A tribute to Robbin Thorp (1933-2019) at the 4th International Pollinator Conference. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The conference, themed "Multidimensional Solutions to Current and Future Threats to Pollinator Health," opened Thursday night with registration and a reception in the Good Life Garden at the Robert Mondavi Institute on Old Davis Road, UC Davis campus.

Conference co-chairs--pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams and Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology--greeted the attendees.

The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, directed by Amina Harris, is organizing the conference, with Elizabeth Luu of the Center serving as the events manager.

Presentations began Thursday morning in the ARC Ballroom with Williams delivering the welcoming speech. Keynote speaker Lynn Dicks, research fellow with the School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK--she works on sustainable farming and conservation of wild pollinators--addressed the crowd on "The Importance of People in Pollinator Conservation."  (More to follow.)

The next keynote speaker is Christina Grozinger, distinguished professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research at Pennsylvania State University. She will speak on "Bee Nutritional Ecology: From Genes to Landscapes" at 9 a.m., Friday, July 19.

Grozinger and Rufus Isaacs, a professor with the Michigan State University's Department of Entomology, launched the International Pollinator Conference in 2012. They are held every three years. This is the first one at UC Davis.

Noted bee conservationist Lynn Dicks of the University of East Anglia, UK, served as the keynote speaker Thursday at the International Pollinator Conference. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Stiles, Bee City USA founder and pollinator champion, serves as a Xerces Society science advisor.  She launched Bee City USA, now an initiative of the Xerces Society, in June 2013. Stiles was named the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign's "United States' Pollinator Advocate of the Year" in 2015.  "My days are now filled with learning all I can about pollinators, native plants, pesticides, and what people can do to support the 200,000+ species of hardworking pollinators that sustain our planet," she says.

Stiles will speak on "Urban Pollinator Conservation: Bee Campus USA and "Bee City USA as a Model for Meaningful Community Engagement" on Saturday afternoon, closing out the conference.

Dr. Terry, who has practiced veterinary medicine for more than 35 years, founded Michigan's first feline-only hospital, serving there for 22 years.  She now owns https://www.a2beevet.com./  A  member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, she serves on the Committee on Environmental Issues and periodically lectures to veterinary schools and conferences on honey bee medicine. Dr. Terry is also a volunteer member of World Vets, which provides veterinary medical services to underserved areas worldwide. "For fun" she flies her Cessna 172, and in 2015 participated in the Women's Air Race Classic started by Amelia Earhart and friends in 1929. She was recently elected secretary of The Honey Bee Veterinary Consortium earlier this year. (See more on her website.)

Thursday
The conference sessions on Thursday covered "Novel Quantitative Methods in Pollinator Ecology and Management" (seven presentations) and "Drivers of Host-Pathogen Interactions" (seven presentations).

Friday
Friday's conference includes sessions on "Variable Climates and Changing Pollinators" (seven presentations) and "Causes and Consequences of Pesticide Use: From Use Patterns to Pollination Services" (eight presentations).  Saturday's conference includes sessions on "Integrative Approaches to Improving Bee Health Across Landscapes" (nine presentations) and "Pollinators in Urban Environments" (12 presentations).

Saturday
Among the speakers at Saturday's session on "Pollinators in Urban Environment," which starts at 1:40, will be two from UC Davis.  Elina Nino, director of the California Master Beekeeper Program, will discuss the program and honor the newest Master Beekeepers. Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will discuss "Linking Pollinator Heath, Microbiome Composition and Human Provisioning in Anna's Hummingbird (Calypteanna). (See schedule.)

Robbin Thorp Tribute
At the entrance to the ARC Ballroom is a poster, created by Professor Williams, that pays tribute to the late global bee authority Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), distinguished emeritus professor of entomology and a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation. Thorp, 85, died June 7 at his home in Davis.

"Robbin was 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 passing," the poster read. "Indeed, his scientific achievements during his retirement rival the typical career productivity of many academic scientists."

"Through his tireless efforts in research, advocacy and education, he has inspired a new generation of bee researchers."

"We miss you, Robbin."

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). 

Thorp, who assisted scores of the scientists who attend the pollinator conferences,  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.  Colleague Norman Gary, UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology, says that Thorp was recognized internationally for his expertise and research on bees, especially non-Apis species, known as wild bees. "I doubt that...anyone else in the world...(could) compete with his expertise in the systematics of the 20,000 species of bees on this earth...he was the go-to person to identify a bee by species." A tribute to Thorp and his life's work appears on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.

Keynote speaker Lynn Dicks

Keynote speaker Christina Grozinger

Yes, hummingbirds are pollinators, too!

A capacity crowd of 250 will attend the fourth  International Pollinator Conference, to be hosted by the University of California, Davis, from Wednesday, July 17 through Saturday, July 20 in the ARC Ballroom.

A welcoming reception took place from 6:30 to 8 tonight (Wednesday) in the Good Life Garden at the Robert Mondavi Institute, 392 Old Davis Road.

Themed “Multidimensional Solutions to Current and Future Threats to Pollinator Health,” the conference will cover a wide range of topics in pollinator research: from genomics to ecology and their application to land use and management; to breeding of managed bees; and to monitoring of global pollinator populations.

Co-chairs are pollination ecologist Neal Williams and Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, directed by Amina Harris, is coordinating the conference. Events manager Elizabeth Luu serves as the conference coordinator.

Keynote speakers are Lynn Dicks, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, England, and Christina Grozinger, distinguished professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, Pennsylvania State University, (the research center launched the pollinator conferences in 2012).

Dicks will speak at 9 a.m., Thursday, July 18 on "The Importance of People in Pollinator Conservation" while Grozinger will address the crowd at 9 a.m., Friday, July 19 on "Bee Nutritional Ecology: From Genes to Landscapes."

Dicks, an internationally respected scientist, studies bee ecology and conservation. She received the 2017 John Spedan Lewis Medal for contributions to insect conservation. Grozinger studies health and social behavior in bees and is developing comprehensive approaches to improving  pollinator health and reduce declines.

Among the speakers is Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who will discuss her hummingbird research.

The agenda:

Wednesday, July 17

• 6:30 to 8 p.m.: Early Registration and welcome reception in the Good Life Garden at the Robert Mondavi Institute, 392 Old Davis Road, Davis.

Thursday, July 18
6:45 to 8:30 a.m., breakfast at Segundo Dining Commons

8:45 a.m. Opening remarks and welcome

9 a.m. Keynote Address: "The Importance of People in Pollinator Conservation" by Lynn Dicks, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK

10 a.m. Session 1: Novel Quantitative Methods in Pollinator Ecology & Management

• "The Role of Bee and Non-Bee Pollinators in Australian Open and Protected Cropping Systems (How do we overcome the pollination challenges?)" - Romina Rader, University of New England, Australia
• "Implementing a Honeybee Foraging Model and REDAPOLL Fruit Set Predictions in Washington State's Decision Aid System" - Vince Jones, Washington State University
• "Using DNA metabarcoding techniques to improve plant-pollinator interaction networks" - Victoria Reynolds, University of Queensland, Australia
• "Citizen Science Data for Mapping Bumblebee Populations" - Claudio Gratton, University of Wisconsin
  
  11:15 to 11:30: Break (Light refreshments in the foyer)
  
  
• "From Theory to Practice: The Bumble-BEEHAVE Model and its Application to Enhance Pollinator Friendly Land Management" - Matthias Becher, University of Exeter, UK
• "A Laboratory System to Study the Effects of Stressors on Honey Bee Health and Fecundity" - Julia Fine, USDA-ARS Davis, Calif.
• "Using Automated Tracking to Link Individual Behavior to Colony Performance in Bumble Bees" - James Crall, Harvard University
  
  Lunch at Segundo Dining Commons (opens from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.)

1:45 p.m. Session 2: Drivers of Host-Pathogen Interactions

• "DWV as a Driver of Host Bee Decline" - Robert Paxton, Martin-Luther University, Germany
• "Novel Transmission Routes and Intensification as Drivers of Disease Emergence and Virulence in Honey Bee viruses" - Mike Boots, UC Berkeley
• "Viral Transmission in Honey Bees and Native Bees Supported by a Global BQCV Phylogeny" - Elizabeth Murray, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

 3 to 3:15: Break (Light refreshments in the foyer)

• "Drivers of Pathogen Distributions in Feral and Managed Honey Bees" - Panuwan Chantawannakul, Chiang Mai University, Thailand
• "Serratia marcescens, a Pathobiont of Honey Bees?" - Kasie Raymann, University of North Carolina Greensboro
• "Foreign Fungi in Native Bees across the Commonwealth of Virginia" - Kathryn LeCroy, University of Virginia
• "Traits as Drivers of Plant-Pollinator-Pathogen Networks" - Quinn McFrederick, UC Riverside and Scott McArt, Cornell University
  
  4:30 p.m.: Poster Session 1 in the ARC Ballroom
  
  
• 6:30 to 8 p.m. Opening Reception
  Robert Mondavi Institute Sensory Building, 392 Old Davis Road, Davis
  Honey Tasting led by Amina Harris, director, Honey and Pollination Center

Friday, July 19
6:45 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., Breakfast at Segundo Dining Commons

9 a.m. Keynote: "Bee Nutritional Ecology: From Genes to Landscapes," by Christina Grozinger, Penn State University

10 a.m. Session Three: Variable Climates and Changing Pollinators

• "Bee Responses to Climate Change: from Micro- to Macroecology" - Jessica Forrest, University of Ottawa, Canada
• "A Climate Vise of Temperature Extremes May Explain Past and Predict Future Bumble Bee Range Shifts" - Michael Dillon, University of Wyoming
• "Climate Change Effects on Megachilidae Bee Species along an Elevation Gradient" - Lindsie McCabe, Northern Arizona University
  
  10:15 to 11:05: Break (Light refreshments in the foyer)
  
  
• "Testing the Phenological Mismatch Hypothesis for a Plant-Pollinator Iinteraction" - Charlotte de Keyzer, University of Toronto, Canada
• "Phenological Mismatch between Bees and Flowers Early in the Spring and Late in the Summer" - Gaku Kudo, Hokkaido University, Japan
• "Climate Change Impacts on Brazilian Pollinators" - Tereza (Cris) Giannini, Federal University of Para, Brazil
• "Pollinator Health in a Commercial Blueberry System" - Lief Richardson, University of Vermont
  
  Lunch at Segundo Dining Commons (opens from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.)
  
  Optional Discussion: How do you relate your science to justice, equity and advocacy issue

 1:45 Session 4: Causes and Consequences of Pesticide Use: From Use Patterns to Pollination Services

• "A New Framework for Environmental Risk Assessment of Pesticides" - Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, University of Sydney, Australia
• "Potency Paradox: Patterns and Drivers of Insecticide Use in U.S. Agriculture" - Maggie Douglas, Dickinson College
• "Estimating Pollinator Pesticide Exposure" - Maj Rundlof, Lund University, Sweden
  
  Break (Light refreshments in the foyer)
  
  
• "A Risk Assessment of Neonicotinoid Insecticides in New York" - Travis Grout, Cornell University
• "Risk of Exposure in Soil and Sublethal Effects of Systemic Insecticides Applied to Crops on Adult Female Ground-Nesting Bees Using the Hoary Squash Bee as a Model Species" - D. Susan Willis Chan, University of Guelph, Canada
• "Delayed Lethality: The Effects of a Widely-Used Fungicide on Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)" - Adrian Fisher II, Arizona State University
• "Sub-lethal Impacts of Pesticides on Bees" - Troy Anderson, University of Nebraska
  
  Poster Session 2 and Networking at the ARC Ballroom

Saturday, July 21
8 a.m.  Registration at the ARC Ballroom
6:45 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.: Breakfast at Segundo Dining Commons

9 a.m.: Session 5: Integrative Approaches to Improving Bee Health Across Landscapes

• "Combining Physiological and Ecological Data for More Effective Bee Protection and Conservation" - Cedric Alaux, INRA, France
• "Keeping Bees in a Warming World: Protein Biomarkers for Heat Stress and Queen Failure Diagnostics" - Alison McAfee, North Carolina State University
• "Factors Influencing Colony Survival in Migratory Beekeeping Based on Honey Bee Resistance Traits" - Michael Simone-Finstrom, USDA-ARS, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• "Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Pollinator Communities across North Carolina Agroecosystem" - Hannah Levenson, North Carolina State University
• "The Effects of Land Cover on Habitat Quality for Nesting Bumble Bees" - Genevieve Pugesek, Tufts University
  
  10 to 10:15 a.m. Break (Light refreshments in the foyer)
  
  
• "Improving Bee Health in Canola Pollination" - Shelley Hoover, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry
• "Mitigating Land Use Decisions that Destroy Bee Forage" - George Hansen, Foothills Honey, Oregon, USA
• "Impact of Landscape-Scale Floral Resources Availability on Pollinator Communities" - Aaron Iverson, Cornell University
• "Why are Crops Mainly Visited by Broadly Polylectic Bee Species?" - Katja Hogendoorn, The University of Adelaide, South Australia
  
  12:15 Lunch

1:40: Session 6: Pollinators in Urban Environments

• Presentation by The Wonderful Company
• Honoring new California Master Beekeeper graduates - Elina Niño, UC Davis
• "Floral Trophic Ecology of a North American Metropolis Revealed by Honey Bee Foraging Assay" -
  Doug Sponsler, Penn State University
• "Pollinators and Urban Warming: A Landscape Physiology Approach" - Elsa Youngsteadt, North
  Carolina State University
• "Green Infrastructure to Support Urban Wild bees: Communicating Science to Practitioners" - Scott
  McIvor, University of Toronto, Canada
• "Urban Pollinator Conservation Opportunities: Integrating Research with Policy and Practice" -
  Katherine Baldock, University of Bristol, UK
• "Linking Pollinator Health, Microbiome Composition and Human Provisioning in Anna's Hummingbird
  (Calypte anna) - Rachel Vannette, UC Davis
  
  Break (Light refreshments in the foyer)
  
  
• "Beekeeping Ordinances: Protecting bees and Neighbors" - Tracy Ellis, San Diego County
  Department of Agriculture
• "Beekeeping in the City: Successes and Challenges" - Charlie Blevins, San Francisco Beekeepers'
  Association
• "Electric Power Companies Protecting Pollinators" - Jessica Fox, Electric Power Research Institute,
  Palo Alto
• "The Effect of Land use on a Sexually Selected Characteristic of the Cabbage White Butterfly (Pieris
  rapae) in the United States" - Anne Espeset, University of Nevada, Reno
• "Urban Pollinator Conservation: Bee Campus USA and Bee City USA as a Model for Meaningful
  Community Engagement" - Phyllis Stiles, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Portland,Ore.

(There are no plans to video-record the conference, according to Elizabeth Luu (luu@caes.ucdavis.edu) of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, the events coordinator for the conference.)

Boys' Night Out!

Have you ever seen a cluster of longhorned male bees sleeping overnight on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia)?

Every day around sunset, the longhorned bees, probably Melissodes agilis  (tribe Eucerini), call it a day and head for their favorite flower (bedroom), which happens to be Tithonia in our pollinator garden in Vacaville. If you grow flowers for the native bees, and you wake up early in the morning before they do, you may see them, too.

The late native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), distinguished emeritus professor at the University of California, Davis, used to call this behavior "Boys' Night Out."

"Most frequently, the boy bee overnight clusters are single-species clusters," said Thorp, co-author of California Bees and Blooms, a Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists, with UC-affiliated authors Gordon Frankie, Rollin E. Coville, and Barbara Ertter. He previously identified some of ours as Melissodes agilis.

In a previous Bug Squad blog, Thorp responded to a reader's inquiry about "stings" from the clustering bees. "Boy bees cannot sting," he pointed out. "They lack a stinger which is a modified ovipositor in their wasp ancestors.  Occasionally a girl bee may spend the night out if she is caught by sudden drop in temperature.  Usually she will not be part of a group sleep over.  So don't attempt to handle unless you are confident you can tell boy bees from girl bees or they are too sleepy to defend themselves."

The reader also asked: "Typically how close to the girls' nest(s) do the boys' slumber? I want to try and make sure I don't touch it when planting at end of summer."

 "Boy sleeping aggregations are based on a suitable perch and not related to where females are nesting, but probably no more than 100 yards from the nearest female nest," Thorp answered.  "Females nest in the ground and have rather distinctive round holes about the diameter of a pencil or slightly smaller, sometimes with small piles of dirt around them looking like mini-volcanos.  The holes may be widely separated or clustered together depending on the species, but each female digs her own burrow."

The reader also wondered: "When watching the boys tonight, about ten of them started waking up and kicking each other. They finally settled down and started to nestle back in for the 'night'--it was only 6 p.m.--but I wasn't sure if my presence was getting them riled or they tend to act like kids sharing a bed?"

Said Thorp: "The boys usually settle in as the light dims in the evening.  Cool, and drizzly conditions may modify bed time. Each establishes his own spot, so there may be some jostling for position initially."

Longhorned bees are among the more than 1600 species of undomesticated bees that reside in California. The co-authors of California Bees and Blooms focus on 22 of the most common genera and the flowers they frequent.  

So tiny! Jasmine Morisseau, 10, checks out the male praying mantis, a Stagmomantis limbata, at the Bruce Hammock Lab Water Balloon Battle. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A few minutes before the 16th annual Bruce Hammock Lab Water Balloon Battle began on the Briggs Hall lawn at the  University of California, Davis, water warrior Jasmine Morriseau, 10, noticed "something" on the head of her twin brother, Cedric.

Could it be? It was. An immature praying mantis.

Specifically, a male Stagmomantis limbata, as identified by praying mantis expert Lohitashwa “Lohit” Garikipati. “I'd guess 5th instar by the size of the wingpads,” said Garikipati, a Bohart Museum of Entomology associate who just recently received his bachelor's degree in entomology.

It's not every day—or every year—that a praying mantis joins an entomologically based water balloon battle

The twins showed the insect, also known as a bordered mantis, to their older sister Evelyne, 15, and to their father Christophe Morisseau, a research scientist in the Hammock lab who coordinates the annual water balloon battles.

And then Jasmine gingerly placed the praying mantis on a nearby bush, out of the line of fire and out of the 96-degree heat.

Lea Barnych, 4, whose mother Natalia Vasylieva is a researcher in the Bruce Hammock lab, takes aim, while French visiting student Valentin Nony (behind her) reacts. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The annual battle, aka “Bruce's Big Balloon Battle at Briggs,” is the brainchild of Bruce Hammock, a distinguished professor who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. It's a way of showing  camaraderie and engaging in a little fun. They fill and toss 2000 water balloons, and then empty tubs of water on unsuspecting lab mates.

It's an international soakfest: the Hammock lab includes 30 researchers from eight countries: United States, China, France, Ukraine, Lebanon, Japan and Korea. United Stares, China, France, Ukraine, Lebanon, Japan, Korea and Viet Nam.

Sometimes other labs join in the fun, as did the scientists this year and last year in the Aldrin Gomes lab, UC Davis Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior.

The water warriors are so skilled that the battle usually lasts about 15 minutes—15 minutes of aim. Then they remove all the balloon remnants from the lawn, pose for their annual group photo, and head back to work.

Morisseau says that water balloon battles “provide team building efforts, stress relief and healthy exercise.” He created and displayed a poster, “Health Benefits of Water Balloon Fights,” last year at the Hammock Lab Alumni Reunion. “We recommend that any workplace establish water balloon fights on a yearly or twice yearly basis,” Morisseau concluded.

“We work hard and play hard,” said Hammock, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1980 and the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)-UC Davis Superfund Research Program. Trained in chemistry, toxicology, biochemistry and entomology, he now targets chronic pain in humans and companion animals. For the past 20 years, the Hammock lab has been researching an inhibitor to an enzyme, epoxide hydrolase, which regulates epoxy fatty acids.  “My research led to the discovery that many regulatory molecules are controlled as much by degradation and biosynthesis," Hammock said. "The epoxy fatty acids control blood pressure, fibrosis, immunity, tissue growth, depression, pain and inflammation to name a few processes.”

Hammock co-founded EicOsis LLC, a Davis-based company that recently received a $5 million investment from Open Philanthropy to move original research developed in the Hammock lab into human clinical trials. (See news story.) Nationally recognized for his scientific achievements, he is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, which honors academic invention and encourages translations of inventions to benefit society.

The Hammock lab also knows how to translate science into watery fun on a hot summer day.