"A Scientist’s Aim: Save the Bees"

"Marla Spivak sat on the curb outside an emergency room in Arizona nearly four decades ago holding a jar with a lone honeybee buzzing around inside. She was 22, and on her way to a summer job with a renowned bee researcher.

She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, only that she desperately wanted to understand those mysterious creatures who were somehow better than people at making a society. But a year earlier she had almost died after being repeatedly stung.

So with a friend at her side to call for help if she needed it, and the doors of the emergency room at her back, she pressed the bee to her arm to find out if she was, as she feared, fatally allergic to its sting."

Josephine Marcotty reports for the Minneapolis Star Tribune with photos and videos by Renée Jones Schneider September 29, 2014. The story is part 4 of the 'Bees at the Brink' series.

SEE ALSO:

Part 1: "Nature's Dying Migrant Workter" (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Part 2: "Battle for Our Hearts and Minds" (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Part 3: "Fields of Green a Desert for Bees" (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Op-Ed: "Are Bees Back Up on Their Knees?" (New York Times)

"The Head-Scratching Case of the Vanishing Bees" (New York Times)

California: "Review of Potential Bee-Killing Chemical Sped Up" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)