Jim Muzyka (Lavender Farm)

1. Please tell us more about your farm and logistics related to bees/pollination.
   • 10 hives, 600,000 bees
   • 800 lbs of honey out of 10 hives
   • 20,000 lavender plants, rest of the land occupied by wildflower plants
   • Harvesting lavender in July - August
   • Not dependent on bees to pollinate (lavender still growths without it but doesn’t produce seeds)
   • Not dependent on seed production to upkeep plants, buys seeds from a grower
   • Haven’t lost too many bees over the winter, though many farms have
   • Wildflower population is dependent on the bees
   • Bees will move from farm to farm, wherever they are needed nearby
2. How do you take care of the bees you use to pollinate crops every year?
   • Insulate the hives in the winter → protect the hives
   • Has a beekeeper who he pays year-round to take care of the bees
   • Protect bees from mites, anti-mite powder
   • Beekeeper monitors progress of the hives, splits them if they get too intense
3. Could you estimate the total cost of taking care of your bees every year? (time and money)
   1. Are there any specific areas that contribute significantly to this cost?
      • Beekeeper is paid $3K a year
   2. Has the cost of maintaining the bees increased over the years?
   3. What does the process look like bringing more bees in and maintaining them?
4. Have you noticed any abnormal behaviour with your bees as climate change has had an increased effect? How does the increase in the amount of pollen with increased temperatures affect the crops?
   • the cold of the winter if much more detrimental than the heat in the summer
   • ability to protect bees in the winter has allowed for them to fare better than hives at other farms
   • amount of exposure hives get to winter wind is the main factor in hives surviving more than on other farms
5. Do any of your crops depend on pollination, and is being able to pollinate your crops something you’re concerned about?
6. Have you considered artificial pollination methods? Why or why not?
   • feels the project is interesting, but wouldn’t be a sensible investment for the lavender farm
   • thinks it would potentially be interesting to other farmers
7. How would you feel if you heard there was a pollination robot on the market? What are some concerns you would have? What would you be excited about?
8. How are lavender crops spaced on the fields? How tall do the plants grow?
   1. Yes
   2. 20 to 24 inches tall
9. Have you ever dealt with the declining health of your hives? How much does it cost to improve the health/save your hives
   • No. He has done well to protect them during the winter and has very healthy bees.

Stephen Murphy (Pollen Ecology)

We’re interested in creating a robot that can automatically pollinate plants. To do this we need to learn about the physical properties of pollen and the mechanics behind how it occurs. Could you give us a summary?

1. Are there any major concerns with the current state of pollination?
   1. No. The process is going well
2. Are there any plant species you can think of that require a lot of human intervention to have pollinated, or struggle to get pollinated naturally?
3. Can pollen carry disease or harm plants in some way?
   1. They can: fungus & bacteria can be carried on a bee
   2. Limiting this transfer is very hard
   3. Bees carry pollen differently than bacteria
   4. Viruses are much smaller than pollen so it is difficult to see them
   5. Most pollen is impervious to it usually (bacteria is found mostly on the leaves is where the bacteria is)
   6. The wrong kinds of pollen can kill a plant
4. Are there studies we can read about how the properties of pollen change/are affected?
   1. We would also like to know about the indicators of change & how they are observed?
   2. What does the pollen development process look like?
      1. How do seasons and plant growth cycles play a role in pollen properties?
      2. What are indicators of stages in this process?
   • Pollen can vary with plant health
   • We can see this: molecular or biological test
   • Impervious to UV, humidity
5. Do you have an estimate on how many plants a bee visits every day? How often does a visit to a plant mean a successful pollination (successful pollination in that the pollen has been deposited into another flower’s stigma) (5000/day)
6. How important is pollen diversity (in terms of successfully pollinating the plant)?
   1. Need genetic diversity (in terms of getting pollen from different plants of the same species)
7. How would we know when a plant is successfully pollinated?
   1. Pollenated plant: look under a microscope for signs of swelling