A Bee-autiful Experiment

Rory Hu’s love of honey on toast prompted her to start learning about bees. The summer after seventh grade, she read an article about how honeybee populations had declined worldwide. Rory had been wanting to do a science project and wondered if she could investigate ways to help bees so we would always have honey. “As I did more research, I realized the problem went deeper than honey on toast,” says Rory, who lives in Cupertino, California. “Honeybees are an essential part of our ecosystem.” They pollinate more than 130 food crops. They also produce millions of gallons of honey every year.

Rory learned that honeybees were experiencing a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. Worker bees would unexpectedly abandon their hive, and the colony would die out. One of the causes is a parasite called the Varroa mite, which feeds on honeybees. Pesticides can kill Varroa mites, but they also affect bees’ ability to remember their way home.

What if there were a way to treat these side effects? Rory found studies suggesting that compounds in tea leaves, called polyphenols, can improve bees’ learning and memory. But it wasn’t clear whether they could reverse the effects of pesticides.

Rory Hu loves honey on toast. Her love of honey made her want to learn about bees. She learned that honeybee populations were declining worldwide the summer after seventh grade. Rory had been wanting to do a science project. She wondered if she could learn about ways to help bees so we would always have honey. “As I did more research, I realized the problem went deeper than honey on toast,” says Rory. She lives in Cupertino, California. “Honeybees are an essential part of our ecosystem.” They pollinate more than 130 food crops. That means bees help new plants grow. Bees also produce millions of gallons of honey every year.

Rory learned that a problem for honeybees is colony collapse disorder. Worker bees would unexpectedly abandon their hive. The colony would die out without them. One of the causes of the disorder is a parasite called the Varroa mite. The mite feeds on honeybees. Pesticides can kill Varroa mites. But pesticides can also cause bees to forget how to get home.

What if Rory could treat these side effects? She found studies suggesting that tea leaves could help. The tea leaves have compounds called polyphenols. These polyphenols can help bees learn and remember things. But she didn’t know if they could undo the effects of pesticides.

Rory designed an experiment to find out. She teamed up with a local beekeeper who let her experiment with some bees. To test their learning, she fed them sugar with cotton swabs she’d soaked in peppermint extract. Later she offered the bees peppermint-scented swabs with no sugar on them. If they stuck out their tongues for a taste, they had learned to associate the minty scent with food.

Rory designed an experiment to find out. She worked with a local beekeeper who let her experiment with some bees. Rory came up with an experiment to test how bees learned. She fed the bees sugar with cotton swabs she’d soaked in peppermint extract. Later she offered the bees peppermint-scented swabs with no sugar on them. Some bees stuck out their tongues for a taste. Those bees had learned to think of food when they smelled peppermint.

As Rory expected, exposing bees to pesticides made them worse at remembering this connection. But when she fed them tea polyphenols, their performance improved! Beekeepers could do the same thing to help hives recover from pesticide treatments, Rory concluded. Her work won her a science award from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Rory, now 15, has since joined a nonprofit called the Bee Initiative that helps bees. She plans to continue her research. “I discovered the joy of doing research that might have an effect on the real world,” she says. “It felt really good to have results!”

Pesticides made bees worse at connecting peppermint with food. This didn’t surprise Rory. But bees got better at connecting peppermint with food when she fed them tea polyphenols! She thought beekeepers could do the same thing to help hives recover from pesticide treatments. She won a science award from the U.S. Department of Defense for her work.

Rory is now 15. She joined a nonprofit called the Bee Initiative that helps bees. She plans to continue her research. “I discovered the joy of doing research that might have an effect on the real world,” she says. “It felt really good to have results!”