The human and the honeybee - Dino Martins

I know, insects, it's really weird,

but bear with me.

Now, I am an entomologist.

I confess to that.

And, when I look at the planet,

the reason I'm an entomologist

is because out of the 1.9 million species

that are described on planet Earth,

over 1 million of them are insects.

And I truly believe as a scientist today

we live in the best of times

because here we are enjoying TED,

and Facebook,

and YouTube,

and this wonderful theater,

healthcare,

longer life spans.

But we also live in the worst of times

because we are on a planet with 7 billion people

with a lot of problems.

And for those of us who look at biodiversity,

it's a heart-wrenching and wonderful time all together

because we see the links between nature and people,

and we're losing them at the same time.

Both honeybees and humans originate in East Africa.

And, here in Kenya, a wonderful relationship exists

where a bird called a honeyguide, up there,

has this interesting phenomenon

where it actually leads either humans,

which it's done for thousands of years,

77,000 year old paintings from Tanzania,

and the honey badger

to the wild honeybee colony.

Now, for a long time we thought this relationship

first evolved between the honeyguide

and the honey badger.

But it turns out that it actually evolved

between the human and the honeyguide,

and the badger's a parasite.

Now, when we look at bees,

there is this amazing diversity out there,

20,000 species.

And one in three bites of food that we eat

is thanks to an insect pollinator.

So one of the things I'm working on

is looking at those links

between nature and sustainable human life.

And here are just a few of the beautiful bees

that we have in Kenya,

in fact, not far from Nairobi.

Now, how many of you like coffee?

Yeah, I actually can't drink it

because if I do, my hands shake,

and I can't pick up ants and bees.

Chocolate?

I love chocolate, the darker the better,

so I really like chocolate.

Now the thing is, without insect pollinators,

there would be very little coffee

and no chocolate on the planet.

Could you imagine that?

That's really scary!

Now, I want to show you

out of thousands of examples

that I could have brought here today

to show you how insects are connected to your life,

to every single human being on the planet.

Here are two colleagues and friends.

Domina is a farmer in Mwanza

in western Tanzania,

and Peter is from the Kerio Valley

in northwestern Kenya.

Now, Domina grows pigeon feed, cow feed,

a whole wide range of legumes.

And she feeds her family,

she survives in a very remote area

based off of these amazing crops,

legumes, a lot of traditional vegetables,

and all of them are pollinated

by these different wild bee species.

Now, Peter grows five varieties of mango on his farm,

and he actually paid for his education

by growing and selling mangoes.

And I really like mangoes

and so it's really a great pleasure working on the farm

with five different varieties of mango.

And if you look at all these different fruits and crops here,

one thing that connects us to biodiversity

and one thing we do as a scientist,

we write papers.

We do research, and we write papers.

Nobody ever reads them,

but here's one of my papers.

It's on the African violet.

This is in the U.S.

This florist sells about 10,000 dollars worth

of violets a year.

It's worth about 6 billion dollars in trade.

It originates in East Africa,

and we never knew what pollinated it.

Well, I went off and studied this.

One thing to say about pollinators

is it comes done to being about sex.

And how many of you like sex?

Where are we, the Vatican?

So what happens when insects help plants have sex

is there's really good sex.

This is an example of really good sex.

So basically the bee comes along,

it vibrates the flower

at a specific frequency, 11 to 12 hertz,

pollen is released,

and the plant survives in the wild.

This is one of the world's most endangered plants.

We go up into the deserts of northern Kenya,

which are now very famous

because of the discovery of oil.

But I will tell you a little different story.

These animals, the camel,

which allow life in this very remote community,

are browsing off of a shrub called indigofera,

and indigofera is 100% dependent on bee pollination.

So all these wild bees produce the indigofera,

which the camels and goats eat.

And we look at a community like this,

Nalaray, northern Samburu,

and people will look at these children

and say they are poor.

And I disagree

because over lunch we collected 30 different bee species

in the Acacia where they had their lunch

and 400 pollinator species in the Acacia tortilis

where their classroom is located.

So I want to leave you with a radical piece of technology

called the bee hotel

that you can innovate and build for yourself.

Create a habitat where bees can nest and live

in your own backyard.

But more importantly, please create space

in your hearts for insects.

Spend five minutes a day with them if you can.

And I believe that if the one lesson

we can learn from insects

is that meek shall inherit the Earth.