17-year-old Kaitlyn Culbert of Toms River, N.J., honored for protecting honey bees
JAKE BRANCH COUNTY PARK, N.J. -- A teenager from New Jersey is receiving a big honor -- a presidential award for her work protecting honey bees.
She recently invited CBS2 to check out her hives just in time for National Pollinator Week.
Kaitlyn Culbert of Toms River has been getting a lot of buzz for her bee-saving research.
"I care so much about them," the 17-year-old said.
To learn more, CBS2 geared in white suits. It's thought that bees dislike dark colors because of animals like bears, who threaten their hives.
Culbert is raising her bee colony in Jake Branch County Park, where, as you enter, there's a sign alerting "Honey bees at work."
"We just warn people ... so that they know," Culbert said. "I know most of you are scared of stings, but I really want them to keep in mind they will only sting if they think their hive is in danger... or their self in danger."
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Culbert is the first beekeeper in the family. She became fascinated by the insects during the pandemic, to the surprise of her mother, Christina, who now assists her daughter cautiously.
"Honestly, I was like, really, you don't want to pick something a little bit less scary to work with?," Christina Culbert said. "I'm just really proud of her. She's going to do everything she can to help the bees and our environment."
Through her research, Kaitlyn Colbert figured out a way to stave off bees' number one killer, the varroa mite, using what's called "thymol-based essential oils in a mist diffusion."
"With my research, we can hopefully put a stop to it," she said. "Around 30% to 60% of colonies are collapsing every year. One and every three bites of food we take is due to pollination ... extremely important to our food supply and food security."
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Kaitlyn Culbert showed CBS2 how to examine the hive to make sure the bees are healthy and mite free, not overcrowded, and how to find the queen to make sure she's doing her job laying eggs.
"Oh, the queen is right here at the bottom. See her? She's bigger and longer," she said.
To create more awareness, she started her own YouTube channel called "Katie's Adventures in Beekeeping." She has published research and even teaches kids.
"The average age of a beekeeper is 60 years old. I really wanted to try to get younger kids involved," Kaitlyn Culbert said.
Her hard work led to her being crowned the "New Jersey Honeybee Queen," and she recently won the governor's Environmental Excellence Award and now the President's Environmental Youth Award.
She still has one year left of high school, but already knows her life's mission is to protect the bees.
Next week, Kaitlyn Culbert is off to MIT for a six-week summer research program.