George Washington Univ. Students Using Bees To Encourage Urban Sustainability, Agriculture

WASHINGTON - Honeybees in America are dying at alarming rates and scientists don't quite know why. Now, a young woman from Maine is on a quest to create new honeybee colonies in the Nation's Capital - apparently for all the right reasons.

Melissa Eddison is entering her senior year at George Washington University and heads the student-run Food Justice Alliance. Its mission is to make D.C. more sustainable by encouraging residents to create community gardens and produce locally grown food. But finding pollinators in urban areas can be difficult.

That is why Eddison applied for a grant to create new honeybee colonies at George Washington University. She was awarded $1,125 and with that money and help from expert beekeepers in northern Virginia, she now has three bee boxes at George Washington's Mount Vernon campus with some 100,000 Italian honeybees.