- Hi there, I'm Frank Graff.

Find out the secrets of a wildlife photographer, honeybees as you've never seen them, and the science of map making.

We're recording science next on SciNC.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

- SciNC is supported by a generous bequest gift from Dan Kerrigan and the Gaia Earth Balance Endowment through the Gaston Community Foundation.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Hi again and welcome to SciNC.

The black bear is an iconic species in North Carolina, but photographing a bear isn't easy.

Videographer Miriam McSpadden turns her camera on a wildlife photographer.

- When I first get out on the trail, it's my favorite part of the start of my day.

The smell of bears, it's a sweet musk.

It's just the most amazing scent out in the wild.

As I'm walking, sometimes the fog is still on the ground and so it's really heavy and rolling and it looks otherworldly.

That's truly one of my favorite parts of it is that for one day in my life, everything turns off.

It's just me out there with them in all wildlife really and the trees and the grass and the sunrise.

It's just nothing compares to that in my mind.

It's just a place of true solace.

My name is Cassia Rivera.

My home is Holly Springs, North Carolina.

So my life consists of homeschooling my children five days a week and studying, researching, photographing the American black bear seven days a week.

Organization is the key to how I do everything and also making sure I get that quiet time every night to plan out the next day and be able to hit the ground running when I wake up at five, 5.30 in the morning.

I can do work then and then homeschool and then more work after.

That's kind of how I juggle it when I'm not in the field.

It is 2.40 in the morning and I am making my sons their lunch for today because when I'm gone, it's important they still know I love them.

I'm gonna always leave them a little note so they know that I'm still with them.

A tactic that I use in driving in the middle of the night to bear territory is just to hug the inside of the two lanes.

If a bear decides to cross right in front of that car, he's not gonna have a chance.

People don't realize they're driving through some of the most densely populated wildlife areas in North Carolina and really the country.

I actually get questions all the time.

A standing bear, is it aggressive?

You know, that's a huge misconception.

They stand to gain intel and to be able to connect sight, sound, and hearing together.

So standing bears are curious bears.

They are not there to attack.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna park right here and we're gonna go on foot.

So right now I'm looking for newly shaped grass trails.

Sometimes when you see an opening, you might find a sleeping bear.

And of course, always remember to look up.

You have to understand their cues because they will literally communicate right from eye contact.

They use their ears, their mouth, their posture.

So if you can pick up on what they're communicating to you in the very first encounter, you will have a successful and respectful and peaceful time with them.

Because it's spring, they prefer sedge as their vegetation.

Sedge is a grass-like plant and it's really high in protein.

And you can tell the difference between sedge and grass because a sedge is a thick triangular blade.

I'm gonna peek around this tree line and if we don't see any, we can move on.

All right, back to the car.

There's just not enough sign of them here.

So I've seen worry, furrowed eyes from a mother.

There was a great divide between two cornfields and there was a male passing through and this mother with very young cubs.

And I could see the worry and concern on her face.

A week or two after that, I could see her goofy face when her and her children would play together.

She had a difference of body language when she was protective versus playing with her kids.

(wind blowing) What are those things?

I can't tell.

(upbeat music) Oh my gosh, I can't believe how calm it is right now though.

That is so wicked.

Yeah, he sees a bear, I bet.

Look at the position of his camera.

All right, so I'm gonna try to see what he sees before we get to him.

It's another owl.

Is that another owl?

That's incredible.

Look how proud he's standing.

I'm also involved heavily in photo donations to Bear Wise program, bear rescues around the country.

I've launched a bear class for the first time.

That is a dream come true.

My goal is to reach as many people as possible with education about bears.

Good find.

Oh, you got a crawfish.

Masterful hunter.

(upbeat music) Oh my gosh, I love this.

That is awesome.

A muskrat or a nutria, there's a difference between the two and I think it's the color of the teeth.

- I do feel that these are incredibly intelligent animals and they absolutely can pick up on our motivations, our intentions and our feelings towards them.

They'll build day beds like right by the edges.

You can miss them just simply by walking by.

This is a beautiful bear path that we're on right now.

If you scooch down, it goes all the way through perfectly.

And so this is an area of high travel for bears.

We're close.

We are close.

That looks like a mom.

Hi sweetie.

What a beautiful bear.

Sometimes the paws will suction into the mud and you can see her walking very slowly and carefully because the mud is sucking her paw down and now traveling quicker.

Look how carefully.

(gentle music) Do you see how beautiful that bear was?

Her ears, because they stayed forward, they stayed up, her ears staying up, her posture not changing, her traveling and the way she was going just shows that she was comfortable with where we were and good to go.

- A lot of people don't know this, but maybe half of the time my two boys are with me.

They are the ones that help me choose the photos because I really value how they see the world.

They see it purely and they see it how I feel everyone should see it.

I very much rely on them to show me which ones speak to them.

- The owl preening itself, that was an amazing encounter, awesome photograph of that.

One of my favorite photographs was of the bear and her habitat, the leaves, the wood, the water was just absolutely gorgeous.

I can't wait to work on it and tell everyone about her.

- I absolutely am passionate about teaching others just learn the behavior of the animals that you wish to know more about in the wild and you will have an amazing encounter.

They will open up their world to you and that's what the bears have done for me.

- Besides making honey and beeswax, honeybees are vital to food production because they pollinate crops.

Entomologist Adrian Smith from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences shows us.

- These are two honeybee workers about to lift off.

Honeybees are one of the most well-studied and well-filmed insects on earth.

So I was a little worried that filming them wouldn't reveal anything new or interesting.

Well, I was wrong.

Between capturing flight sequences like this and slow motion close-up views of the honeybee stinger in action like this, I think I can show you some interesting and hard to notice details about how these insects work.

So to make this video, I didn't bring a hive or live bees here in the lab.

Instead, I went down the road to NC State University to the apiculture field lab.

I set up the high-speed camera there while the lab technician, Kim, was doing her rounds to check on and maintain the hives as they prepared to go into winter.

- So I'm Kim Guillemette and I am the apiculture technician here at the bee lab.

So I usually start at the side so you're less likely to roll the queen.

You can see all of this is honey and then all of this is nectar.

So some of the bees that were light got sugar syrup because it's so thick and you can't get all of it poured out.

I usually leave it for the bees to clean up for me.

And these buckets that just a few minutes ago had the last little dribbles of syrup are now clean.

They're completely clean and dried up.

- There were so many bees flying into and out of those buckets that it presented an opportunity to film the bees in mid-flight instead of just the normal takeoff shots I usually get.

So I set up the camera and got some slow motion footage.

If you watch these two bees right here, you might be surprised to see, like I was, that flying bees bump into each other in crowded situations like this.

In fact, in just a few seconds of footage that I captured, it happens over and over again.

Another interesting thing is visible in this shot.

If you watch either of these two bees, you can see pretty clearly by looking at their dangling hind legs how much their body is shaking with every one of their wing beats.

The ends of their legs, where the tarsal claws hang down, flick back and forth as the bee moves through the air.

In the up-close footage, you can see it happen too.

Wing flaps make their whole body vibrate.

Mechanistically, it makes sense because bees, like most insects, move their wings when muscles contract to deform their thorax.

The wing muscles don't pull directly at the base of the wings themselves.

While most insects flap this way, I haven't noticed it making the tarsy wiggle as much as it seems to do with these honeybee workers.

My other goal with filming honeybees was to capture footage showing how their stingers work.

Now, I've done this before with ants by having them pierce through a thin wax film like this to film on the underside what their stingers are doing during venom injection.

With the ant footage, I saw the sting apparatus being pushed through the film while its two thin lancet components extend out, pumping back and forth, drawing out venom droplets as they move.

Now, with honeybees, it's anatomically very similar, but I've only seen diagrams of it, like this really nice one from the Stated Clearly YouTube channel.

In this diagram, the venom comes out of the end of the stationary stylet when the moving lancet components are retracted from the end of the stinger.

But when I captured footage of ant stingers in action, the movement of the lancets extends them beyond the end of the stinger, which corresponds to venom being released.

So the majority of my time in the bee lab was spent like this, trying to capture that view of the honeybee stinger in motion.

I spent about four hours trying to film it, and as you'll see in a minute, I think I ended up with just one good sequence showing how it works.

Part of the reason it's hard to capture and probably why there's not a lot of footage of it is how small everything is.

For scale, this is the tip of a sharpened pencil, and it's about a third of a millimeter wide.

These are the components of the stinger at scale.

These barbed parts are the lancets that are pumped back and forth.

And this part is a stationary stylet that the lancet's attached to.

Here's a cross-section of the stinger with those three parts fitting together.

The venom canal is the hollow space they create that the venom flows through.

So here's my honeybee footage.

Getting them to extend their stinger through the film was easy, but the bees were way less eager than the ants were to actually dispense their venom.

In these first clips, you can see some movements of the stinger apparatus, but nothing much is happening.

I should also mention here that all this happens fast, and what you're seeing was captured at 1,200 frames per second.

This clip, I think, is the best of what I captured.

As the stinger comes into focus, you can clearly see the lancets moving and extending beyond the tip of the stinger.

This is the same type of movement I saw with the ants when they dispensed their venom.

If I pause it right here, you can even see the outline of the hollow venom canal inside the stinger.

Overall, seeing this movement to me was pretty interesting because it shows how similar ant and bee venom delivery systems are.

Of course, both their stingers are evolutionary modifications of a wasp ovipositor, and that back and forth pumping of the lancets is probably related to the original function of shimmying an egg down an egg delivery tube.

So that's it for the bee footage for now.

Hopefully, I'll have more bee-related stories to film in the future.

Thanks for watching.

- There's an art and a science to cartography, mapmaking, especially in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains.

Producer Emily Frachtingly explains.

- I've talked to people about paper maps and the utility of them, and of course, everyone's always says your battery might die on your phone, so you need a paper map.

But I think the bigger thing is a map gives you a sense of place.

It helps you understand the environment and the world, the landscape around you.

With a big map open, you can see, you know, that's Asheville over there, and this is this mountain over here.

Looking at a map really helps you connect with a place.

- I started Pisgah Map Company long after I started thinking about making my own maps to get out and use in the woods.

When I was 15, I went on my first backpacking trip in Linville Gorge.

It rained the whole time.

We slept under tarps.

We got wet, and I just loved it.

I loved being outside, being away from everything, where there was nothing to hear but the river and the woods, and I came out of that trip just really wanting to get back out.

I used a lot of maps, and the more I used them, especially in areas that I went into a lot, I'd look at a map and I'd think, you know, that this map would be easier to understand, easier to read if this layer stood out a little bit more, or this set of labels were a little bit bigger.

It just started to become obvious that there were things I could do to improve them and make a better map, and really just trying to make a better map was the whole impetus to Pisgah Map Company.

I'd been wanting to make a map of the actual Pisgah Ranger District for a long time, and I had a student, and we started talking about it, and he was saying how that would be a great idea, and he thought about doing that too.

I think I always thought it would be a business, but we just started making the map.

It was a very long process.

I was teaching full-time, I was trying to get out and enjoy life as much as I could as well, so the first map we worked on in the evenings, some afternoons, for over a year, and I'll never forget the boxes of maps when we printed it, and we opened it up, just opening the map and seeing this thing that we'd created, it was like a piece of art, it was beautiful.

That was really when I realized that the thing I'd been thinking about for so many years, about making my own map, that it was doable.

- We've been a long-time customer of Pisgah Map Company.

When we have people in from out of town who aren't familiar with the area, to be able to give them the best and most accurate up-to-date map gives us a lot of confidence to be able to send people out, knowing that they're gonna be okay and always come back with great stories and a good experience, and glad they had the map.

- We've been selling maps in West North Carolina since 1977, and when Pete's Maps came along, it was a godsend, because they're more up-to-date, they're better quality, and quite often focused on areas that, for West North Carolina hikers, are more precise.

- I almost took some of it for granted, if that makes any sense, you know, because I didn't even realize how many people use and rely on his maps, and it kinda makes me be like, wow, this has been happening in my life for 20 years, and this happens, like, in our house.

- Oh, there it is.

So, this one, this is the original Pisgah Map, right there, with the original cover on it, and this person riding the bike there, is off the trail, they're on the rock, off the trail.

So the Forest Service was like, we don't like that picture on that map, because they're not riding on a legal trail, you know?

You can see, this is our first one, look at all the comments on that one, things we wrote up on it.

Lots of mistakes on that first edition.

The process of making a map really melds together the science of data and understanding information with the art of communicating that information.

When I started using GIS, I loved it because of the map, you know, the map on the front, and whenever I'd open the table of information, I was like, oh, look at all that information, I tried to stay looking at the map, you know?

And over time, I got much more accustomed to the database part of it.

The world is a dynamic place, it changes all the time.

So GIS data has to be updated all the time.

I heard the term once, the world can't afford perfect data, and the job to keep it maintained and updated, it's a big job, and things get missed.

So we go out on the ground and we ground truth it, we make sure that it's accurate and correct, things aren't missing.

All right, just head up the trail.

- In the beginning, we did a lot of ground truthing, especially before we had the kiddos.

But there was one time in particular, we went to this area called the Middle Prong.

We both wanted to explore it, never been, but I was like, it was like a Saturday, I'd worked all week, I was like, I kinda just wanna take it easy.

He was like, sure, like, let's take our bikes, we'll ride up this gravel road for like a mile, and then we're just gonna check and like, see this trailhead, and then we're gonna blaze home.

I was like, awesome.

10 miles later.

- My family has supported the business for years.

Sometimes they've liked it, sometimes they haven't.

Do you like going on adventures to help Daddy make sure the maps are right and correct?

- Kind of, kind of.

Now when Dad goes, you're a little longer.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh yeah.

- Daddy goes a little longer sometimes.

- We know that.

- Sometimes?

- It's all part of the adventure, kid.

- Hmm, you're wrong.

The kids have counted maps, do map fulfillment with me.

We've spent a lot of our weekend hikes in places that I need to ground truth something.

Haven has gone on many, many adventures.

We always make it back.

- I think I'll make it back.

(children laughing) - Good night.

- Good night.

- Good night.

Do you guys have a favorite river?

- I like the one that was named after me.

- There was one named after you, and you.

We were in the hospital with y'all when y'all were born.

I was making this map.

- Where are we?

- And the two rivers, I'll have to find them, but I put your names on here.

I named two streams, one Ava Mae Branch and one Clara Creek on this map.

- Clara Creek.

- There, look.

- Oh, I knew it was right there.

- Don't tell us.

- Ava Mae Branch and Clara Creek.

- There it is.

- Clara Creek.

- Blanc.

- Creek.

- Blanc.

- It's really important to me and Pete that our kids have a connection to the outdoors.

They've done a lot of cool stuff from river trips to hiking trips.

I mean, we've had some of our best times in the camper.

It's the place that they can run around and have a sense of freedom.

And it's so funny, every time they do it, they find something new to explore.

And I think instilling that adventurous behavior in them will serve them a lifetime.

- A big thing that we hope is that our maps help people better connect with the outdoors, with the environment.

We hope that the maps help people to get their feet on the dirt and have a little bit of time to reflect, think about yourself, maybe just not think about anything, just walk in the woods.

Wow, it's neat up here.

- Isn't it?

Yeah, this is great.

- The amount of heart and soul that Pete puts into these maps is pretty amazing to see.

And it's a lot of grit too.

I mean, he works so hard on these maps and you can really see it in the end product.

There are some other map companies out there that are a lot bigger than his small company, but it just goes to show that he's worked so hard and he knows the area so well and he puts that love into his maps.

- Atlantic striped bass are a popular game fish in North Carolina.

Producer Michelle Lotger went to the Edenton National Fish Hatchery to learn how scientists help nature stock the rivers.

- It's kind of our job as a conservation hatchery to put ourselves out of business.

Our goal is to raise enough striped bass and figure out the problems so that we won't have to do it anymore.

- Historically, striped bass are documented as an abundant source of food in North Carolina.

But by the 1960s, overfishing and pollution in their spawning and nursery waters resulted in back-to-back years where the population wasn't replenishing itself.

Today, water quality protection and restocking efforts by hatcheries like the Edenton National Fish Hatchery in Edenton, North Carolina, support commercial and sport striped bass fisheries that were valued at over $14 million in 2023.

- My name is Sam Pollock.

I'm the assistant manager here at the Edenton Fish Hatchery and I'm the lead biologist on the striped bass program.

These are a very popular sport fish.

They're Atlantic striped bass.

And the rivers that we raise them for, it is a restoration effort.

We know that they would only be out there for so many years if we weren't restocking them.

We get brood stock from the Neuse and the Tar River.

These are all our Neuse River phase ones for the year.

We've brought them in and we're feeding them.

They're about an inch or two long.

And right now in the hatchery, we have approximately 160,000 striped bass.

- Wait, how many?

- Approximately 160,000 striped bass.

- Those 160,000 fish are tiny.

Like Sam said, they're phase one size, which means they're little fingerlings.

He scoops them up for us to see just how small they are.

These little fish are fed and cared for in these holding tanks until they're ready to go back out into bigger ponds at the hatchery that are filled and emptied depending on what's being raised there.

They'll stay and grow in these ponds through the summer and fall.

- And in late fall, early winter, we drain them and stock them out in the designated rivers where their parents came from.

The state and game agencies will regulate catches and things of that nature, size, slot limits, in hopes that they have a better brood class out in the river.

So till then, we supplement the fish so that there are fish that'll go out and spawn in the rivers.

They don't see the proper recruitment where they don't find the small fry or the little striped bass.

So we help the fish get over that hump until they can figure out what's happening in the rivers.

- If we can figure out the striped bass, then there will always be another river or another species or another project for conservation.

- Science Sea is supported by a generous bequest gift from Dan Kerrigan and the Gaia Earth Balance Endowment through the Gaston Community Foundation.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.