00:01The buzz in this light switch isn't from the electrical charge.
00:05It's the sound of an entire ecosystem, a beehive.
00:11Suddenly, maybe 10 years back or 8 or 10 years back,
00:14I realized that most of the lights were not working.
00:17So I got the electrician to come and check what was happening.
00:21And when he opened it, he immediately actually said,
00:25he was laughing, he was smiling and he said,
00:28there are great things.
00:33For Dr. Anupama, a researcher who had spent a lifetime studying bees and pollen
00:38at the French Institute of Pondicherry,
00:41the faulty light controller was a gift box,
00:43containing one of the region's four bee species.
00:51It's actually kosuthedi, it is the stingless bee,
00:55and I know that it has a big value for the honey, but I'm not interested.
00:59If it's there, I want it to have the place and then we put it back.
01:05The stingless bee is a tiny species that can't fly high or over long distances.
01:12But it's a specialist at squeezing itself into the tiniest of spaces,
01:16like the mango flower, making it one of the main pollinators of the fruit.
01:21So Anupama's urban garden was a strategic choice for the bee.
01:26It offers a year-round buffet of mango, jamun and sapota trees.
01:31Even henna and a night-blooming Rangoon creeper.
01:36After a day of pollinating, the bees return to their home right on the property.
01:42Over the last two decades, the once sleepy coastal town of Puducherry
01:46has seen an astonishing 76% rise in urbanization,
01:51quietly swallowing the natural homes of Earth's most vital pollinators.
01:58Bees pollinate 70% of the plants that feed 90% of humanity.
02:04But mirroring global trends, bee populations in India have crashed dramatically too,
02:09which means that crops and local diets are severely compromised.
02:15Dr. Anupama and her team here at the French Institute of Pondicherry study Poland and ecology,
02:21and work with local communities on these subjects.
02:29Poland takes you back in time because we actually found that this French Institute garden
02:36was the location of a mangrove, a very thriving mangrove with several species,
02:413,500 years back because we also managed to get radiocarbon dates on this.
02:46And also the surrounding had quite a bit of this tropical dry evergreen forest.
02:52So much before, long before this was so built up, what was here?
02:57So you can answer that with polling.
03:01The team is looking into what it would take to support the survival of these native bees.
03:06This includes studying where exactly they now go and what they like to eat,
03:11especially in a world that is turning increasingly hostile to them.
03:19Local farmer Subramanyam is helping with one of these projects.
03:24The team relays findings to him so that he can adjust his cropping pattern
03:28to help bring pollinators back to the farm.
03:38Sun hemp crop has blossoms in yellow.
03:42Sesame also has good flowers during its season that will bring bees into our farms.
03:49And we also farm black ram.
03:52So when we intercrop with such crops, it becomes very easy to pollinate the main crop.
03:59We see honey as just a by-product and added benefit.
04:04For us, pollination is the main purpose for raising and supporting bees.
04:15To understand just how vital these findings are, we looked at the alternative to bees that some people are trying
04:23here.
04:24Hand pollination.
04:27A grueling manual process to produce crops.
04:33So the thing is, yes, they use people to do it, but it's also a very, very tough and challenging
04:41process for the people doing it also.
04:43Usually it's women and usually it's Dalit women doing it.
04:46It's actually a very big challenge and we shouldn't be going for that.
04:52Rather, we should have, you know, enough pollinators on a farmland.
04:57It's easy for city residents to dismiss the disappearing bee as a farmer's problem.
05:03But for the small bees that cannot fly long distances, urban gardens could in fact serve as essential beds and
05:10breakfasts.
05:12Allowing them to rest, refuel and survive in urban jungles.
05:18So the first time we opened a hive, I was completely mesmerized.
05:29I said, oh, this was the sound I was missing.
05:36Sound that made everything grow.
05:39That was missing.
05:41If you get me talking about plants, I don't think I'll stop.
05:46As a child, Lippi Das grew up in a forest.
05:49For years, the move to city life felt like a loss she couldn't quite fathom.
05:55Today, she's converted the grey city building where she lives into a thriving green space full of bees.
06:04Their resilience inspired her to design a pot hive, mimicking the natural curved shape of the honeycomb.
06:12Lippi often collaborates with local beekeepers and the researchers at the French Institute to safely transfer hives or make more
06:20space for the growing ones.
06:21This hive was left untouched for two years.
06:29The core issue is to plant more.
06:35Not only plant, but plant intelligently.
06:38We share this planet with all other species.
06:42I won't live if they don't.
06:46Saving these native pollinators isn't charity.
06:49It is human survival.
06:52Every intelligent garden, chemical-free farm, earthen pot and pool of water can help protect the bees we need to
07:00ensure we have food in the years to come.
07:02We are military-free famous programs.
07:03The human Spencerサヌー looking at lots of
07:07It's a huge problem
