Photo via Thinkstock.

While searching (in vain) for a twitter handle for Becky Rosengaus, whom I blogged about last week, I discovered that she introduced Best Bees Company founder Noah Wilson-Rich to the amazing wonder of bee biology while he was  undergraduate at Northeastern: “I was pre-med, and I took this amazing class called “Sociobiology” that was taught by Rebecca Rosengaus, and it just changed my whole trajectory,” he told TED blogger Kate Torgovnick.

As you’ve probably heard by now, bees are disappearing around the globe and researchers are still struggling to work out the complex network of factors (including habitat loss, insecticide and fungicide use, among others) behind the so-called colony collapse disorder. There are fewer than half as many bees on the planet today than there were 70 years ago, and as Torgovnick said, “this should be extremely alarming, given that bees pollinate one-third of the world’s crops.”

Wilson-Rich spoke at TEDxBoston last year about how urban beekeeping provides something of an unexpected safe-haven for the happy honey makers with a bad rap. Take a look: