(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Throughout the country, people are planting seeds of innovation, harvesting a of bounty of ideas to help care for the only home we have, planet earth.

With billions of people on earth, it is more important than ever to open our eyes and minds to alternative ideas, both new and old about food, energy, resources, health, housing, and more.

The core of sustainability is meeting the needs of today's society without compromising the world for future generations.

In this series, our field reporters will explore eco-friendly ideas and lifestyles that help to make our world a little bit better.

Welcome to My World Too, short stories of sustainable living and earthly innovations.

(upbeat music) In Lawrence, Kansas, there is a store dedicated to the world of beekeeping.

A hobby with great benefits for our planet that can keep you busy as a bee.

- Yeah, I don't think there's anything really as important to sustainability overall as the honeybee.

Because pollination, because the fact they show what's going on in our environment, so they're very important.

I'm Tony Schwager, we're here in Lawrence, Kansas.

My wife, my son and myself own an outbreak bee store here in Lawrence.

Always had bees for 20 years and we started because my son when he was 11, he saw a video at school, and he decided that he wanted to get bees, but we told him no.

That didn't last very long he's very persistent so we got bees as part of his 4-H project.

And just grew a hobby and then grew a business from there.

And then about three years ago, my wife told me she wanted to get a bee store.

She's always right.

It's been really a boon for our business because all kinds of things that we really couldn't do at home and do well at home, we were able to do here.

- We are at the Lawrence Farmers' Market and we're currently selling here till 11:30.

- So my son, he is 32 now he has some developmental disabilities he's probably mentally like a seventh grader or eighth grader, so he's definitely capable of doing everything.

He really loves the Farmers' Market.

- When we first started, we just had these little (indistinct) We had a little (indistinct) about that big, and now we have anything bigger sizes (indistinct) you think of.

- When he was just yay big, he'd sit down at the Farmers' Market with a little table and dozen bears of honey and sell those.

And then of course he got excited about that because he met new people and made a few a few bucks on the side.

And my son's name is Anthony, and the business is called the Anthony's Beehive.

He's the face and the passion.

He's the reason that we really wanted to open a store and build the business so there's something there, something there for him to continue because when you have a disability, it's very hard to support yourself with dignity and it's hard enough if you don't have a disability.

You know this is this is kind of an answer with that challenge for him.

(upbeat music) Well, when a customer is coming to the The Bee Store for the first time, I always jokingly tell them we have bee stuff and we have bee stuff.

And what I mean by that is we have the bee products, we have the honey and the pollen and the wax and the lotion and the lip balm and stuff made from honeybees and their products.

And then we also have bee stuff, which by that, I mean the bee boxes, the hives, the kits, the tools, the smoker the protective gear customers really, really like the fact they can refill their honey jars that way you know, it's kind of a win-win deal.

We're not buying labels and jars and and they're not throwing their plastic container in the in the trash.

- So what I do at the Bee store is basically making products helping customers- kind of do a lot of different stuff just because that's the nature of a local business.

I'm personally a beekeeper as well.

That's how I found this business to begin with.

And I really like bees.

I think that they're fascinating - At the Bee store we do put a big emphasis on, on education.

In fact, the biggest part of our business overall is probably helping folks get started with bees.

We have a lot of customers that are first and second year beekeepers.

We do classes almost year round.

You know, the wild bee population is has declined quite a bit.

There's more folks than ever keeping bees when they want to know where to start.

You know, it's, it's a it's a hobby where you need a mentor.

You need a little bit of a little bit of handholding and some help to get started.

So we, we fill that role.

So some of the basic stuff you to get started if you're gonna be keeping bees, you'll need the bee boxes which you provide those inside the bee box.

And we put frames with foundation in them.

As long as you provide the foundation for the bees they'll build where you want them to there we can manage the bees in a way that really helped them thrive and help them maximize their honey production and make it easier to harvest and help them out.

So when you see those white boxes out in the field of a beehive, there's a bottom there's generally two boxes has one.

What part of the country you're in that's where the bees store, their eggs, their larvae, their nest and do all of their, all their bee stuff.

Once you've helped them successfully fill those boxes then you add a shallower box like this on top.

This is called a super.

This honey will typically be surplus honey that you can go out and harvest before winter, as long as you've done a great job of managing the bees down below.

So they have enough for their own, for their own needs.

A beekeeper is going to be very careful and very skilled and even be able to be able to predict the weather.

If you take too much honey the bees won't have enough to get through winter.

So beekeepers are very careful to first make sure the bees have adequate storage for the winter and then whatever's deemed to be surplus from there is what can be harvested.

So busy is a bee.

That's an expression you hear all the time.

It's probably actually an extreme understatement.

To make two pounds of honey bees will visit 4 million flowers.

They're actually so busy in the spring and in the summer that their lifespan is only three weeks because all they do is work 24 hours a day.

They might be out in the field during the day, but in the evening, they're in the hive, they're still cleaning.

They're still feeding larva.

And so bees, you started thinking about one pound of honey that you get from your bees and a, an average hive on an average year might make 60 pounds of surplus honey.

Well, that comes in 80% water has to be dry down so just for that, just for the one pound of honey the bees have visited millions of flowers.

And when you start out a colony in the spring usually you start with what's called a nucleus or a package just a few thousand bees and a, and a queen.

We kind of as beekeepers, we don't really manipulate bees.

We kind of help get things out of their way that might be obstacles.

And if you do that, that queen will start laying a couple of thousand eggs a day.

You know, the, the hive will grow exponentially easily.

We started our business over, it's probably been over 20 years ago when people had a swarm of bees or had a hive of living in a barn or a house, you know they would call us or find us on the internet and first thing that, you know, they wanted those bees gone.

They wanted them killed, removed, and did it matter.

And now every single call that we get because of the awareness people have of how important bees are every single call within the first 30 seconds of that call people will say, you know, we, we don't want them killed, we want them saved, we want them moved.

So if you come across a swarm of bees, leave them alone.

They really aren't much of a threat.

The bees like bees will sting to defend their home with a swarm bees is actually temporarily homeless.

So they're singing behavior, they're stinging instinct is way down.

You should be able to call the local extension office.

Most extension offices will have a list of beekeepers that'll come out and take this swarm but just the value of those wild bees.

Those are good genetics that survived all winter without any help from humans.

So there's a valuable bees to it, to a beekeeper.

So bees provide a lot more than just honey people really think about bees.

What do we think about honey?

The bee pollen is a very good product.

It's probably the most complete all natural supplement.

That's that's out there is proteins and vitamins.

You know, vitamins, amino acids.

We do an awful lot with beeswax.

Beeswax is a great lubricant is great in cosmetics.

So propolis is a low grade wax, the bees using their high for construction purposes to seal cracks problems as an antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral.

It's one of the greatest substances out there for for any type of health benefit.

Folks will take it orally.

They'll put it in Sam's to put on wounds and things like that.

The wild bee population is taken- it's taken quite a hit for the last 20 years has been devastated by a, by a mite called the Varroa mite.

But the results were the deal with you know, with chemicals, with spraying with just all kinds of factors that there in the wild that, that challenged them.

- Well, without bees wouldn't have first red poles and if we have that, then a few shoring errors the, their kingdom and us would be, you know, gone just like that.

- So by keeping bees, people are keeping that population up as, as the wild bees decline, the number of actual beekeepers and hobbyists and even small business and even big business type beekeepers, you know maintains that population which is essential for the pollination.

So it's probably easier than ever to get into bees.

First thing is all, all 50 States for the land grant system.

They all have an extension service.

Every single County has an extension agent that can help you get started in bees.

There's a huge number of beekeeping clubs.

Again, it's probably a hobby where you need a mentor.

I'm sure there are stores like The Bee Store.

You know, other parts of the country in the spring time you'll find a lot of existing beekeepers as part of their business.

They were selling bees and they're hosts they're hosting classes and doing things like that.

There's a lot of ways to get to given the beekeeping a lot of folks out there that will help you.

So if you're thinking about getting into bees, our advice to folks, when they come in, I tell them to get on, get off the fence.

A lot of folks have thought about it for years.

Next thing you know, those years are all behind you.

So, you know, find a mentor, find a club find your extension agent, but get off the fence and and get some bees as well.

There really is no downside except for the occasional sting.

So if you could tolerate that do the earth a favor and get some bees.

(cheerful music) - [Narrator] A major Metro in the heart of the USA has discovered the true value of offering a free ride.

Let's discover why this innovative concept is an investment in community.

- I lost my vision about eight years ago.

And when I did, it was scary.

It was scary because when I would go from, you know downtown out to the suburbs and then they get dropped off for a meeting or something, how was I supposed to get back?

Because if I wanted to go in that city or cross that County line from one place to another I couldn't do it because I didn't qualify for their service.

I wasn't signed up for that service.

So I would stand on a corner and practically start crying.

Cause I didn't know what to do or how to get anywhere.

We've come from there to where we are now five years later to where you're sitting right now in the cornerstone of a $56 million investment in a corridor in the prospect corridor.

And as a part of that investment it wasn't just about putting rubber and steel on a street.

It was about how are you gonna make this accessible?

How are you gonna make your community better?

If you can just stay away from the fact that you're just trying to take a bus from A to B and that you're actually trying to help people and help connect the community.

That's a whole different optic.

And that's what we're looking for here.

- So Richard, can you tell me, where are we went now?

What is this room?

- This is the Regional Operation Center.

It's where we have communications with all of the buses, all of the supervisory vehicles, all the maintenance vehicles in the fleet, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

- So Richard, from this room, you have an accurate view of where every bus that's currently in services.

- Exactly.

And this covers the entire region.

You would go as far West to Western Wyandotte County, South basically to the Southern edge of the Metro North to the airport.

The entire region can be covered from there.

- Talk to me a little bit about the challenges you have here in Kansas city.

You're a, you're a major metropolitan area but you also span multiple counties multiple cities, multiple States.

Can you talk to me just a little bit about the complexities that are involved there?

- Not much complex in terms of operations as it is in funding, dispatching and actually getting the service on the street.

That makes for a real challenge that we're talking about routes that cross through different jurisdictions around that may start downtown may go North may go through North Kansas city may go through Gladstone may go on up to the airport.

You're going through four different communities.

- First thing we did to make the system more assessable if you will is, is, is bringing us all together.

Okay.

Five years ago, we didn't even have a map of all the different transit agencies and modes within this region.

Okay.

You practically needed a passport to go from downtown, Kansas city out to Johnson County.

- And that's the big challenge putting this together as one regional system so the customers really don't see that jurisdictional boundary when they're on the bus.

- And how many buses are in your fleet?

- We have about 238 active buses right now.

And the peak period is about 204 of those will be on the street at any one time in the peak periods of the day.

- Richard, can you talk to me about the advantages of the different types of buses you have, you have compressed natural gas diesel and an electric bus.

Is that correct?

- That's correct.

We have our first all electric bus here now.

Our fleet is a mixed fuel fleet.

So a majority of the buses in our fleet are compressed natural gas.

We still have quite a few diesels or compressed natural gas has served us very well because of the cost differential between it and diesel fuels.

And we're very pleased with the performance we have with compressed natural gas but the industry is starting to move to all electric.

We're excited about that.

And we're really looking forward to trying our first electric bus.

- Richard, I know that Kansas city is sort of unique in terms of your zero fare initiative.

- Yes.

And there are some challenges with it.

We think the benefits far outweigh those challenges.

- I truly believe that in Kansas city that were very innovative.

None of it works in my opinion without the next step.

And the next step is Zero Fare - We began Zero Fare with prospect max in December of 2019.

- This isn't an idea about just flipping a switch and all of a sudden, "Hey, everything's free."

This agency has systematically and methodically moved in that direction for the last four and a half years we started by making veterans letting all veterans ride free within the region.

We were the only ones in the nation to do that but now any veteran working with the VA and working with our local veterans agencies.

Now, when the veteran could go down and get a card and be able to ride public transit for free then we moved and went to the school districts the local Kansas city school district as well as Hickman Mills center, North Kansas city.

And we said, look let's start with seniors, juniors and seniors.

And let's see.

So that was the second step.

Third step we started working with Safety Net Providers, domestic violence shelters, mental health stuff homeless service agencies, that kind of thing.

- When COVID hit in order to protect our operators, protect our passengers.

We made a Zero Fare on all of our routes.

So you didn't have an interaction with an operator paying fare or you could minimize those touch points.

So we've been operating zero fare now, system-wide since March of 2020.

- Our fee is a buck 50.

Okay.

That's our fare to ride one of our buses.

If you take that dollar 50 out of the mix and it doesn't come to the ATA, if you take that money and actually put it where it belongs which is with the taxpayers, that's a bigger deal.

And I'll go one step further.

You put that dollar 50 back in somebodies pocket Mr. Johnson, over on prospect with their two kids now has an extra what?

1500-$2,000 a year to spend.

Where's that money gonna go, okay.

It's not gonna go to some tax shelter in The Bahamas.

It's going to go right back into the community.

- Unlike other communities that suffered devastating losses of ridership, our ridership has declined to about 80% of pre COVID levels.

One of the reasons for that, we believe zero fare.

It's made it easy for people to get on and off the bus and it's made it safer for people to get on and off the bus.

(cheerful music) This is our bus storage building.

This is where all the buses that are not scheduled for overnight maintenance we'll spend the night after they come in for the runs.

Right now, it's fairly empty.

We're near the peak of operations and most of the buses are out on the street doing their job right now.

You will note different sizes, different shapes different colors of buses.

One of the things we do is try to right-size the bus to the route.

We want the most efficient service we can get.

We don't wanna run a large bus when a smaller more efficient bus will do.

So you'll see different sites over here.

Our mini buses, we have local buses that are in blue, 40 foot and 30 foot size buses there.

And then we have our max BRT buses, this one here for instance, see the roof line that CNG, compressed natural gas tanks on the roof.

You'll see the flatter roof or diesel.

And then we have our one electric bus over here on the corner as well.

- So Richard, this is the electric bus.

I take it.

- This is our very first right now we're learning about the bus, how we are very excited to have it here.

It's supposed to have some really good operating characteristics, 200 mile range between charges, should be very quiet.

You don't have any engine noise and it should be some smooth riding.

And of course there are no emissions coming off the bus.

So we think this is the wave of the future for transit but we need to understand how this parcel performed in Kansas city.

A lot of people don't realize we are not flat in Kansas city.

We have Hills and that's gonna impact our range and our operating.

We have extremes of weather from very hot in the summer very cold in the winter.

What does that do to the battery life and the range of that vehicle?

So we want to get it in service as soon as possible get our operators and our mechanics trained on it and actually start gathering that data.

- This is an impressive facility.

It takes a whole lot to move people around the city.

- Yes, it does a lot of different people, a lot of different skills and talents.

It's challenging, but also very exciting - Public transportation is that one thing, it's that gloop alright, whether it's healthcare, access, education access, job access, access to a quality and, and inclusion public transit is that thing.

It brings all of it together.

You pick anything you want that a city or a urban city or a rural city is dealing with right now.

And I'll tell you how public transit fits into that picture.

I finally worked in an agency where the mission statement is exactly what it should be.

And, and we mean it connecting people to opportunities.

That's your job.

And if you can get everybody around in your agency around that simple theme, then anybody from pushing a broom to the C-suite can get that and they know that they're gonna to come to work.

And you know what I tell my folks all the time, "In this job you can affect more people's lives than most people get to do in a lifetime."

And that's what they do.

That's what they do every day.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Meet a man who not only practices sustainability, but writes and teaches about the greater value of regenerative farming making the world better for the future.

- So this 120 acre farm is where my wife Joanna and I live and live out much of our days trying to live as sustainable a life as we can.

- So Hank, thank you for having us out here today.

This is truly a piece of paradise.

We will, you share with us where we are and what you have going on here.

- Yeah, that's great.

You know, we call this place Prairie Turnip farm.

We named it after a native plant that grows here.

We are trying to improve the land build soil through the use of livestock rotational grazing.

We believe in diversity.

And so you'll see lots of different wild flowers and weeds that feed the bees feed the sheep and feed the soil.

- In fact, I noticed, I think a lot of times people see a farm like this and they see weeds and it's like, "Wow, they don't take care of that."

- Yeah, I know.

That's, you know, it's such a common sort of a myth from the days of when we plowed the soil clean, you know, everybody talked about the farm being neat and tidy and in control.

And we discovered that we actually mined the soil.

We depleted the soil, we needed more chemical inputs in order to pull a crop off or even to, to grow pasture.

So, in our approach is that the land will tell us what it needs.

It will grow what is capable of growing at that point in time and then we'll impact it through the use of typically animals.

And then it changes from season to season.

It changes from year to year, we would be on the periphery of what, what would be called regenerative agriculture these days because we're really looking at soil where we're really concerned with the soil but we also firmly believe that agriculture can happen without chemicals, period, fertilizers, pesticides of any kind, herbicides, whatever.

Yeah.

You know, I'm lucky enough to be able to, you know working the publishing world in a in a realm that is near and dear to my heart.

That's passion.

It's my life.

So Mother Earth News it's a magazine devoted to self-reliance really with a a sort of gentle earth footprint if you will, it's about sustainability, but but also doing for yourself in that sort of a frame I think it's important for people to recognize that that we have limited resources that we should be thinking of ways to, you know approach renewable resources, to the extent that we can.

So it makes good sense for me and I get to work- so to speak in an area that I'm completely passionate about that I like to live, you know, my lifestyle.

- So, so you're, you're practicing what you preach.

- Yeah totally, totally.

My wife, Joanna is a full partner in this operation and she looks after the dogs, you know we've got a bunch of livestock guardian dogs.

She looks after the chickens.

Most of the poultry, she collects the eggs she runs the egg business.

She also makes soap and runs the soap business.

She's my, you know, consultant on all things bees because she's raised bees for about 25 years.

- So Hank, it sounds a little bit like we're in a menagerie.

Can you, can you share with us the animals that you have here on the farm?

- Totally, totally, you know well, first of all, you know, you have to, you have to enjoy your space and you have to enjoy the creatures that share that space with you and, and Joanne, and I really love foul and poultry.

So, so we've got Guinea pens, mostly hens with their foul and they take care of the ticks, some of the grasshoppers but I mean our yard and, and the the farmstead area are pretty well tick free.

That's what they go for.

We have, we have ducks and geese because we like duck eggs and the geese sort of guard some of the rest of the poetry from, you know, small predators some rock names and whatnot, chickens of course we eat and we eat the eggs out and we also have a business selling meat, chickens, and eggs.

And then our biggest, our sort of big in the business world it would be a profit center, right such as it is, would be hair sheep and it's a land, race breed that I actually developed.

That's suited to the environment here at this farm and our management practices.

And so that's the biggest piece of our puzzle.

They help us manage the grassland and in the process build soil.

We also have some cattle and cattle do a different sort of thing to the land that the sheep don't.

They compliment each other on the same pastures.

And so I brought in some Highland cattle.

(bright music) So we've raised bees all over the property and we don't buy them.

We actually either lure natural swarms from around the area in, or we set a little traps for them up in the trees around the farm.

And what that does for us is it brings in bees that are genetically adapted to the environment here.

- So Hank share with us what's this here?

- Well, so we call them a swarm catchers.

If you take a look at the dimensions of it it's the same cross-sectional dimension of the as the hives that we use a healthy bee colony it will expand its numbers until it's too large for the container or the hive the space that it's inhabiting and about half of the bees will leave with the original queen to find a new place to colonize.

And the new colony will find a box.

Perhaps it's this, perhaps it's another hollow in a tree and that's actually how a bees sort of propagate themselves.

- Is it fair to say you're not necessarily raising bees you're borrowing bees.

- Yeah, I think you know.

Or we're giving them a place to live.

And we provide additional houses for them every year.

We promote the wild flowers here because for us having the bees thriving is is every bit as important as trying to sell some bee products to our customers.

- Well, you have a beautiful place.

We'll really appreciate- (upbeat music) - Yeah, thanks.

I'm so glad you guys for coming out.

- Thank you.

And best of luck to you.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Share your sustainability story or learn more about sustainability and earth friendly innovations at myworldtoo.com - [Woman] How much glass do you get per day?

- Per day can be over a hundred tons or even a little more a little less in a year.

We recycled over 40,000 tons of glass.

- Passive solar is simply orienting warm actually slightly South-East to the South.

- Yes, so this is all the hard work that you've seen Ave. (cheerful music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)