(gentle music) - Keeping of the bees makes you be tranquil.

Makes you relax.

It's 90 degrees outside, sweats dripping off of you.

The bees are binging you on the nose, et cetera, but you're still in your happy place.

- Skip Story fell in love with bees and found his calling after watching a documentary about the insects.

Story's happy place has been raising bees ever since.

- I could probably do that.

And my wife said, "Oh, I will plant for them to have a garden to feed, and you just work the bees."

We're smoking the bees, so when I start to open the colony up, they are more calm.

- However, raising bees isn't easy.

Predators and diseases are a constant threat to the bees, the hive, and to a beekeeper's bottom line.

No bees, no honey to sell.

- An economic threshold for bees sort of varies in the season.

Usually it's 1% to 2%, and once it exceeds that 2% level, then you need to treat.

- But before we talk about threats to bees, we're gonna check out how a beehive actually works.

Just talk through a little bit about what you're doing here, Skip.

- Okay, taking the inner cover off, and as you can see, the bees- - Well, there are the bees.

- There are the bees, and they are coming out.

- Holy moly.

- So basically what you can do, or what I would do, is we see that we have all the bees on top of these frames, and as I move my hand across the top, you can see the bees will start to hit my hand.

Those bees that are hitting my hand are guard bees.

Basically what they are telling me is that they are not happy with what I'm doing.

So I'll put a little smoke on here, and basically what that will do is now all the bees have been pushed down in the box.

- The reality is that honeybees are being pushed from all sides, and not in a good way.

Pesticides, habitat loss, extreme weather, and importantly, disease.

Some beekeepers are sounding the alarm.

- Hillborn to the set.

- That's where a new specialist comes in, the bee veterinarian.

Bee vets like Elizabeth Hillborn wait for that call.

Threats to hives include varroa mites, which are parasites that can also spread disease.

- You know, I have to be able to know and look at these and say, "Oh, they're not acting right.

"I think it's got ABC."

And I have to have some medication to treat these bees, so I have to call Elizabeth, 'cause she's the vet.

- It's a lot of work.

It's not just putting a colony in your yard and walking away.

It's active management.

Varroa mites are the biggest threat to honeybees, and unfortunately, they don't stay with honeybees.

As the bees move around to flowers, those mites can drop off on the flowers.

They can be picked up by bees from other colonies, and those diseases, the viruses that Skip alluded to, can also be spread to native bees.

So varroa mites are something that really need to be managed right now, as the bees can't do it themselves.

- There's also European foulbrood, which is a disease that affects bee larvae and can turn a hive into this gooey mess.

- Is this a honey super you have on?

- Whatever the diagnosis, if medication is needed, Hilborn gives the beekeeper a prescription, in this case, for European foulbrood, which is sprinkled on top of the hive over a period of a few months.

[bees buzzing] While honeybees get most of the attention, they're just one species of bee.

Hilborn says there are about 550 native bee species, which are equally critical to the health of an ecosystem.

Mining bees, mason bees, and bumblebees, for example, all contribute to the pollination that helps produce the food we put on our tables.

- And we don't treat their illnesses.

Native bees are on their own.

So native bees are dependent upon the environment, and our environment is degrading.

We're doing more development, eliminating native bee habitat.

We're losing flowers 'cause people tend to mow more or take out plants with herbicides.

So we have fewer flowers for the bees to feed upon.

- If these pollinators aren't out there, then probably up to one third of our food, we would not have.

- Back with his honeybees, Skip Story knows the concerns about the entire bee population.

His search for his happy place has turned him into an educator and an advocate for bee survival.

And he's still hopeful.

He says if we just listen to the bees and give them room to grow and the pollinating resources to thrive, maybe the ecosystem will have a fighting chance.

- A lot of times people find their happy place in strange places.

Is it stressful?

Yes.

Do you get upset?

Yes.

But you're able to get back to that happy place very quickly.

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