"The Bee Team” is really "The A Team."

For "outstanding achievements and notable contributions in disseminating science-based beekeeping information since 2016,” the UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP) won a 2023 UC Davis Staff Assembly  “Citation of Excellence” and praise from Chancellor Gary May. 

CAMBP director and founder Elina Lastro Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension and a member of UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, and co-program manager Wendy Mather share the Faculty-Staff Partnership Award. 

Niño, UC Extension apiculturist since 2014, founded CAMBP in 2016. Mather joined the program in March of 2018. Also integral to the program is Kian Nikzad, but as a newer employee, was ineligible to be nominated. 

The awards ceremony, held Sept. 12 in the International Center on campus, singled out “some of our most exceptional UC Davis individuals and teams,” Chancellor May said in his presentation.  

Nikzad accepted the award on behalf of Niño, who was participating in Apimondia in Santiago, Chile, conferring with colleagues at the UC Davis Chile Life Sciences Innovation Center, a part of UC Davis Global Affairs. She was assisting them in developing a sustainable and environmentally friendly science-based beekeeping program to support the success of farmers and beekeepers at all economic levels. 

Chancellor May, in addressing the crowd, thanked the awardees for their outstanding contributions.  “The many outstanding contributions from staff help further UC Davis' world-class reputation in teaching, research and public service. Our university is a better place today because of your accomplishments, because of your hard work and because of your inspiring dedication to excellence.” 

“I truly appreciate everything you do on a daily basis to make UC Davis a wonderful place,” the chancellor said.  “You are the heart of UC Davis and I'm grateful for your dedication and hard work...you “contribute to our university's success and make UC Davis a more enjoyable, creative, inclusive and invigorating place to work.” 

Nomination. Nominators of "The Bee Team" lauded Niño and Mather for providing a “program of learning, teaching, research, and public service, goes above and beyond in delivering comprehensive, science-based information about honey bees and honey bee health. They continually and consistently develop, improve, and refine their statewide curriculum that educates stewards in a train-the-trainer program to disseminate accurate, timely, and crucial information. Honey bees pollinate more than 30 California crops, including almonds, a $5 billion industry (no bees, no pollination, no almonds).  Indeed, California produces more than a third of our country's vegetables and three-quarters of our fruits and nuts. However, colony losses are alarming due to pesticides, pests, predators and pathogens.” 

As of Sept. 15, 2023, CAMBP has donated 34,000 hours of volunteer time and served 209,000 individuals in education, outreach and beekeeping mentorship.  If a volunteer hour were to be calculated at $26.87, CAMBP has given $913,580 back to California in service of science-based beekeeping and honey bee health.   

CAMBP has enrolled 353 Honey Bee Ambassadors (a level established in 2021), 567 Apprentice, 105 Journey level candidates and certified 20 Master level beekeepers. Of the participants, 75 are current or former UC Davis employees or alumni. Since 2020, the number of hours recorded in Continuing Education Experiences totals 4358. 

Scholarships. “No money?” wrote the nominators (Kathy Keatley Garvey, Nora Orozco and Tabatha Yang from the Department of Entomology and Nematology). “No problem. (CAMBP) has donated 12 scholarships, worth $250 each; helped novices who can't afford mentoring or equipment by linking them with veteran beekeepers; and is engaging in free bee removals--rescuing and relocating bees.” 

Over the past year, CAMBP has developed and expanded its educational materials. This includes launching an asynchronous online course and in-person preparatory programs with its partners. It is updating safety materials and developing an Epinephrine auto-injector/CPR course, geared toward “everyone from 4-H beekeepers to novice beekeepers to the general public,” the nominators wrote.

CAMBP also teaches “schoolchildren about bees at specially guided garden tours at UC Davis, inspiring them “to care for the bees and plant nectar and pollen resources.” 

“Our team lengthens their office hours, going above and beyond in helping others (such as ‘My colony is overwhelmed with varroa mites—what can I do?') listening to them and resolving issues,” the nominators wrote. “At Zoom meetings, phone calls, and office meetings, they praise participants for their questions before responding! ‘Good question, so glad you asked that!' is commonplace and helps build and maintain high morale. It also exemplifies the values of collaboration and collegiality.”

Its website, accessible to the public, offers a list of classes and knowledge-based information, including backyard beekeeping, bees in the neighborhood, bees and beekeeping regulations, defensive bees, live honey bee removals, and protecting pollinators.

“Bottom line,” the nominators concluded, “our ‘B' Team is really an ‘A' Team, an outstanding example of UC Davis teaching, research and service; a team providing exemplary service and contributions; and a team that creates and maintains high morale and embodies the Principles of Community.” 

Joint Statement. In a joint statement following the awards ceremony, Mather and Nikzad said: “We share this award with our passionate and caring member volunteers. Our members are deeply committed to honey bee health, science-based beekeeping practices, and, most importantly, to each other. Their enthusiasm and dedication drive our mission forward. We wish to acknowledge Elina Niño for her visionary leadership; she has brought together various stakeholders, including growers, bee breeders, commercial, sideline, and hobbyist beekeepers, as well as the general public, through CAMBP, UC Davis, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE). We missed having her at the ceremony.” 

At the Staff Assembly ceremony, one other team received a Faculty-Staff Partnership Award Excellence Award: the Graduate Mentoring Initiative, comprised of Ambarish Kulkarni, faculty, Department of Chemical Engineering; Pamela Lein, faculty, Department of Molecular Bioscience; and Elizabeth Sturdy, staff, director of the Mentoring and Academic Success Initiative, Graduate Studies. 

Serving as co-chairs of the 2023 Citations of Excellence Committee were Darolyn Striley, manager of the Office of Student Development, School of Medicine, and Mary Carrillo, business operations manager, Languages and Literatures. 

Staff Assembly sponsors the annual Citations of Excellence awards program to provide recognition for UC Davis and UC Davis Health individual staff and staff teams “who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in one of the following areas: teaching, research, service, innovation, supervision, mentorship, team awards and faculty/staff partnership award.” 

Hear that buzz?

National Honey Bee Day is Saturday, Aug. 19 and you're invited to join this oh-so-sweet celebration!

Launched in 2009, National Honey Bee Day takes place on the third Saturday of August. The event originated when a small group of beekeepers petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture "to honor" the honey bees and beekeepers.

HoneyLove.org, a Los Angeles-based honey bee educational non-profit organization, manages National Honey Bee Day and boosts "the educational outreach, community action and advocacy efforts to protect the health and well-being of honey bees," according to its website.

California Master Beekeeper Program. While we're honoring bees, we should also honor the UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP), founded and directed by Elina Lastro Niño,associate professor of Cooperative Extension and a member of the faculty of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Niño and co-program manager Wendy Mather are the recipients of a Faculty-Staff Partnership Award, sponsored by the UC Davis Staff Assembly. The duo will be honored at the invitational Staff Assembly Awards and Recognition Celebration on Sept. 12 at the UC Davis International Center. UC Davis Chancellor Gary May will participate.

Niño and Mather were singled out for "outstanding achievements and notable contributions" in disseminating science-based beekeeping information through a network of organizations and trained volunteers since 2016.

"The award seeks to highlight teams who actively develop and encourage faculty/staff partnerships and as a result are able to make notable contributions to UC Davis that contribute to the University's Mission of Teaching, Research, and Service; and who exemplify outstanding achievement and/or service," according to Staff Assembly officials.

At the time of the nomination (March 15, 2023), CAMBP had

• Given 32,000 hours of volunteer time (Beneficial Educational Experiences) and served 186,630 individuals in education, outreach and beekeeping mentorship. If a volunteer hour is worth $26.87, the program has given $859,840 back to the state of California in service of science-based beekeeping and honey bee health.
• Enrolled 185 Honey Bee Ambassadors (a level established in 2021), 494 Apprentice, 93 Journey level candidates and certified 20 Master level beekeepers. There are 12 members in 2023 participating in their Master Capstone projects.
• Recorded 3752 hours since the team began tracking Continuing Education Experiences in 2020.
• Embarked on a project updating a safety manual.

National Honey Bee Day is also a good opportunity to learn about bees, our mini-agricultural workers that pollinate one-third of the food we eat.

Honey Bee Biology. Bee scientist Brian Johnson, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, has written an informative, comprehensive book titled Honey Bee Biology (2023, Princeton University Press) with a forward by Thomas Seeley, Horace White Professor in Biology Emeritus at Cornell University.  It's meant for bee scientists, beekeepers and bee enthusiasts.

The 19 chapters hone in on Natural History, Systematics and Phylogenetics; Development; Development; Anatomy and Physiology; Genetics and Genomics; Neurobiology; Neuroethology and Cognitive Science; Reproduction; Evolution; Life History, Ecology, and Nesting Biology; the Honey Bee Colony Is a Superorganism; Division of Labor; Communication, Labor Allocation, and Collective Decision Making; Chemical Ecology; Foraging; Tropical Honey Bees; Immunity, Parasites, Pests and Pathogens; Detoxification and Pesticides; and Honey Bees as Managed Pollinators.

The book includes 16 color plates (images contributed by Kathy Keatley Garvey), spotlighting a bee egg, bee castes, swarms and almond pollination, among others.

Princeton University Press bills the book as "the first up-to-date general reference of its kind published in decades. It is a must-have resource for social insect biologists, scientifically savvy beekeepers, and any scientist interested in bees as a model system."

Among his many honors and recognitions, Johnson was part of The UC Davis Bee Team that won the 2012 Team Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America. Other members: Extension apiculturist  Eric Mussen (1944-2022);  systematist/hymenopterist Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology;  native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp (1933-2019) emeritus professor of entomology; and pollination ecologist Neal Williams (now professor) who specializes in pollination and bee biology. 

Just before Amina Harris retired June 30, 2023 as director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, part of the Robert Mondavi Institute, she headed to Mexico with Slow Food Yolo to teach about her favorite subject—honey--at the Univa University in LaPiedad, Michoacan.

“It was about how to cook with honey and how to keep good quality honey without destroying it,” she related. “Then I took my real retirement trip—an Alaskan cruise with my sister.”

Today Amina Harris is no longer the "queen bee” of the Honey and Pollination Center but she continues to be the “queen bee” of the family-owned, family-operated gourmet food business, Z Specialty Food LLC, Woodland, that her late husband, Ishai Zeldner founded in 1979.

Accolades about her work flow like the honey she loves. "Amina has been key to promoting and developing regional and national interest in honey and mead,“ said nematologist Steve Nadler, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Her accomplishments include:

• Founded the Center in the fall of 2012 and served as the founding director until June 30, 2023
• Co-founder of the California Honey Festival with the City of Woodland and Z Specialty Food, 2016
• Developed the UC Davis Honey Aroma and Flavor Wheel, 2013-14
• Offered several UC Davis Bee Symposia in concert with the Department of Entomology and Nematology to help educate California beekeepers at all levels, starting in 2015
• Established “The Feast: A Celebration with Mead and Honey,” formerly known as “The Mid-Winter Beekeepers' Feast,” pairing food influenced by honey, starting in 2014
• Helped develop and fund the California Master Beekeeper Program (which replaced the Bee Symposia), 2016
• Developed, with the UC Davis Department of Viticulture, the first short course on mead, 2014. Subsequent short courses ranged from “Introduction to Making Mead” to “Advanced Mead Making.”
• Developed the Honey Exploration Series, which began in 2016 and included both a professional focus (“Honey Sensory”) and a public focus (“World of Honey”).
• Delivered presentations at various programs and events throughout the United States and Canada from 2012 to 2023.

"Amina has been a great contributor and supporter for many educational and research opportunities within the Department of Entomology and Nematology, including the California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMPB) and several students via scholarships supporting student pollinator research,” said Elina Lastro Niño, who holds triple positions: associate professor of Cooperative Extension – Apiculture; a member of the faculty of the Department of Entomology and Nematology; and founder/director of CAMPB.

“It has been a great pleasure to collaborate with Amina as she always brought a fresh perspective to pollinator education discussions," Niño added.  "We will miss her in her capacity as the HPC director, but I am sure that we will continue to interact in the future and utilize her expansive knowledge of all things honey!"

Said Wendy Mather, co-program manager of CAMBP: “Whenever I've needed assistance with about anything honey-related, Amina has generously offered her time and wisdom. She has served on the CAMBP Advisory Board since the program's inception in 2016. Her experience and wisdom are valued as she continues to offer excellent programmatic design suggestions to help strengthen our staff-member communication. Amina was also instrumental in designing, hosting and facilitating an introduction and overview to honey, honey processing and honey tasting. And she connected us to Suzanne Teuber, a UC Davis physician and professor specializing in allergy and clinical immunologic disorders so we could learn more about the science behind anaphylactic responses to bee stings.”

Energy of a Worker Bee. “We also couldn't have asked for a better partner to set up beside at the California Honey Festival over the past few years!” Mather said. “The Honey Wheel tasting table draws crowds curious about exploring the sensory elements of honey and our adjacent CAMBP booth benefits from that sweet attraction. If you've even seen Amina in action, you'll know she has the purposeful energy of a worker bee.”

“We thank her for her efforts over the years in helping to pollinate many successful events, programs, connections and networks! May Amina find a healthy and happy oasis of beauty to purposefully pollinate throughout her retirement. We appreciate her generosity of time and service to the CAMBP.”

Amina, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y, received her undergraduate degrees--double major in English and the history of art--from the University of Michigan and her graduate degree in special education from Buffalo State College. She met beekeeper/entrepreneur Ishai Zeldner, also a native of Buffalo, in Yolo County. They married in 1982 and together they raised their two children, Shoshana “Shoshi” and Joshua.

Ishai and Amina created a line of internationally recognized award-winning specialty food products, including the Moon Shine Trading Company. They began providing more than 30 honey varietals, including star thistle honey, the first honey to capture Ishai's imagination and palate.

A Dream Fulfilled. Ishai, who died in 2018 at age 71, always dreamed of expanding the family business from a processing plant into what it is today, a 20,000-square-foot facility that includes The HIVE tasting room for honey and mead, a gift shop, a kitchen featuring sustainable pollinator-themed dishes, a conference room, an outdoor courtyard and a two-acre pollinator garden.

The facility, which opened in 2021, houses Moon Apiaries and the Moon Shine Trading Company, as well as The HIVE. Located at 1221 Harter Way, Woodland, it is described as a sustainable educational learning center; a landmark community gathering spot featuring honey, mead, and sustainable pollinator-themed dishes; and a place that offers the largest selection of honey and mead in California. Ishai's bee boxes grace a wall of the tasting room.

“We, our family, are all the co-owners of this venture,” Amina says. Josh describes himself as “the nectar director”; Amina, “the queen bee”; and Shoshi, the marketing director.

How It Began. What sparked Amina's interest in honey? Creating honey-influenced recipes. “Back in 1970s when everyone was getting into whole foods, I wanted to create more holistic recipes, so I started making jams and jellies and pies, adding honey for the sweetener instead of sugar. I was making pies for families when I was in the seventh grade! Honey selection was not good in New York State, and I didn't know the science then.”

Bees continue to fascinate her. “People have no idea how emotionally attached we are to bees. There's this huge, wonderful group of people who just love bees because they're so cute and endearing. But we need to be more curious and inquisitive as to how wonderful bees are, and how they benefit us as pollinators. And the honey. We should appreciate bees more than we do.”

Meanwhile, Amina's family, friends and colleagues are gearing up for an August retirement party, to be held at The HIVE.

Despite multiple bursts of rain and hail, the California Honey Festival, held May 6 in downtown Woodland, drew some 20,000 to 25,000 attendees, festival organizers estimated today.

"I think, all in all, the festival was a success despite the weather which is out of our control, especially when the forecasts were off by so much," said vendor coordinator/events specialist Jordan Waldron. "I heard no complaints from attendees; I even saw some just enjoying the rain."

Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center and a co-founder of the festival agreed with the crowd estimate. "They braved the rain, thunder, lightning and hail!"

The California Honey Festival, launched in 2017 to celebrate the importance of bees and to promote honey and honey bees and their products, last year drew a crowd of 40,000. 

"Overall, great job by all this year," Waldron reiterated, in thanking Harris and GATEways Horticulturist Rachel Davis of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden in coordinating the UC Davis Speakers' Stage.  Harris also staffed a educational booth offering honey tasting. The Arboretum also provided one of the scores of booths that lined the streets.

The UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP),  founded in 2016 by Extension apiculturist Elina Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, participated en force, staffing an information booth and an arts and crafts table. CAMPB, focused on learning, teaching, research, and public service, offers comprehensive, science-based information about honey bees and honey bee health.

CAMBP master beekeeper Sung Lee of Castro Valley, known worldwide on social media as "Sung Lee The Bee Charmer," provided an observation hive. The queen laid eggs throughout the festival. His fans include 2400 on Facebook, 3100 on Instagram, and more than 4100 on TikTok (with 6.1 million likes).

A special guest was National Honey Bee Queen Selena Rampolla of Tampa, Fla., who is also a beekeeper. Crowned the honey bee queen at the American Beekeeping Federation Conference and Tradeshow earlier this year, she received a bachelor's degree in psychology,  summa cum laude, from the University of South Florida in 2022. Rampolla, who developed her interest in honey bees in high school--and a subsequent beekeeping course convinced her to pursue the hobby--marvels at the "amazing symbiotic relationship between the honeybee, a flower, and society."

Another highlight of the festival: The UC Davis Speakers' Stage. Speakers addressed the crowds from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.:

• Pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, discussing "Pollination, the Importance of Native Bees and How to Promote Them"

• Kitty Bolte, GATEways horticulturist, UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, "Planting Your Garden to be a Welcoming Space for Pollinators" 

• Amina Harris,  director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, and co-owner of Z Food Specialty and The HIVE, Woodland, "Let's Learn to Taste Honey."

•  Wendy Mather, co-program manager of the California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMPB), "So, You Want to Be a Beekeeper?" 

•  Jean-Philippe Marelli, senior director of Integrated Pest Management for Mars Wrigley Confectionery (also a journey level master beekeeper and Melipona beekeeper in Brazil), "Stingless Bees: The Amazing World of Melipona Bees"

•  Cooperative Extension apiculturist/associate professor Elina Lastro Niño of Entomology and Nematology, and director of the California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMPB), "What Our Bee Research Is Teaching Us."

• Sanmu "Samtso" Caoji, a 2022-23 Hubert Humphrey fellow, and founder of the Shangri-la Gyalthang Academy, and CEO of the Cultural Information Consulting Company, "Empowering Women to Become Beekeepers and Bread Winners for Their Families While Keeping Bees in the Wild"

• Rachel Davis, coordinator of Bee City USA Woodland and chair of Bee Campus USA UC Davis (GATEways Horticulturist for the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden), "Woodland Is a Bee City; UC Davis Is a Bee City--What This Means to Our Communities"

The 2024 California Honey Festival is set for May 4.