FULLERTON, Calif. – Beekeeping is a detailed science, and studying the populations at California State University Fullerton could help understand why overall populations are declining.

Getting stung by a bee hurts, but specialized suits help keep beekeeping to a science, according to Cal State Fullerton bee curator Greg Pongetti.

“I find them fascinating. When I hold up a frame and I look at it and see all the different things that are going on in the hive, it’s kind of mind-blowing how well all the bees in the colony work together,” said Pongetti.

Pongetti curates all of the living things at Fullerton’s arboretum and over the last few years they have worked on studying bee colonies.

While bees may be best known for being avoided, they are complex little creatures with huge roles in our environment.

“Bees are incredibly critical to a lot of the crops that we produce, especially in California. Almonds are a huge crop that relies heavily on bee population. And then also we get things such as pollen and honey and other goods out of the bees as well,” says Pongetti.

In this session Pongetti and Fullerton students are using powdered sugar to cover drone, or male populations. The powdered sugar actually helps groom the bees and rid them of mites, which fall to the bottom.

Their study is important because bees themselves have experienced a huge decline. In the last 70 plus years bee populations have declined at least 60 percent.

Most of the decline is due to the pesticides killing the bee population. The key to keeping bees from a further decline is the research to effectively manage populations with natural remedies.

For Pongetti, who spends two to three hours a week keeping these colonies, the sting of losing such an essential part of the environment is very real.

“Hopefully we could disperse the information,” said Pongetti.

The goal is to help both the bees and the environment.