It's #Giving Tuesday! Have you gained knowledge as a result from meeting our UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners at a library class, outdoor event, or while visiting one of gardens? If so, we hope you will consider making a donation to our program.
Every dollar counts! Your support makes our mission of promoting gardening education in our community possible! Visit https://donate.ucanr.edu/givingtuesday/ and select UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardeners from the drop down window to give today, on #GivingTuesday.
Thank you for considering us when making your year-end, tax deductible donation. (We are a 501 c(3)).
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A recent study* found that seeing or hearing birds can improve your mood and mental wellbeing for up to eight hours! Instead of heading out to bird watch, why not attract them to your own backyard or apartment patio?
This presentation was put together by Denise Godbout-Avant, one of our UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners. She did a lot of research to learn about local birds in Stanislaus County. You will be amazed when you see the colorful birds that live and migrate through our area!
Learn more at The Backyard is for the Birds classes at a local Stanislaus County Library near you during October of 2023. You don't need to sign up to attend the classes.
Visit our Calendar at https://ucanr.edu/sites/stancountymg/Calendar/ for dates, times, and locations.
*Time Magazine. Birdwatching Has Big Mental Health Benefits. https://time.com/6231886/birdwatching-mental-health/
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“My interest in entomology started when I was a little girl, checking our prune and walnut orchards for pests with my dad,” said Wheeler-Dykes, whose office is based in Orland, Glenn County. “When I was a little bit older, I monitored pest populations for my uncle in his prune orchards during the summer.”
The former Becky Wheeler, she holds two degrees from UC Davis. She received her bachelor's degree in crop science and business management, with a minor in ag pest management, in 2010. She obtained her master's degree in entomology in 2013, studying with major professor and Extension entomologist Frank Zalom of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, now a UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus and recall professor. Extension entomologists Larry Godfrey (1956-2017) and Mary Louise Flint served on her thesis committee. Her thesis dealt with a species of mites in almond orchards: "Exploring Phoresy and Field Survival of Blattisocius keegani (Fox) (Acari: Ascidae) in Almond Orchards.”
“Taking Arthropod Pest Management with Frank Zalom and Larry Godfrey during my undergraduate studies at UC Davis was incredible; learning from two very experienced and knowledgeable researchers who had such a huge impact on agriculture was inspiring,” she said.
While at UC Davis, she served as a teaching assistant in Zalom's Arthropod Pest Management lab course in the winter of 2012, and as a staff research associate in the Andrew Walker lab, Department of Viticulture and Enology, from April 2015 to May 2018. Agricultural research positions followed.
“My career in ag research since graduate school has prepared me well,” she said. Prior to her selection as a UC Cooperative Extension advisor, she worked as an orchard researcher for Chico State Enterprises, beginning in May 2021. Her expertise also includes teaching ag ecology and soil science in the College of Agriculture, California State University, Chico. She served as a faculty mentor for Chico State STEM Connections in the 2022 Undergraduate Research Program, and as a faculty advisor for the Chico State Crops and Horticulture Club.
Wheeler-Dykes can be reached at bawheeler@ucanr.edu and (530) 884-9313.
- Author: Mike Hsu
David Gonzalves started on Feb. 1 as director for University of California Cooperative Extension in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties. UC Cooperative Extension connects communities across California with UC research and science-based solutions through agriculture, natural resources, nutrition and 4-H youth development programs.
Responsible for the overall operation of UCCE educational and applied research programs in the region, Gonzalves also will build and expand partnerships with county and city governments, public agencies and community organizations.
“David brings tremendous expertise in administration, fostering strong relationships, and building effective teams,” said Deanne Meyer, interim associate vice president for programs and strategic initiatives at UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, which administers UCCE statewide. “His track record of engaging local agencies, business partners, stakeholders and community groups will be invaluable as we explore new collaborations to reach and serve more Californians.”
Gonzalves was most recently a campus building official at UC Merced. Beginning his career at the County of Merced as a fire inspector, Gonzalves worked his way up to supervising building inspector and eventually assistant development services director. Then, for the City of Merced, he filled the role of chief building official and ultimately director of development services, leading the city's Building, Planning and Engineering teams. For three years, Gonzalves served as Tuolumne County's Community Resources Agency director.
“David's past experience as an administrator in county government and at UC Merced makes him the ideal candidate for the work we do at UCCE, as he has demonstrated success in being able to successfully negotiate these two worlds,” said Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty, interim director for county Cooperative Extension at UC ANR.
Gonzalves said he looks forward to meeting with county leaders, members of local boards, growers, UC Master Gardener volunteers, 4-H members and community members to learn how UC Cooperative Extension can help meet needs in the area.
“My big picture goal is to allow UCCE advisors, administrative teams and local county leaders to have a coordinated approach to our local challenges and successes,” Gonzalves said. “Our efforts will concentrate on freeing up our research teams' calendars to ensure they can continue producing cutting-edge accomplishments here in the tri-county region.”
Based at the UCCE Monterey County office in Salinas, Gonzalves can be reached at dgonzalves@ucanr.edu or (831) 392-5916.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Wikipedia defines CCD as "an abnormal phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a honey bee colony disappear, leaving behind a queen, plenty of food, and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees."
We were going through materials this week for the Celebration of Life and Legacy for UC Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, when we ran across his Oct. 9, 2007 presentation delivered as part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology's Distinguished Seminar Series.
We covered his seminar, which drew a capacity crowd and scores of questions. We still have his PowerPoint.
The news story bears repeating:
UC Davis honey bee specialist Eric Mussen fingered a line-up of prime suspects at his “BSI: The Case of the Disappearing Bees” lecture on Oct. 9, part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology's Distinguished Seminar Series.
Mussen identified malnutrition, parasitic mites, infectious microbes and insecticide contamination as among the possible culprits. It's a complex issue, he said, but one thing is certain: “It seems unlikely that we will find a specific, new and different reason for why bees are dying.”
Colony collapse disorder (CCD), a phenomenon where bees mysteriously abandon their hives, is not a new occurrence, said Mussen, the Extension Apiculturist at UC Davis since 1976.
“Similar phenomena have been observed since 1869,” he said. “It persisted in 1963, 1964 and 1965 and was called Spring Dwindling, Fall Collapse and Autumn Collapse. Then in 1975, it was called Disappearing Disease.”
“But the disease wasn't what was disappearing,” Mussen quipped. “The bees were."
Massive bee die-off also occurred during the winter of 2004-05, but only those who read bee journals knew about it, Mussen told the crowd in the campus Activities Recreation Center. The latest die-off caught the attention of the national media last fall when a Pennsylvania beekeeper asked researchers at Pennsylvania State University to look at samples of his dying bees in Pennsylvania and Florida. “The local media picked up the story and the rest is history, including yours truly on the Lehrer Hour.”
One-third of America's honey bees vanished this past year due to the mysterious CCD, characterized by almost total hive abandonment. Nearly all adult worker bees unexpectedly fly away from the hive, abandoning the stored honey, pollen, larvae and pupae. Usually they leave in less than a week, and only the queen and a few young workers remain, Mussen said.
Honey bees normally do not abandon their brood, he said. “Nurse bees” continually feed the young, which increase 1,000-fold in size in six days.
“That's like an 8-pound baby weighing 4 tons in six days,” Mussen said.
Mussen, who received the American Association of Professional Apiculturists' excellence award in January for his bee industry leadership and apicultural research publications, and was named the California State Beekeepers' Association's 2006 “Beekeeper of the Year” for his industry-wide contributions, finds the silence of the bees troubling.
“The real reason bees are important is that we rely on them for crop pollination,“ he said. Commercial honey bees pollinate about 90 of the country's crops, valued at $15 billion.
“One third of our U.S. diet depends on honey bees,” Mussen said. “If bees produce fruits and vegetables somewhere else, do we (Americans) want to be as dependent on food as we are on oil?”
Bees are especially crucial to California's 600,000 acres of almonds, he said. To pollinate the almonds, growers need 1.2 million bee hives, “but California doesn't have 1.2 million bee hives, so they have to be trucked here.”
That, he said, can add to the bee stress.
Mussen linked malnutrition as a key factor in CCD. Honey bee nutrition is “weather dependent,” he said. “The best-fed bees are the healthiest, while malnourished bees are less resistant.”
Malnutrition and climate-linked issues include: Did local weather events affect pollen-producing plants negatively?
- Was there a lack of bloom (nectar and pollen) due to lack of rain or too much heat?
- Was there reduced access to flowers due to excess rain?
- Did cold nights interfere with meiosis that led to “sterile” or “non-viable” pollens?
- Do these types of pollen contain the usual proteins, vitamins, minerals and lipids required by the bees?
Mussen said that many regions in the United States experienced significant drought in 2006. “The U.S. honey crop was off 11 percent, one of the lowest on record. The California crop was off 30 percent; North and South Dakota crops were off nearly 15 and 40 percent respectively.”
If there's malnutrition in August and September, that adversely affects the winter bees, he said. A mix of quality pollens is required to rear healthy winter bees.
Unlike the California definition based on amount of water in the reservoirs, the beekeepers' definition of drought is: Is there enough soil moisture to keep the flowers growing? "This year there was not,” Mussen said.
Malnourished bees are more susceptible to disease, predators and insecticides, he pointed out. The Varroa destructor mites, introduced here in 1987 from the Asian bee (Apis cerana), spread across the country in five years, killing the American bee (Apis mellifera), known as the European bee.
Compared to fruit flies and mosquitoes, “bees have a limited immune system; they're pretty anemic,” he said.
Another problem: “Varroa mites have become resistant to most legal chemical controls that used to keep them in check.”
Mussen cast suspicion on several viruses as CCD factors: the Kashmir bee virus, acute bee paralysis virus, deformed wing virus, black queen cell virus and the Israel acute paralysis virus.
“Honey bees have about 20 known viruses, most of which can cause disease,” he said. Some viruses remain latent, just like chicken pox in humans, which can show up as shingles later in life.
USDA scientists found the Israeli acute paralysis virus, in nearly all of the CCD colonies they tested, but none in the control group. In addition, they found the Kashmir bee virus in all the CCD colonies tested.
Also found in all the CCD colonies tested were the infectious microbes Nosea ceranae and Nosema apis. N. ceranae, a relatively new fungal disease of American honey bees, was imported from the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana. N. apis, its American counterpart, has been around for at least a century.
A favorite suspect among the beekeepers is neonicotinoids, chemicals designed to mimic the toxic effects of a neurotoxin from the tobacco family. The nicotine-like insecticide kills fleas on cats and dogs, and is used as a seed treatment and in side dressing and foliar spray applications.
“The insecticides enter various plant tissues and become distributed, systemically, throughout the plant,” he said. “Nicotine is so toxic to humans that if you put a drop of pure nicotine on your finger, you're dead.”
Neonicotinoids have been formulated to be nearly non-toxic to mammals, birds, and fish but remain extremely toxic to invertebrates.
Laboratory studies showed that miniscule doses of neonicotinoids increased the rate of learning in bees, but at high doses, bees failed to respond to training.
“It wasn't memory loss; it was intoxication,” Mussen said. “They were drunk.”
Another suspect: Gaucho® (imidacloprid), used as a seed treatment on sunflowers. Beekeepers claimed that when bees visited sunflowers, they never returned to their hives; “they lost their memory.” France and Spain banned imidacloprid, but “bees are still failing in their hives,” Mussen noted.
Mussen said no scientific documentation exists to blame imidacloprid for the bee die-off. A study found only 5 parts per billion maximum in the nectar of sunflowers and canola, he said. The Bayer fact sheet indicates that the insecticide is toxic to honey bees at 192 ppb.
Among the more “quirky” explanations for CCD: cell phone usage, alien encounters, honey bee “rapture” (where hive populations “ascend to that big honeycomb in the sky en masse”); and chemtrails, aircraft-released vapors.
“Some thought chemtrails was a military-industrial complex plan to kill all children and old people — and got the bees and birds by mistake,” Mussen said.
Mussen said he hopes that the current fascination with honey bees will lead to more research and more research funding. (End of story)
(Editor's Note: Dr. Mussen, a 38-year California Cooperative Extension apiculturist and an invaluable member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, died Friday, June 3 at his home in Davis. He was 78. Attendance to the UC Davis-sponsored event celebrating his life and legacy is closed, but UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal will live-stream the event on Zoom. It will be permanently housed on YouTube. Registration for the Zoom webinar is underway at https://bit.ly/3dIyAhG. The YouTube account is at https://youtu.be/Kj5NuQ_rBuo. The webinar starts at 4 p.m. on Sunday. Aug. 28.)