WACO, Texas — A Central Texas teenager is doing her part to stop the decline in bees. Experts are blaming a popular pesticide on their disappearance.
Ellie Lewis comes from a family of beekeepers and said the decline in the bee population is alarming which is why the 13 year old used her science project to try to find a solution.
"First my mom got into this beekeeping and then I started progressing and I finally got a bee suit and so I am like 'Yay,' I get to be a beekeeper now." Lewis said. "I came up with this question after going to this bee meeting and it was about how this pesticide called Neonicotinoid is killing bees."
The Live Oak Classical School student created a science project with the goal of finding a out which scent would best repel bees without killing them.
"I created it to test which scent would keep the most bees away so I could inject it into the pesticide," Lewis added. "In some of the pictures you can see a bee tree and I stuck the food source at the end of each tunnel and put the scent right in front of it and so when I forced them to come in they would have to either go through the scent or go back."
Lewis worked on the project for a little under two months before presenting it at he school science fair.
"At school I won first in my category and then at Regionals, I won first place again in my category and then I won something from A&M."
Lewis won first place in the Animal Science Category at the Texas Science and Engineering fair and while she was happy to win her award, she said she isn't going to stop her research.
"I am going to test other scents in the future against Tea Tree Oil which kept most bees away," Lewis added.
Hundreds of students from across Texas attended the fair sponsored by Texas A&M.
The fair included over 20 categories ranging in topics from Engineering, Biological Sciences and Physical sciences.
