This is a project, where we, the 8th graders at La Paz Community School, are trying to educate the community of the importance and impact of bees on our world. Our goal is to demonstrate that without them we wouldn’t be able to survive, and that they aren’t just here to sting you. They pollinate plants and flowers, and we have seen extreme cases of extinction of bees in some places in China, where people have had to hand pollinate every flower on every tree because the bees were not there to do their job. It started in our 7th grade year when our spanish teacher, Ms. Daniela pursued an interest in a specific type of bee, the Melipona which does not have a stinger, therefore are much more defenseless and liable to be hurt and are becoming extinct.While many people think of them as annoying or painful, they are actually crucial to our environment. Our class also also benefits from this project because since they don’t have stingers they can’t hurt any of the students or teachers on our campus. We have learned, researched and dedicated many hours to understanding how these bees work, what they eat, how they live and much more. We have received 10 hives of these bees which we will conserve, and use to inform our community about. We have overcome many obstacles like fundraisers, building the beehives on time, researching specific information, and we cannot wait to continue to learn and research about these bees. We hope that with this blog, and our 50,000 melipona bees, our project will be able to impact not just our community, but our world.