plight of one of the worlds most important species. Honeybees are the main source of pollination worldwide. Due to an overwhelming number of human-related interferences, they may have lost their way. We seek to educate and inspire the public, [nurture] new beekeepers and help the Honeybees survive terrible odds. Our process is designed to be "organic", this means empowering the bees to be as naturally healthy as possible with minimal human interference.
Voting for this month's grant rounds will be open until January 31st. If "No Bees, No Food" stays in the top ten until then, it will be awarded the $5,000 it needs to install six more hives and hold four beekeeping classes. You can vote here.
