- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When honey bees swarmed last week at the entrance to the Epiphany Episcopal Church in Vacaville, the site seemed quite fitting.
Biblical references to bees and honey, such as "the land of milk and honey," abound.
Blessed are the bees.
Bees, responsible for pollinating one-third of the food we eat and renowned for their intelligence and industriousness, figure prominently in religion, mythology and folklore. Roman Catholic Bishop St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) of Geneva viewed a bee's work as "pure," writing that “the bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them.” (The bishop, later honored as a saint, apparently did not know that worker bees are female, not male.)
So enter Epiphany Episocol Church congregation member and music director Carlyn Crystal of Vacaville, the "junior warden" or "people's warden" who helps coordinate issues with the facility and grounds. She heard the buzz, saw the small cluster (about the size of several baseballs) 12 feet above the church entrance, and on the third day, contacted the Craig Hunt family, a Vacaville family of beekeepers.
Swarming, mainly a spring phenomenon, is the colony's means of reproduction as scout bees search for a new, permanent home. The swarm usually moves within three days.
Craig, his wife Shelly and daughters Alyssa, 13 and Emma, 8, arrived in the early evening of March 22 with a ladder, a smoker and a bee box. The family keeps some 50 hives at their residence on Meridian Road and were active in 4-H beekeeping projects before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Craig has taught many a 4-H'er, including his daughters, about bees.
"The bees may have swarmed to a nearby location," Craig said.
But there they were, the social insects congregating at the entrance to Epiphany, forming their own choir and social center.
Yes, 4-H projects have long included beekeeping. The Solano County 4-H Program, comprised of 10 clubs (as well as the military 4-H programming at Travis Air Force base), currently has one beekeeping project, according to Valerie Williams, Solano County 4-H Program Representative. The beekeeping project, offered by the Suisun Valley 4-H Club, includes 11 youth and two adult volunteer project leaders. (News flash: James "LJ" George gave an illustrated talk on beekeeping at the Solano County 4-H Presentation Day, held March 13 on Zoom and won a gold award.)
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Solano County 4-H Office is temporarily closed and meetings, programs and workshops are under restrictions.
Bees, however, know neither boundaries nor borders as they go about their bees-ness.
Church grounds are just fine with them.
Blessed are the bees.
(Note: Beekeeper Craig Hunt can be reached at 707-637-7221)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Of the more than 30 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States, 547,000 people have died. They are not numbers: they represent family, friends, co-workers, colleagues, neighbors and acquaintances who have succumbed to this tragic disease.
And today Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns of another surge. Our nation, she says, shows a seven-day average of about 57,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, a 7 percent increase over the last week.
A burning question: Why do some COVID-19 patients recover and some don't?
The laboratory of UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock, who holds joint appointments with the Department of Entomology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, may have just pinpointed why.
The team of eight UC researchers, primarily from the Hammock lab, found that four compounds in the blood of COVID-19 patients are highly associated with the disease. Their paper, “Plasma Linoleate Diols Are Potential Biomarkers for Severe COVID-19 Infections,” is published as open access in the current edition of Frontiers in Physiology.
ARDS, characterized by fluid build-up in the lungs, is the second leading cause of death in COVID-19 patients, next to viral pneumonia, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
“Different outcomes from COVID-19 infections are both terrifying from a human health perspective and fascinating from a research perspective,” said UC Davis lead author and doctoral candidate Cindy McReynolds of the Hammock lab. “Our data provide an important clue to help determine what impacts the severity of COVID-19 outcomes. Initially, we focused on the immune response and cytokine profile as important drivers in severity, but considering what we now know from our study and others in the field, lipid mediators may be the missing link to answering questions such as why some people are asymptomatic while others die, or why some disease resolves quickly while others suffer from long-haul COVID.”
“The hypothesis advanced in this paper is that because the leukotoxins have been associated with serious illness and death in humans and dogs and the symptoms are those of adult respiratory distress syndrome, these compounds are biomarkers of pulmonary involvement in COVID-19,” Hammock said. “We also think that it is the conversion of leukotoxin to the toxic leukotoxin diol that causes pulmonary and perivascular edema and this could be leading to the respiratory complications.”
“So the leukotoxins and leukotoxin diols,” Hammock said, “are indicators of respiratory problems in COVID-19 patients as plasma biomarkers. They also present a pathway for reducing ARDS in COVID-19 if we could inhibit the soluble epoxide hydrolase, a key regulatory enzyme involved in the metabolism of immune resolving fatty acids.”
The UC Davis scientists used clinical data collected from six patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and admitted to the UC Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, and 44 healthy samples carefully chosen from the healthy control arm of a recently completed clinical study.
The Hammock lab's 50-year research on soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) and its inhibitors led the professor to found and direct EicOsis Human Health, a Davis-based company that is developing a potent soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitor for pain relief. Epoxy fatty acids control blood pressure, fibrosis, immunity, tissue growth, depression, pain, inflammation and other processes.
But more recently, the Hammock lab has turned its attention to using sEH as a means to resolve inflammation associated with COVID-19 and the fibrosis that can follow.
The paper is the work of Hammock, McReynolds and Jun Yang (corresponding author) of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and EicOsis Human Health; Irene Cortes-Puch of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, EicOsis Human Health, and the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine; Resmi Ravindran and Imran Khan of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Bruce G. Hammock of UC Davis Department of Veterinary Medicine, Aquatic Health; and Pei-an Betty Shih of the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry.
See the news story on the Department of Entomology and Nematology website at https://bit.ly/3lSWbwf
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
As you may remember, over the last nine years, this event was a single day, the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend when friends, families and future scientists eagerly gathered on campus to see museums and collections and confer with the scientists. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it's a entire month of Zoom and YouTube presentations and other online activities.
It's free, and has always been free. The organizers want to keep it that way.
Now they need your help. Through the UC Davis crowdsourcing program, which ends Feb. 28, they are asking for donations to keep this science-based event alive and thriving. Please click here to donate.
The Biodiversity Museum Month features 12 UC Davis museums and collections:
- Anthropology Museum
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Nematode Collection
- Marine Invertebrate Collection
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
- Viticulture and Enology Collection (not participating this year but they have in the past)
Using their science communication skills, the volunteers have created dozens of videos and associated educational activities. See the schedule for live talks and demonstrations and pre-recorded talks and activities. "The goal of these educational resources is to reach new audiences and to connect people from all walks of life to science and the biodiversity surrounding them," said event coordinator Tabatha Yang, who is the Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator.
Take, for example, the Bohart Museum, temporarily closed but located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. It's the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, plus a live "petting zoo" (think Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas) and a year-around, online gift shop stocked with such insect-themed items as t-shirts, jewelry, posters and books.
The Bohart Museum is all about "understanding, documenting and communicating terrestrial arthropod diversity." Access its website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ and you'll find insect/arthropod fact sheets, and information on how to collect insects, special collections, and the tardigrade (water bear) collections and much more. A landmark water bear sculpture, the work of artist Solomon Basshoff, now graces the entrance to the Bohart.
The Bohart collections draw huge, inquisitive crowds during the open houses, and rightfully so. Specimens include the Xerces blue butterfly, Glaucopsyche xerces, now extinct.
"Think about collections this way--they are snapshots in time and spaces," says Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "They tell you where the environment has been and where it's going. A way to visualize change over time."
Well said. Now let's ensure that the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum program stays alive, thrives and remains free to the public. To donate, just access by Feb. 28 this site: https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24310
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The bee world exemplifies diversity and the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Month, being celebrated throughout the month of February, wouldn't exemplify diversity without them.
One of the pre-recorded presentations just uploaded on the Biodiversity Museum site deals with bees in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus.
The presentation, by bee garden manager Christine Casey, is an introduction to common bees found in urban gardens of Central California.
Many people are unaware that there are some 20,000 species of bees worldwide. Of that number, 4000 species are found in North America and 1600 species in California.
The late Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, was the go-to person to identify bees, and we all miss him. Thorp, a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty for 30 years, from 1964-1994, achieved emeritus status in 1994 but continued to engage in research, teaching and public service until a few weeks before his death at age 85. A tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, Thorp was known for his expertise, dedication and passion in protecting native pollinators, especially bumble bees, and for his teaching, research and public service. He was an authority on pollination ecology, ecology and systematics of honey bees, bumble bees, vernal pool bees, conservation of bees, native bees and crop pollination, and bees of urban gardens and agricultural landscapes.
In his retirement, Thorp co-authored two books Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014). Locally, he was active in research projects and open houses at the Bohart Museum of Entomology and the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. In his research, he monitored bees in the half-acre haven, establishing a baseline in 2008, a year before the garden was installed. He eventually detected more than 80 species of bees in the garden.
Casey's presentation, billed as "Bees 101," documents some of the bees found in the garden, with colorful photos by the talented Allan Jones of Davis. Access the presentation at https://youtu.be/5KLrTIclx2A. Casey also will be delivering a live talk, with questions and answers, from 12:15 to 12:45 on Tuesday, Feb. 23. Click here to obtain the Zoom link.
Other UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Month live talks and demonstrations will range from Asian giant hornets (1 to 2 p.m. Feb. 18 by Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology) to ants (11 a.m., to noon, Feb. 20 by Professor Phil Ward) to a program on the Botanical Conservatory (1 to 2 p.m., Feb. 24 by collections manager Ernesto Sandoval). To obtain the Zoom links, click here. The Botanical Conservatory presentation will be in Spanish. Sandoval earlier presented the program in English.
Note: If you'd like to donate to the UC Davis Diversity Museum Program in its crowdfunding efforts--this year is the 10th annual--click here. To donate to the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, click here. To donate to the California Master Beekeeper Program, directed by Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, click here. Niño also serves as the director of the haven.
Let's put the "bee" in bee-cause.
Meanwhile, as anyone who's been around bees knows, bees are not only absolutely fascinating, but thoroughly riveting.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And it's where you can learn more about honey bees, orchid bees, Asian giant hornets, nematodes, yeast, plants, raptors and other topics that are part of the UC Davis museums and collections.
The 10th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum program is going virtual this year through a variety of live webinars and recorded presentations scheduled throughout the month of February. The science-based event traditionally takes place only on one day--the Saturday of Presidents' Weekend, when campus visitors can meet scientists and see and discuss their work.
This year, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, plans changed, noted spokesperson Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology. The biodiversity event will feature 12 museums or collections going virtual:
- Anthropology Museum
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Nematode Collection
- Marine Invertebrate Collection
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
For the schedule, access the live talks and demonstrations and pre-recorded talks and activities on the UC Davis Biodiversity program website.
Here's a handy list of the live talks and demonstrations, by dates:
Tuesday, Feb 9, 12:15 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.
Live Talk: All About Bees and Gardens
Christine Casey, manager of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's half-acre bee garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, located on Bee Biology Road, will discuss what's blooming the garden, and what bees are active. Participants can then ask questions about their own bee gardens. This event will repeat on Tuesday, Feb. 9 and Tuesday, Feb. 23. A summary of the talk and the answers provided will be posted on Feb. 26. Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Live Talk: All About Social Behavior in Bees (especially orchid bees!)
UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Nick Saleh will discuss and answer questions about social behavior in bees especially orchid bees. He is interested in the behavior of all bees, but focuses his work on orchid bees, a group of tropical bees which form social groups of just two or three individuals. He also will discuss other social behaviors of bees. He holds a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Cornell University, and a doctorate from UC Davis, where he works with associate professor Santiago Ramirez.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Thursday, Feb 11, 1 to 2 p.m.
Live Talk: All About Plants at the Botanical Conservatory
Ernesto Sandoval, director of the Botanical Conservatory, will give a virtual tour through photos and talk about the living plants in their green houses, from the cacao tree to the stinky corpse flower that blooms for just 24-36 hours.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Live Demonstration, Museum Bird Preparation
Irene Engilis, collections manager of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and a team of students and staff will demonstrate how to prepare a dead bird as a scientifically valuable museum specimen. They will answer questions about the process and how they study birds both in the museum and in the wild. This includes a prerecorded presentation from 10 to 10:20, followed by a 20-minute pre-recorded presentation, and then a live question and answer session.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Live Talk: Phaff Yeast Collection Presentation
A 20-minute pre-recorded presentation on the Phaff Yeast Collection is set from 10 to 10:20, followed by a live question-and-answer session. Emeritus Professor Marc-André Lachance, recently retired from Western University in Ontario, Canada and a UC Davis alumnus, will discuss his global yeast collecting expeditions.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Live Talk: All About Ants
Rising entomologists Jill Oberski and Ziv Lieberman, doctoral students of major professor Phil Ward, will host a question-and-answer session "all about the world of ants," followed by a 15-minute talk by doctoral candidate Zach Griebenow about his ant evolution research. Griebenow will answer questions following his presentation. There also will be an ant talk on Feb. 20 from 11 a.m. to noon with their major professor Phil Ward. Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, noon to 2 p.m.
Live Demonstration: Museum Mammal Preparation
Irene Engilis, collections manager of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and a team of students and staff will show how to prepare a dead mammal as a scientifically valuable museum specimen. They will answer questions about the process and how they study mammals, both in the museum and in the wild.
Live Talk: Raptor Diversity
Julie Cotton, education director of the California Raptor Center, located on Old Davis Road, will answer questions and discuss birds of prey, wildlife rehabilitation and the diversity of raptors. Her subjects include great-horned owls, red-tailed hawks, and golden eagles. The Raptor Center is an educational and research facility dedicated to the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned birds of prey (raptors), according to their website. They take in 300-350 sick, injured, and orphaned raptors each year, successfully returning about 60 percent to the wild. They also provide hands-on training in the care and management of birds of prey to those interested in rehabilitation, and offer educational programs to schools, ecological and environmental organizations, and the university community.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Live Talks: Anthropology and Ask an Anthropologist
- Faculty and staff from the Department of Anthropology will present a series of talks. Questions are encouraged throughout the event, and there will also be a special time at the end to "Ask An Anthropologist."
- 2 to 2:15: "Animal Ecology in Precontact California"--Jelmer Eerkens
- 2:15 to 2:30: "Gorillas, Poop, and Nematodes--Neetha Iyer
- 2:30 to 2:45: "Reconstructing Human Evolution: A 3-D Jigsaw Puzzle--Mayowa Adegboyega,
- 2:45 to 3 p.m: "Paleolithic Stone Tool Technology at Nihewan Basin, P.R. China"--Corey Johnson
- 3 to 3:15 p.m. "Zoonotic Disease and Andean Camelid Domestication"--Kathy Morucci https://www.youtube.com/watch/Q4076iRb9tk
- 3:15 to 3:30: Netting Dovekies in NW Greenland--Erika Ebel
- 3:30 to 3:45, "Spirits of the Animals: Precontact and Contemporary Inuit Art"-- Christyann Darwent
- 3:45-4:00 p.m. Ask an Anthropologist
Live Talk: All About Heliconius Butterflies
UC Davis postdoctoral fellow Kathy Darragh will deliver her second live talk, answering questions about the Heliconius tropical butterflies. She earlier presented a talk on Feb. 7. Click here for the presentation in Spanish. She holds a bachelor's degree in zoology and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge (England). During her Ph.D. she studied in the lab of Chris Jiggins, investigating the pheromones of Heliconius butterflies, focusing on chemical ecology, behavior and genetics.
Live Talk: 'Murder Hornets' with Lynn Kimsey
Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will discuss Asian giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia), recently discovered in Canada and Washington State. The news media has nicknamed them "murder hornets."
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 20, 11 a.m. to noon
Live Talk, Questions and Answers: All About Ants, Part II
Entomology professor Phil Ward will host a fun and lively question-and-answer session, "All About Ants," based on his many years collecting and studying ants from around the world.
Live Talk: All About Bees and Gardens
This will be a live question-and-answer session with Christine Casey, manager of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. She will discuss what's blooming in the Davis garden and what bees are active.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
For the pre-recorded presentations and activities, check this site.
To help support the Biodiversity Museum Day, contributions are being accepted through a month-long crowdfunding campaign program at https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24310
