- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You don't want to just keep bees, you want to devote your life to learning more about them and understanding them. And you want to engage in public service.
“Any universal and immutable scale with which to measure mastery of a human pursuit is at best elusive,” says Master Beekeeper Mea McNeil of San Anselmo, who doubles as a journalist, writing for beekeeping journals and other publications. “For those whose lives are devoted to understanding the wonders that are bees, every research answer begets a new question. So it is that an array of Master Beekeeper programs have been developed to bring dedicated beekeepers to a sophisticated level of knowledge that is defined by each course.”
McNeill, who is also an organic farmer, wrote those words for an article published 10 years ago in The American Bee Journal. Roger Morris of Cornell University taught the first known Master Beekeeping course, she related, and the first Master Beekeeping certificate went to beekeeper Peter Bizzosa in 1972.
The good news is that the University of California, Davis, is now planning its first-ever Master Beekeeping course. There are no times and dates. Not yet. It's all in the beginning stages, says Extension apiculturist Elina Niño of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
If you want to get on the Master Beekeeper list, send an email to sympa@ucdavis.edu from your email address or the address you want subscribed. In the subject line of your message, type in: subscribe camasterbee Firstname Lastname.
“I completed the Master Beekeeping Program at the University of Nebraska under Dr. Marion Ellis,” McNeil said, adding that it was quite comprehensive. “I learned enough about bees and beekeeping to become humbled at the vastness of the subject. An important component of that program is service, so, as a working journalist, I began writing about the bee world as a result.”
In her journal article, McNeil described several programs, but pointed out that “No two programs may be alike, but they spring from a common philosophy: the bees are precious and necessary, and those who know them well will serve to help them thrive. Most intend to create ambassadors for the bees, a mission to bring the public into greater awareness of their importance.”
These are university-level courses--extensive, detailed and challenging--with written, lab, oral and field exams. You have to know the material and be comfortable in explaining it. You may have to, for example, identify “a blob of unidentifiable substance” and “describe the cause and how to prevent it,” as McNeil wrote. One blob turned out to be “chewed up bees from skunks sucking the juices from bees, then spitting out bee parts.”
Take the Master Beekeeping Program at the University of Florida. It's an ongoing program that spans a minimum of five years. Participants work toward “advancing to the next level by reading books, demonstrating public service credits, participating in research projects, or extension programs, etc.," the website says. "In order to enter the program, you must begin by taking the written and practical examination for the Apprentice Beekeeper level." Master Beekeepers serve as an arm of the Extension services.
Meanwhile, in addition to the pending Master Beekeeper course, UC Davis offers beekeeping and queen-rearing courses for novices, intermediates and advanced beekeepers. If you're interested in joining the beekeeping course list, send an email to sympa@ucdavis.edu from the address you want to subscribed to the list. In the subject line, type: subscribe elninobeelabclasses Firstname Lastname.
If you want to learn more about the UC Davis honey bee program, access the E. L. Niño lab website at http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/ or the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/elninolab.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Make way for the Good Food Awards competition, opening July 6.
This year is the second consecutive year for the honey category. Last year more than 50 beekeepers from throughout the United States entered their honey.
Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, is chairing the committee. She's joined by fellow members Emily Brown, owner of AZ Queen Bee and winner of a 2014 Good Food Award in Honey; Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine; Marina Marchese, founder of the American Honey Tasting Society and co-author (with Kim Flottum) of The Honey Connoisseur; and Mea McNeil, writer, beekeeper and organic farmer.
Here's what Harris advises:
- Put July 6, 2015 (sometime in the afternoon) on your calendar
- Go to the website: http://www.goodfoodawards.org/
- Click on the ‘Honey' link to read the NEW criteria (also listed below)
- Click on Entrant Information to download a form.
So, what are the rules? Among them:
- All honey must be the bona fide produce of the entrant's own bees.
- It must be harvested between August 2014 – August 2015.
- It must be extracted with minimal heat (100°) and after extraction, not exposed to heat greater than 120°.
- It must be strained and/or filtered to leave in pollen.
- It can be made with inclusions (such as fruit, alcohol and herbs):
- That grow domestically, inclusions are locally sourced wherever possible; traceable; and grown without synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.
- That are not grown domestically on a commercial scale; they are farm-direct, certified organic, or Fair Trade certified.
- It must be produced in the United States
There are other rules as well, including being responsibly reproduced.
Is honey the nectar of the gods? Or the soul of a field of flowers? Both. How many flowers must honey bees tap to make one pound of honey? Two million, according to the National Honey Board. The average worker honey bee makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon in her lifetime. How long have bees been producing honey from flowering plants? 10-20 million years. How many flowers does a honey bee visit during one collection trip? 50-100. See more questions here.
The Good Food Awards, according to its website, is all about celebrating "tasty, authentic and responsibly produced foods." The organization presents the awards at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. This year, the sixth annual, will include 13 categories: beer, cider, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, confections, honey, pickles, preserves, spirits, oil and the newest category, pantry. Awards will be given to producers and their food communities from each of five regions of the U.S.
Meanwhile, Amina Harris says we're tasting honey all wrong! Read the interview in Civil Eats.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So said Senior Extension Associate Maryann Frazier of Penn State when she addressed the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's seminar last Wednesday, April 2 in Briggs Hall.
Frazier, on a trip to California to discuss her research with the Marin County Beekeepers, took time out to travel to the UC Davis campus at the invitation of Master Beekeeper/writer Mea McNeil of the Marin County Beekeepers and associate professor Neal Williams and assistant professor Brian Johnson of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Frazier, a 25-year extension specialist, expressed concern about the pesticide loads that bees are carrying, as well as the declining population of bees and other pollinators.
Beekeepers, she said, used to be much more concerned about colony collapse disorder (CCD), that mysterious phenomenon characterized by adult honey bees abandoning the hive, leaving the queen bee, brood and food stores behind. CCD surfaced in the winter of 2006, but today, when beekeepers report their winter losses, "they're not blaming CCD any more," she said.
Frazier listed the prime suspects of troubled bees as poor nutrition, mites, genetics, stress, pesticides, nosema and viruses. "Varroa mites are a huge issue," Frazier said.
Turning to pesticides, she said a 2007-2010 U.S. analysis of some 1000 samples (wax, bees and flowers) showed "an astonishing average of six pesticides per sample and up to 31 different pesticides per sample." The analysis, done by U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service Lab (USDA/AMS) screened for 171 pesticides at parts per billion. The samples involved a CCD study, apple orchard study, migratory study and submissions from individual beekeepers.
Frazier compared the interaction of pesticides in bees to the interaction of medications in humans. When you go to the doctor, you'll be asked the names of the medications you're taking, she said. The "interaction" situation is similar to what's happening with the honey bees.
In a bee colony, lethal exposures to pesticides are easy to see, Frazier noted. "You'll see dead bees, bees spinning on their backs and bees regurgitating." But the sub-lethal effects can mean "reduced longevity, reduced memory and learning, reduced immune function and poor orientation."
Marin County Beekeepers recently undertook a similar study of pesticide analysis, raising $12,000 to do so ($300 per sample). "Marin is very mindful of pesticides, probably more than any other place," Frazier said. McNeil agreed. The results are pending publication.
"If we truly want to protect our pollinators," Frazier concluded, "three things need to be addressed or changed:
- Beekeeper reliance on chemicals and drugs to manage mites and diseases
- Pest control practices, particularly agricultural land
- The approach of more regulatory agences assessing risk and protecting the environment"
As the seminar participants left Briggs Hall, many could be heard discussing the take-home message: "average of six pesticides per sample, up to 31 pesticides per sample."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Her seminar will be from 12:10 to 1 p.m., in 122 Briggs.
"Pesticides may be necessary in today's cropping systems but large monocultures have resulted in the need for significant use of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides," Frazier says. "New chemistries, such as neonicitinoids have their advantages but the persistent use of synthetic pesticides, especially in bee-pollinated crops and/or crops visited by bees to collect nectar or pollen, such as corn, has resulted in significant pesticide exposure to bees."
"Over the past seven years our lab has analyzed over 1,200 samples of mainly pollen, wax, bees and flowers for 171 pesticides and metabolites. We have found 129 different compounds in nearly all chemical classes, including organophosphates, pyrethroids, carbamates, neonicotinoids, chlorinated cyclodienes, organochlorines, insect growth regulators, fungicides, herbicides, synergists, and formamidines. Further, we have identified up to 31 different pesticides in a single pollen sample, and 39 in a single wax sample. An average of 6.7 chemicals are found in pollen samples. However, the pesticides found most often and at the highest levels are miticides used by beekeepers for the control of varroa mites."
In her talk, Frazier will discuss these results and additional studies and concerns about "the synergistic effects of pesticides, systemic pesticides and sub-lethal impacts, including those on immune function, memory and learning and longevity, as well as the question of toxicity associated with adjuvants/inert ingredients."
Helping to coordinate the event is Mea McNeil of San Anselmo, master beekeeper and writer. Assistant professor Brian Johnson is the seminar coordinator for the spring quarter.
Frazier received her bachelor of science degree in agriculture education from Penn State University in 1980. In 1983 she completed a masters of agriculture in entomology at Penn State, specializing in apiculture. She has worked as the assistant state apiary inspector in Maryland, and for two years as a beekeeping specialist in Sudan and later in Central America.
For the past 25 years, Frazier has held the position of senior extension associate in the Department of Entomology at Penn State and is responsible for honey bee extension throughout the state and cooperatively across the Mid-Atlantic region. She works collaboratively with other members of PSU Department of Entomology to understand how pesticides are impacting honey bees and other pollinators. In addition, she works with a team of U.S. and Kenyan researchers to understand the impacts of newly introduced varroa mites on East African honey bee subspecies and helping Kenyan beekeepers become more productive.
Frazier has taught courses in beekeeping, general entomology and teacher education and is involved with the Department of Entomology's innovative public outreach program.
Frazier appears in a YouTube video, posted July 23, 2012 on the declining bee population. The brief clip was excerpted from Frazier's Spring 2012 Research Unplugged talk titled "Disappearing Bees: An Update on the Search for Prime Suspects." The abstract: She discusses the decline of pollinators and the prime suspects behind it. Some of these suspects include the use of pesticides, on both small and large scales, that destroy food sources for bees; agribusiness practices such as monocropping, in which the same single crop is planted year after year, eliminating the plant diversity pollinators need; stress caused by transporting the bees across country for commercial pollination needs; and threats such as nosema disease, viruses and mites.
Her April 2nd talk is the first in a series of departmental spring seminars that will conclude June 4. The remainder of the department's spring seminars:
April 9:
Edwin Lewis, professor and vice chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
April 16:
John Jaenike, professor and chair, Department of Biology, University of Rochester, New York
April 23:
Elizabeth Tibbetts, associate professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
April 30:
Eric Lonsdorf, conservation scientist, Chicago Botanic Garden
May 7:
Riccardo Bommarco, professor, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
May 14:
Leithen M'Gonigle, postdoctoral fellow, Claire Kremen lab, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley
May 21:
May Berenbaum, professor and department head, Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
May 28:
Andrea Lucky, evolutionary biologist and biodiversity scientist, Department of Entomology and Nematology, University Florida, Gainesville (and UC Davis alumnus; doctorate in entomology, Phil Ward lab)
June 4:
Katharina Ullmann, graduate student, Neal Williams lab, Department of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis
Under the direction of professor James R. Carey, plans call for all the seminars to be recorded for later posting on UCTV.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The folks who devote their entire lives to honey bees--how do they begin?
Well, if you're Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturst at the University of California, Davis, it begins in childhood with a fascination for insects and the walks in the woods with your grandfather, who explains the flora and fauna to you.
Then when you graduate from college and attend graduate school, your mentor makes sure you're stung by a bee before you can join his research team.
M.E.A. "Mea" McNeil tells the story of Eric Mussen in a fascinating two-part series in recent editions of the American Bee Journal.
Honey bee guru Eric Mussen, a fixture in the Department of Entomology since 1976, will do just about anything to help the bees and the beekeeping industry. He fields calls from his Briggs Hall office from commercial beekeepers, small-scale beekeepers, hobbyists, beginning beekeepers, 4-H'ers, pest control advisors, growers, assorted industry representatives, legislators, news media and the general public.
And that's just to name a few. Fact is, he'll answer any question from the simple to the complicated.
One of my favorite photos of Eric Mussen is really of a bee stinging him at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. At the time, we were doing a hive check and an irritated bee landed on his wrist.
"It's going to sting me," he said, alerting me to a pending "photo opportunity." He knew my macro lens was ready to go. Eight frames a second.
One of them is below.
I told him he could be my "hit man" any time.
If you want to read more about "the bee guy," check out the news story posted on the UC Davis Department of Entomology website, which links to McNeil's two articles in the American Bee Journal.
Pro bee, all the way.