- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This is Xylocopa varipuncta, also known as "the teddy bear bee."
It's a green-eyed blond and as fuzzy as any teddy bear you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting. Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, calls them "teddy bear bees" and the name has stuck. (And being "boy bees," they cannot sting. See close-up photo on Bug Squad.)
Scampavia, who is studying how farming practices affect bee nesting for her doctorate in entomology, recently won the top graduate student poster award at the first-ever UC Davis Bee Symposium, and provided the popular “Pollinator Pavilion” at the UC Davis Picnic Day.
She urges us to all pitch in and protect the pollinators. Good advice.
Scampavia, who studies with major professors Neal Williams and Ed Lewis of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and anticipates receiving her Ph.D. in 2016, lists three ways to “save the pollinators."
1. Provide food: Plant a variety of trees, shrubs and annual flower with blooms that differ in size, shape, color and flowering time. Planting native milkweeds also can help support monarch butterfly populations. Hummingbird and butterfly feeders can also provide additional food sources, but make sure to clean and disinfect your feeders regularly, as they can accumulate toxic fungi.
2. Provide homes: Bees can be limited by food or nesting opportunities. Native bees are usually not aggressive and unlikely to sting. A patch of bare soil can provide valuable nest sites for soil-nesting bees, particularly if the soil is loose and slightly damp. A dead stump or log, or shrubs with hollow stems, such as raspberry or elderberry, can also provide nests for cavity-nesting bees. “You can also make or order a ‘bee condo,' or a block of wood with holes of varying diameter,” she says. “Line these holes with paper tubes to make them easy to clean between years. Some bee species line their nests with rose, wisteria or fuzzy plants such as lamb's ear leaves, so growing these plants can help these bees, too.”
3. Provide pesticide shelters. As much as possible, try to reduce pesticide use in your garden, or use less toxic pesticides, such as soap sand oils. If you spray, do so when pollinators are not active--after dusk to before dawn. Try to avoid spraying flowers directly. Create a pesticide-free source of water and mud for bees and butterflies, such as a dripping faucet or a bird.
Her display showcased numerous live pollinators, including bees, butterflies and flies. She also drew in the crowds with informational posters on pollinators. The posters detailed how individuals can help support healthy pollinator populations.
Visitors could walk inside the zipped enclosure and be one-on-one with the pollinators, including the monarchs, blue orchard bees, and syprhid flies. Many took photos of the monarchs on their hands or arms. Younger visitors were encouraged to practice observing pollinators by filling out a data sheet counting the number of each type of pollinator they saw.
Scampavia recently won the top prize at the Bee Symposium with her poster, “Farming Practices Affect Nest Site Selection of Native Ground Nesting Bees.”
"Rei is mutli-talented: she is able to both conduct high quality research and communicate information about pollinators in engaging and effective ways," said Katharina Ullmann who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis (Neal Williams lab) and is now a crop pollination specialist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. "Anyone who saw her award-winning poster at the Bee Symposium or who experience the pollinator pavilion at Picnic day knows that pollinators are lucky to have Rei working for them!"
Scampavia received her bachelor's degree in biology in 2008 from Mills College, Oakland. She began her doctoral studies at UC Davis in 2011. She earlier served as a biological science technician (plants) for the U.S. Forest Service, Groveland, Calif., and ; a research consultant for BMP Ecosciences in San Francisco.
Active in the Entomological Society of America (ESA), Scampavia was a member of the 2014 UC Davis Student Debate Team that won first place in the nationals. She also was a member of the 2013 UC Davis Linnaean Games Team that won second at the annual meeting of the Pacific Branch of ESA.
If you want to meet Rei Scampavia and "talk bees," she'll be volunteering at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven open house from 5:30 to 7 p.m., Friday, June 19. The haven, managed by staff director Chris Casey and faculty director Elina Niño, Extension apiculturist, is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus.
The half-acre bee garden, operated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is filled with blooms, bees and butterflies! The open house, free and open to the public, will include bee observation and identification, honey tasting, sales of native bee houses to support the haven, and information about low-water plants.
The garden is open to the public daily from dawn to dusk.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--When it comes to protecting our pollinators, we can all pitch in to help, says native bee ecologist Margaret “Rei” Scampavia of the University of California, Davis.
Scampavia, who is studying how farming practices affect bee nesting for her doctorate in entomology, recently won the top graduate student poster award at the first-ever UC Davis Bee Symposium, and provided the popular “Pollinator Pavilion” at the UC Davis Picnic Day.
Scampavia, who studies with major professors Neal Williams and Ed Lewis of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and anticipates receiving her Ph.D. in 2016, lists three ways to “save the pollinators."
1. Provide food: Plant a variety of trees, shrubs and annual flower with blooms that differ in size, shape, color and flowering time. Planting native milkweeds also can help support monarch butterfly populations. Hummingbird and butterfly feeders can also provide additional food sources, but make sure to clean and disinfect your feeders regularly, as they can accumulate toxic fungi.
2. Provide homes: Bees can be limited by food or nesting opportunities. Native bees are usually not aggressive and unlikely to sting. A patch of bare soil can provide valuable nest sites for soil-nesting bees, particularly if the soil is loose and slightly damp. A dead stump or log, or shrubs with hollow stems, such as raspberry or elderberry, can also provide nests for cavity-nesting bees. “You can also make or order a ‘bee condo,' or a block of wood with holes of varying diameter,” she says. “Line these holes with paper tubes to make them easy to clean between years. Some bee species line their nests with rose, wisteria or fuzzy plants such as lamb's ear leaves, so growing these plants can help these bees, too.”
3. Provide pesticide shelters. As much as possible, try to reduce pesticide use in your garden, or use less toxic pesticides, such as soap sand oils. If you spray, do so when pollinators are not active--after dusk to before dawn. Try to avoid spraying flowers directly. Create a pesticide-free source of water and mud for bees and butterflies, such as a dripping faucet or a bird bath.
“There are about 300 species of bumble bees worldwide and all are in the Bombus genus,” Scampavia points out. “Many of these species are in decline. Threats to bumble bees in the United States include disease introduced by commercial colonies, habitat loss and pesticide use.”
Bumble bee colonies live for one year, she said. A queen often starts her nest in an abandoned rodent burrow.
“Some species have been domesticated for greenhouse pollination as bumble bees are good pollinators of tomatoes and peppers,” she says. They vibrate their flight muscles to share loose the pollen.
There's also a major focus on monarch butterflies during National Pollinator Week. Scampavia describes monarchs as “truly amazing.”
Monarchs, Danaus plexippus, are the only butterflies that have a two-way multi-generation migration each year, she points out.
“Using the earth's magnetism, the sun, and air currents, they travel up to 100 miles a day. Some fly 3000 miles to overwinter. The western monarchs generally overwinter on the California Coast, while the eastern monarchs travel to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico.”
The decline of the monarch population is alarming, she notes. “In the past 20 years, monarch populations have declined by 90 percent. They are threatened by the loss of their overwintering grounds, overuse of herbicides that kill milkweed, and climate change.”
Scampavia launched the first-ever Pollinator Pavilion at the UC Davis Picnic Day. It proved to be one of the most popular attractions not only in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology display at Briggs Hall but at the entire UC Davis Picnic Day celebration. She displayed live monarchs donated by Utterback Farms in Woodland; butterfly feeders and bee condos donated by ARBICO Organics, based in Arizona; a live bumble bee colony from UC Davis research; and specimens from the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis.
Her display showcased numerous live pollinators, including bees, butterflies and flies. She also drew in the crowds with informational posters on pollinators. The posters detailed how individuals can help support healthy pollinator populations.
Fellow entomology graduate student Danny Klittich set up the pavilion, which included an enclosure for the live pollinators. Visitors could walk inside the zipped enclosure and be one-on-one with the pollinators. Many took photos of the monarchs on their hands or arms. Younger visitors were encouraged to practice observing pollinators by filling out a data sheet counting the number of each type of pollinator they saw.
Scampavia recently won the top prize at the Bee Symposium with her poster, “Farming Practices Affect Nest Site Selection of Native Ground Nesting Bees.”
"Rei is multi-talented: she is able to both conduct high quality research and communicate information about pollinators in engaging and effective ways," said Katharina Ullmann who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis (Neal Williams lab) and is now a crop pollination specialist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. "Anyone who saw her award-winning poster at the Bee Symposium or who experience the pollinator pavilion at Picnic day knows that pollinators are lucky to have Rei working for them!"
Scampavia received her bachelor's degree in biology in 2008 from Mills College, Oakland. She began her doctoral studies at UC Davis in 2011. She earlier served as a biological science technician (plants) for the U.S. Forest Service, Groveland, Calif., and ; a research consultant for BMP Ecosciences in San Francisco.
Active in the Entomological Society of America (ESA), Scampavia was a member of the 2014 UC Davis Student Debate Team that won first place in the nationals. She also was a member of the 2013 UC Davis Linnaean Games Team that won second at the annual meeting of the Pacific Branch of ESA.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Margaret “Rei” Scampavia, a doctoral candidate who studies with major professors Neal Williams and Edwin Lewis of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, won first place for her research poster at the recent UC Davis Bee Symposium, held in the Robert Mondavi Center for Wine and Food Science.
Scampavia's poster, “Farming Practices Affect Nest Site Selection of Native Ground Nesting Bees,” won her the $1500 grand prize. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation generously provided the funding.
Two other graduate students in the Neal Williams' lab won second and third place. Jennifer Van Wyk placed second for her poster on “Wet Meadow Restoration Buffers the Impact of Climate Change: Pollinator Resilience During the California Drought” and Leslie Saul-Gershenz, who also studies with professor Steve Nadler, placed third for her poster on “Native Bee Parasite Shows Multitrait, Host Specific Variation and Local Adaptation.” Van Wyk received a $1000 prize and Saul Gershenz, $500.
“Availability of foraging and nesting habitat potentially limits native bee range, which affects where pollinator services occur,” Scampavia wrote in her introduction. “Prior studies focus on how foraging habitat influences bee distribution, but few consider nesting limitations. Understanding how different soil properties affect native bee nest site preference can help predict where these nests will be found in agricultural landscapes, as well as whether particular farming practices could affect the health of nesting bees.”
Her objective: “to determine whether tillage, irrigation and application of pesticides impact nest site selection using a controlled choice assay.”
She examined the nests of bees in four genus categories: Lasioglossum, Halictus, Svastra and Melissodes.
Scampavia concluded “The two soil treatments that positively influenced nest initiation (tillage and irrigation) would be found in actively farmed areas, rather than fallow fields or field margins. If the presence of insecticide residues or tillage affects offspring survival, these results suggest that bees nesting in agricultural areas are faced with an ecological trap that could negatively affect development and overwintering survival. Providing strips of bare, tilled and irrigated soil in early spring in field margins or hedgerows could be one way to create attractive pesticide and late-season tillage-free shelters in which native bees could nest.”
Prior to coming to UC Davis, Scampavia worked for the U.S. Forest service as a biological technician, studying pollinator visitation to rare plants of the Mojave Desert. She also volunteered at Scripps College (Jupiter, Fla.) as a planner and coordinator for large education outreach events.
In addition to her PhD research, she participates in a variety of education outreach and conservation projects. She has presented lectures for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Schoolyard Habitat Project; worked for the California Native Plant Society, documenting bee diversity in a threatened portion of Knowland Park in Oakland; and co-taught an undergraduate course focusing on current threats to pollinator populations and how to educate the general public to effect positive change.
Scampavia writes a bee blog, “Diadasia, The Lives of Other Bees,” at https://diadasia.wordpress.com/ that she launched in February 2012.
The Bee Symposium, sponsored by the Honey and Pollination Center and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, featured keynote speaker Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight Professor, University of Minnesota and a 2010 MacArthur Fellow, who discussed "Helping Bees Stand on Their Own Six Feet." The symposium drew 360 people.
Entomology doctoral candidate Matthew Prebus of the Phil Ward lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, video-recorded the presentations and uploaded them today.
They are all on YouTube.
Marla Spivak: Protecting Pollinators
Amy Toth: Combined Effects of Viruses and Nutritional Stress on Honey Bee Health
Elina Niño: Best Management Practices to Support Honey Bee Health
Neal Williams: Enhancing Forage for Bees
Jake Reisdorf: Getting into Beekeeping- Thoughts from a 12-year-old Beekeeper
Katharina Ullmann: Project Integrated Crop Pollination
John Miller: Keeping Bees Healthy with Forage
Benjamin Sallman: Bee Informed Partnership
Gretchen LeBuhn: The Giant Sunflower Project
Christine Casey: Introduction to the Häagen Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Scampavia's poster, “Farming Practices Affect Nest Site Selection of Native Ground Nesting Bees,” won her the $1500 prize. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation generously provided the funding.
Two other graduate students in the Neal Williams' lab won second and third place. Jennifer Van Wyk placed second for her poster on “Wet Meadow Restoration Buffers the Impact of Climate Change: Pollinator Resilience During the California Drought” and Leslie Saul-Gershenz, who also works with professor Steve Nadler, placed third for her poster on “Native Bee Parasite Shows Multitrait, Host Specific Variation and Local Adaptation.” Van Wyk received a $1000 prize and Saul- Gershenz, $500.
“Availability of foraging and nesting habitat potentially limits native bee range, which affects where pollinator services occur,” Scampavia wrote in her introduction. “Prior studies focus on how foraging habitat influences bee distribution, but few consider nesting limitations. Understanding how different soil properties affect native bee nest site preference can help predict where these nests will be found in agricultural landscapes, as well as whether particular farming practices could affect the health of nesting bees.”
Her objective: “to determine whether tillage, irrigation and application of pesticides impact nest site selection using a controlled choice assay.”
She examined the nests of bees in four genus categories: Lasioglossum, Halictus, Svastra and Melissodes.
Scampavia concluded “The two soil treatments that positively influenced nest initiation (tillage and irrigation) would be found in actively farmed areas, rather than fallow fields or field margins. If the presence of insecticide residues or tillage affects offspring survival, these results suggest that bees nesting in agricultural areas are faced with an ecological trap that could negatively affect development and overwintering survival. Providing strips of bare, tilled and irrigated soil in early spring in field margins or hedgerows could be one way to create attractive pesticide and late-season tillage-free shelters in which native bees could nest.”
Her current research deals with isolating and identifying specific soil attributes that affect nest site selection in bee species, and how these attributes impact offspring success. “I mostly focus on native ground nesting bees, but also study the impact of chlorpyrifos leaf residues on nesting alfalfa leafcutter bees,” she said. “I am also interested in how nesting habitat availability shapes bee community composition and distribution across the landscape. My current focus is on sunflower fields, alfalfa seed production, and mosaic landscapes in serpentine chaparral.”
In addition to her PhD research, she participates in a variety of education outreach and conservation projects. She has presented lectures for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Schoolyard Habitat Project; worked for the California Native Plant Society, documenting bee diversity in a threatened portion of Knowland Park in Oakland; and co-taught an undergraduate course focusing on current threats to pollinator populations and how to educate the general public to effect positive change.
Scampavia writes a bee blog, “Diadasia, The Lives of Other Bees,” at https://diadasia.wordpress.com/ that she launched in February 2012.
The Bee Symposium, sponsored by the Honey and Pollination Center and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, featured keynote speaker Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight Professor, University of Minnesota and a 2010 MacArthur Fellow, who discussed "Helping Bees Stand on Their Own Six Feet." The symposium drew 360 people.
Entomology doctoral candidate Matthew Prebus of the Phil Ward lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, video-recorded the presentations and uploaded them today.
They are all on YouTube.
Marla Spivak: Protecting Pollinators
Amy Toth: Combined Effects of Viruses and Nutritional Stress on Honey Bee Health
Elina Niño: Best Management Practices to Support Honey Bee Health
Neal Williams: Enhancing Forage for Bees
Jake Reisdorf: Getting into Beekeeping- Thoughts from a 12-year-old Beekeeper
Katharina Ullmann: Project Integrated Crop Pollination
John Miller: Keeping Bees Healthy with Forage
Benjamin Sallman: Bee Informed Partnership
Gretchen LeBuhn: The Giant Sunflower Project
Christine Casey: Introduction to the Häagen Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When the 101st annual Picnic Day at the University of California, Davis takes place campuswide on Saturday, April 18, visitors will see plenty of insects and other arthropods from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at two sites: Briggs Hall on Kleiber Hall Drive and the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Crocker Lane.
Ants? Yes. Bees? Sure. Other pollinators? Definitely. The focus is on pollinators.
Theme of the campuswide picnic is “The Heart of Our Community,” but over at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, the theme is “The Good, the Bad and the Bugly.” The museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, will feature pollinators. The museum houses nearly 8 million specimens. It also houses a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and a rose-haired tarantula named Peaches, a crowd favorite.
Favorite displays or activities returning are the “Bug Doctor” booth, where an entomologist "is in" and will answer questions about insects; American cockroach races, where visitors can cheer their favorite cockroach to victory; maggot art, where participants can dip a maggot into non-toxic water-based paint and let it crawl (or guide it), on a white piece of paper.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will portray “Dr. Death,” showing methods used in forensic entomology. The Phil Ward lab will assemble a display on the incredible diversity of ants. The Sharon Lawler lab will display aquatic insects and answer any questions about them.
Medical entomology graduate students will set up displays about diseases vectored by mosquitoes and other insects. The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will provide an educational exhibit about mosquito abatement. Exhibits also will include such topics as fly fishing/fly-tying.
The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will be giving away lady beetles, aka ladybugs, with the hope that the beneficial insects will land in someone's yard to gobble aphids and other soft-bodied insects. UC IPM also will display pest management control books.
Entomology Club members will offer face-painting. Another popular activity is posing as a bug or flower in a wood cutout.