The western honey bee is in economic terms the most valuable pollinator of wild and cultivated plants and is therefore the third most important livestock in our ecosystem. In Germany alone, the economic value of pollination is approximately at 2.5 billion euros. Despite its relevance in preserving our biodiversity, various circumstances are contributing to the honeybee‘s threat of disappearing from our planet. What seems to be unimaginable in most of the world is already a reality in parts of China: fruit trees in Sichuan are pollinated by hand, ever since all of their pollinators were killed off by pesticides. Before Colony Collapse Disorder claimed one-third of the entire honey bee population in the U.S., the National Research Council predicted in 2006 that if the decline in colonies seen in the states from 1947 to 1972 and 1989 to 1996 continued at the same pace, the commercially kept honey bee would be extinct by 2035.
Were this to be the case, the development of an alternative pollination technology that is up to the challenges of the future in agricultural research, development and practice is needed. The great media interest and speculation about the potential catastrophe we face should the species indeed become extinct helps to raise awareness of the necessity of this insect in our ecosystem. My newly developed corporate design in form of a Brandbook for Ceres, a German company that produces alternative pollination techniques, builds on this speculation. The focus was on developing the identity of the company to meet the challenges of such a future and, in the process, to stimulate and promote discussion about bee mortality. In order to understand the challenges of the future I reached out to beebrokers from the US to understand and write my thesis around the importance of the honeybee and what would happen if they went instinct to evolve a corporate design fit for any concerns in this fictional future.
