About us

Team 7:

• Jolijn Jansen
• Mario Orrico
• Nilda Tatipata
• Mariska Veer

Welcome to our buzzing blog about bees. These honey-producing creatures have been around for centuries, and that is not without reason. You may know them as the annoying black-and-yellow buggers. Yet, they are very important for the environment and plant biodiversity. These super-organisms protect our ecosystem by pollinating plants. Thus, the fruit in your lunchbox is partly provided by bees! Moreover, their honey and stings can be used for medical purposes. Sadly, the bee population is undergoing a rapid decline due to climate change, pesticides and use of single crop species in intensive agriculture.  

Many people are unaware of these problems, so it is time to give these little workers the appreciation they deserve! Do you know that bees communicate the direction and distance to food by dancing? Or that dust on their bodies can be used to assess pollution in the air? And that researchers are working on developing robotic bees for pollination? In this blog, we hope to amaze you about the wonderful world of bees! Hopefully, you will embrace bees after reading our posts instead of running away from them. Honey, don’t Bee afraid! 

Our writers:

Jolijn Jansen

Hi, nice to see you BUZZing around on our blog! My name is Jolijn and I am a behavioural biologist. Currently, I study a master Environmental Biology, which means I get to spend my days observing animal behaviour. I am very passionate about wildlife conservation and population management. Sadly, one of the most prevalent observations in these fields is the rapid decline of biodiversity. As many species are crucial to maintain balanced ecosystems, I am on a mission to make you more aware of the worth of species richness. So hopefully we can counteract biodiversity loss together!

Mario Orrico

Hi! My name is Mario and I am an Italian veterinarian. After graduating in Naples, I moved to Utrecht to follow a master in One Health. Ever since I was young, I loved to take care of animals and the environment where they live in. I am very interested about communicating science to the young generation. Especially because raising global awareness about interconnected “Human – Animals – Environment” is needed. In my free time, I do beekeeping and I clean the beaches of my region with an association. I want to help you think globally, act locally and grow internally.

Nilda Tatipata

Hi everyone! My name is Nilda and I’m 23 years old. I am a biomedical scientist and, besides my interest in the human body, I love to learn things about nature. As bees play an important role in nature, I am very excited to tell you guys more about them in our science blog. My grandfather was a beekeeper, and he always talked about how special and important these little creatures are for nature. Hopefully, I can reflect his enthusiasm in the articles that I am going to write for the blog! 

Mariska Veer

Hi! My name is Mariska. Ever since I was little, I had an interest for animals and knew that I wanted to work with animals. That is why I decided to study Biology, where I mainly focussed on animal behaviour. Now, I am even doing a Master’s degree in Animal behaviour! So far, I am well on track to reach my goal; getting a career in working with animals. With my knowledge, I hope to teach you some new things about bees. They are not just annoying stingy insects, but intelligent creatures and important for us as humans.