(soft music) - [Alison] I am feeling a little nervous in my body!

(air squishing) - Take deep cleansing breaths because just like humans, if I'm really excited, it gets you excited.

So, if you're really excited, the bees pick up on that and they get excited.

So, we take (inhales) deep cleansing breaths and our movements are slow and intentional as to not provide more chaos or excitement for the bees.

(bright upbeat music) (soft bright music) - Bees are essential for our survival.

In fact, one in three bites of food we eat are pollinated by bees, but currently bees are in danger, due mostly to human activity, bee populations are in the decline.

Today, I am here in West Seattle to meet beekeeper Chris Porter, check out his hive and extract some honey.

And if I'm lucky, maybe even taste a little.

Were you always this interested in nature growing up?

- I can honestly say that as a child and even as a young adult, no.

(bright music) Growing up I spent my time riding a skateboard or skating.

(both laughing) It never occurred to me to take into consideration the environment that I'm living in and the impact that I would have on it.

- How did you get interested in bees?

- I was watching TV and found interest in this one documentary about bees and got really captivated about it.

That morphed into watching another and another.

My husband happened to notice how intrigued I was with it.

And that particular Christmas, the first gift that I opened was this white jumpsuit with large pockets and I just looked at it and thought, well, there's nowhere I'm gonna wear this.

And pushed it to the side.

And when I opened the second gift, it was the head cover and I thought, oh, it's a beekeeping outfit, I get it.

(inhales) And from there it just took that natural course.

- What do you think are some of the obstacles that prevent black people, people of color from being in the outdoors or beekeeping, specifically?

- The biggest thing that I think has kept people of color away from beekeeping is the expense, the hive, the gear and the tools and everything that require that can be as high as like $800.

- Hmm.

- So, it is cost prohibitive for a number of people to consider beekeeping.

Also, if you don't own a home or land, that's another thing that people of color and black people struggle with is home ownership.

So, if you're going to consider honeybee keeping, consider that you have to have space and resource and time.

(soft music) - [Alison] Bees are dying at rates never seen before.

Can you tell me about this crisis?

- The population of bees is falling because of human behavior, our insistence on use of pesticides and using habitat space for things like houses and other businesses.

So, that really displaces them and their numbers begin to fall further.

So, what people can do to protect bees and other pollinators is stop using pesticides to begin with.

Anywhere you can put a native pollinator or bee-friendly plant on your property, in your apartment, on your deck, whatever, do that.

Those are things that all of us can do to build the population of pollinators as we're seeing their numbers fall.

- Many people have extreme fears of bees or are allergic to bees.

- What I would tell people who are scared of bees is one, bees really are our friend.

We can't live without them.

And two, they're really not out to get you.

And bees don't really care that much about humans because they have, particularly honeybees, have their community that they manage.

So, when I started beekeeping was not to focus so much on they're going to get me, rather than trying to get in tune with how bees live, how they operate, what they do, what I can do to help them further do what they do.

- I feel like you gave some real life advice there (laughs) that people are not out to get you.

And living in community with people is what's important.

That's- - Yes, absolutely.

- I take it.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

(upbeat music) - [Chris] Alright, let's go (chuckles).

We're gonna take out some frames to extract honey.

(bees humming) - [Alison] I see this was built for your height.

- Yeah, yeah.

(both laughing) I put a few extra in.

(bees humming) What the smoke does is it disorients them, but they'll go back into the hives.

- [Alison] Oh wow, there's a lot of them.

- [Chris] So, you can hear them buzzing, but they're going lower.

- Yes.

- Yes.

(Alison sighs) (Chris chuckles) (object knocking) So, there now, you can lift it and I want you to pull out that frame.

- Okay.

(Alison sighs) - Okay so, Allison, we're standing on the deck of the garage where I have my garden and this is where I do the honey extraction.

(soft bright music) (equipment grinding) - It's a workout.

(both laughing) Ooh, that smells good.

Come on.

(gasps) Oh wow!

Well, thank you for sharing this with me today!

- Oh, it was my honor.

It was my honor.

My pleasure.

- This is really, really cool.

Like they say, like I have more of an appreciation for it now, having seen the process- - Good!

- And understanding it.

- I think that's what I hope people get out of it, is that this doesn't happen automatically.

And in order to get it, we have to be better stewards of the environment around us.

For that they give us this wonderful stuff.

(soft bright music) There are many places and spaces that people of color can reclaim in the environment.

I think about ancestrally, where we all come from, the environment was key to survival and respecting it and making sure that we gave back to the environment when we took from it.

So, this is another entryway into claiming that space that historically in our genetic and bloodline, we've always been there.

(soft bright music)