Meeting the World’s Toughest Challenges

For entomologist Marla Spivak, reaching into a hive of swarming bees is business as usual. But she’s less concerned about getting stung than she is about honeybee survival. “One-third of our food depends on pollinating honeybees,” she says. “Bees are vital to our nation’s food supply.”

Spivak’s research counters the recent decimation of millions of honeybees. Having successfully bred the Minnesota Hygienic Bee for its ability to remove damaging parasites from the hive, she’s now working to minimize the harmful effects of agricultural chemicals on honeybees: “I’m working to get bees back on their own six feet.”

Another benefit produced by honeybees is propolis, a sticky resin with disease-fighting properties.

Spivak’s cross-disciplinary team of medical, agricultural, and entomological experts is screening propolis for the complex compounds found to combat both bacteria and viruses like HIV, leading toward a major public health breakthrough.

Donors Rex and Barbara Clevenger took Spivak’s standing-room-only annual beekeeping class, where professionals and hobbyists learn how to start a hive, raise healthy bees, and harvest honey. “I’d always wanted to become a beekeeper,” Rex says. “But we made our bequest to bee research when we saw how critical honeybees are to the food chain.”

Securing the food supply also needs addressing at the global level. “We want to create new thinking for sustainable food systems around the world,” explains Will Hueston, professor of veterinary medicine and public health. Hueston is leading a new U of M effort supported by Cargill, General Mills, the Rockefeller Foundation, and SSAFE (Safe Supply of Affordable Food Everywhere). “Our primary goal,” he notes, “is to develop an international leadership network with the expertise to deal with food system sustainability and other emerging issues in the food supply.”