- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Monarch butterflies aren't the only insects that hang around milkweed, their host plant.
You're likely to see a variety of predators, such as the European paper wasp, Polistes dominula.
This paper wasp is a little skittish around paparazzi so it helps to use a long macro lens, like a 105mm or a 200mm, that will allow you to get eye to eye, or nose to antennae.
It's a meat eater, and a voracious one at that. We've seen it shred caterpillars and attack newly emerged butterflies.
Unlike yellow jackets, "European paper wasps are not scavengers," says Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a professor of entomology at UC Davis. "They only take live insects, particularly caterpillars."
Their menu also includes aphids. "For these wasps, meat is meat," Kimsey said. "Aphids are great because you get steak and dessert at the same time."
One of the scientists who studies European paper wasps is Amy Toth of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, who coined and popularized the Twitter hashtag #wasplove. We've heard her deliver several presentations at the University of California, Davis, and we once asked her to list what she loves about wasps. Her answers are worth repeating! (See more information on a Bug Squad blog)
- They are pollinators
- They contribute to biocontrol of lepidopteran pests in gardens and on decorative plants
- They have been shown to carry yeasts to winemaking grapes that may be important contributors to the fermentation process and wonderful flavors in wine!
- They are the only known insect (Polistes fuscatus) that can recognize each other as individuals by their faces.
- They are devoted mothers that will dote on their young all day long for weeks, defending their families with fury.
- Their social behavior, in my opinion, is the most human-like of any insect. They know each other as individuals, and are great cooperators overall, but there is an undercurrent of selfishness to their behavior,
- They are artists. They make perfect hexagonal nest cells out of paper, which they make themselves out of tree bark + saliva.
- They are extremely intelligent. They're predators, architects, good navigators, and great learners. Among insects, they have large brains, especially the mushroom bodies (learning/memory and cognition area of insect brain).
- They are beautiful, complex, and fascinating creatures!
And to that, we add: European paper wasps are quite photogenic--just don't move around like paparazzi.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In fact, they have for 70 years. Seven decades. Yes, that's how long he's kept bees.
Norm Gary's 70-year career includes both hobby and commercial beekeeping, but you probably know him by his other credentials:
- 32 years as an entomology professor teaching apiculture at UC Davis
- More than 40 years as a bee research scientist with more than 100 publications
- Author of the 174-page popular book, Honey Bee Hobbyist: The Care and Keeping of Bees.
- 40 years as a consultant and bee stunt coordinator for 17 movies, 70 TV shows, and 6 TV commercials
There's another side to Norm Gary you may not know. He initiated and spearheaded the founding of the Western Apicultural Society (WAS) and served as its first president.
So when WAS returns Sept. 5-8 to its roots--UC Davis--for its 40th annual conference, Gary will lead a nostalgic discussion on the founding of the organization. The presentation takes place at 8:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 5 in the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC). Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen will join him. Mussen, co-founder and founding vice president of WAS, is currently serving his sixth term as WAS president.
A musician since childhood, Gary plays clarinet (B-flat clarinet!), alto sax, tenor sax and flute either in bands he's organized or with other professional musicians. He's entertained at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee since 1979, wowing the crowds with such tunes as "When the Saints Go Marching In," "If I Had You," "Just a Little While to Stay Here," "New Orleans," "Long Way to Tippary" and "My Gal Sal."
But back to the bees.
A native of the small farming community of Oak, Fla., Gary turned a fascination for bugs at age 4 into hobby beekeeping at age 15 when his dog led him to a dead tree containing a wild honey bee nest. He transferred them to a modern hive where they became his “pets.”
Gary joined the UC Davis faculty in 1962 and developed and taught the first insect behavior course at the university. He also developed and taught a graduate course on the use of television for research and teaching. He retired from academic life in 1994, but not from his bees and his music.
A world-renowned professional bee wrangler, Gary trained bees to perform action scenes in movies, television shows and commercials. His credits include “Fried Green Tomatoes”; appearances on the Johnny Carson and Jay Leno shows; and hundreds of live Thriller Bee Shows in the Western states. He once trained bees to fly into his mouth to collect food from a small sponge saturated with his patented artificial nectar. He holds the Guinness Book of World record (109 bees inside his closed mouth for 10 seconds) for the stunt.
Today the Sacramento area resident continues his love of bees and music, maintaining a website at www.normangary.com/
Like he's done much of his life, Norm Gary will focus on bees and music at the WAS conference. "Norm will talk about bees and his memories of organizing WAS," Mussen said, "and at our banquet, he will provide the background music."
WAS Conference: It's a conference filled with educational topics, networking, field trips, a silent auction, door prizes and fun, Mussen said. Speakers will include bee scientists, beekeepers and industry representatives. Most events will take place in the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center and surrounding facilities associated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, Conference participants will tour the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, Häagen Dazs Honey Bee Haven (half-acre bee friendly garden), both part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology; and Mann Lake Ltd., and Z Specialty Foods, both of Woodland.
WAS, a non-profit organization, represents mainly small-scale beekeepers in the western portion of North America, from Alaska and the Yukon to California and Arizona. Beekeepers across North America will gather to hear the latest in science and technology pertaining to their industry and how to keep their bees healthy.
There's still time to register to attend the conference, which is open to all interested persons. Registration is underway at http://www.westernapiculturalsociety.org/2017-conference-registration/ or contact Eric Mussen at ecmussen@ucdavis.edu for more information.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The National Geographic just ran a piece titled "Without Bugs, We Might All Be Dead."
"There are 1.4 billion insects for each one of us," wrote Simon Worrall in reviewing the book, Bugged: The Insects Who Rule and the World and the People Obsessed with Them by journalist David MacNeal.
Some you need a microscope to see, but insects are the 'lever pullers of the world,'" MacNeal insists.
He's right.
And many are extinct, and many more will be. For example, the butterfly, the Xerces blue (Glaucopsyche xerces) is no more. But you can see it at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis.
"Bug extinction is one of the most extensive extinctions on the planet," MacNeal told her in the interview published Aug. 6. "It's scary because you don't notice it until it's too late. Migration patterns are shifting due to climate, and insects offer a great way of looking at that. A collector went to the Antioch Dunes in California, in the 1960s, and caught a range of bugs. When scientists returned decades later, they found many species were gone, and the host plants with them. These creatures rely on plants and certain weather patterns and temperatures, an adaptive power they've gained over the past 400 million years."
"Twenty years ago you could have seen one billion monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico. The latest count is 56.5 million. To combat the decline, the Obama Administration, working with Fish & Wildlife, enacted this migration highway running from Texas to Minnesota. They planted milkweed along the way, which is the host plant for monarch butterflies, hoping to quadruple that 56.5 million by 2020. I am an optimistic cynic, so I feel that insects will outlive us, if we haven't totally screwed the planet."
When's the last time you saw a monarch flutter through your yard? Are you planting their host plant, milkweed? Are you providing nectar by growing such monarch favorites as the butterfly bush (genus Buddleja), Mexican sunflower (genus Tithonia) and lantana (genus Lantana)?
Think about it: "There are 1.4 billion insects for each one of us."
Make mine the monarch. Well, I like the Western tiger swallowtails and anise swallowtails, too. And the honey bees, sweat bees, longhorn bees, bumble bees, European wool carder bees, dragonflies, and yes, praying mantids...and...wait, there's not enough room to list them all!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
One of Buck Owens' signature songs that never failed to please his fan base was "I Got a Tiger by the Tail."
The Country-Hall-of-Fame singer, who died in 2006 at age 76, said the lyrics came to him after he noticed a gas station sign advertising "Put a tiger in your tank." (Source: Wikipedia)
"I've got a tiger by the tail, it's plain to see," sang Buck Owens. "I won't be much when you get through with me..."
Well, he's not the only one with a "tiger by the tail."
We recently spotted male longhorn bees, probably Melissodes agilis, targeting Western tiger swallowtails, Papilio rutulus, in our family's pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. The butterflies were trying to sip nectar from the 8 to 10-foot-high Mexican sunflowers (genus Tithonia).
Who knew that sipping nectar could be so difficult? The extremely territorial male longhorn bees kept trying to push the "tigers" off the Tithonia by dive-bombing them, slamming into them, and then regrouping for more aerial assaults. Their goal: to save the resources for their own species.
And then it happened. A longhorn bee slid through a tiger's tail.
A tiger by the tail.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But it will be bee-boggling--all bee-boggling--when the Western Apicultural Society (WAS) meets Sept. 5-8 at the University of California, Davis for its 40th annual conference.
So much to do. So much to hear. So much to talk about.
It's a conference filled with educational topics, networking, field trips, a silent auction, door prizes and just plain "bee" fun, says honey bee guru and WAS co-founder Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist emeritus, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who is serving his sixth term as president.
Professor Norm Gary, now professor emeritus of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, spearheaded the founding of WAS and served as its first president. Mussen joined him as the founding vice president and Becky Westerdahl as secretary-treasurer. Westerdahl, then a postdoctoral scholar, is now an Extension nematologist. Both Gary and Mussen will be speaking at the conference.
Mussen, who retired from UC Davis in 2014 but maintains an office at Briggs Hall, said most events will take place in the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) and surrounding facilities associated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Off-site tours are also planned during the afternoons.
Just a few of the topics and speakers:
- “Seasonal Honey Bee Colony Population Cycle” – Gene Brandi, Los Banos, Calif.
- "Moderated Honey Tasting” – Amina Harris, director, UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center
- "Keeping Your Bees Alive and Growing” Larry Connor, Kalamazoo, Mich.
- "Rapidly Changing Bee Scene” – Bee Culture magazine editor Kim Flottum, Medina, Ohio
- "Honey Bee Queens or Varroa Control" – Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- "Honey Bee Behavior or Distribution of Africanized Honey Bees in California" – Brian Johnson, faculty, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- “Beneficial Microbes for Honey Bees at the Intersection of Nutrition and Defense – Slava Strogolov, Milwaukee, Wisc.
- "Pesticide Toxicity Testing with Adult and Immature Honey Bees” with Eric Mussen, moderator
- "Changes in Nectar Affecting Foraging” – Rachel Vannette, faculty, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Conference participants will tour the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, Häagen Dazs Honey Bee Haven (half-acre bee friendly garden), both part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology; and Mann Lake Ltd., and Z Specialty Foods, both of Woodland.
Of special interest are the subgroup tours on Thursday, Sept. 7 that cycle through the Laidlaw facility, aka "Bee Biology Faciilty," and the nearby bee garden:
- Various beehive iterations – Bernardo Niño, staff, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- Determining levels of Nosema or Varroa infestation – Randy Oliver, Grass Valley, Calif.
- Studying native bee foraging in screen houses – Neal Williams, faculty,UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and his team
- Studying plant flower selection in open field plots south of bee garden, Neal Williams and his team, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- Preparing honey bees for molecular Africanized Honey Bees studies or behavioral studies – Brian Johnson, faculty, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- Selecting for, and maintaining, a bee garden – Christine Casey, staff, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who manages the Häagen Dazs Honey Bee Haven
Among the other topics: The "Next Generation Beekeepers” session in the Sensory Building, Robert Mondavi Institute, 392 Old Davis Road. This event will include beer, music, networking and an interactive group session.
UC Davis artist Steve Dana created the conference T-shirt featuring a bee on a high wheeler bicycle or penny-farthing, symbolizing UC Davis. The t-shirt can be ordered on the WAS website athttp://www.westernapiculturalsociety.org. The conference registration form, speaker program and other information are online.
WAS, a non-profit organization, represents mainly small-scale beekeepers in the western portion of North America, from Alaska and the Yukon to California and Arizona. Beekeepers across North America will gather to hear the latest in science and technology pertaining to their industry and how to keep their bees healthy.
Eric Mussen offers 10 reasons why one should attend the conference. See Bug Squad blog.
(Editor's Note: Initially on the schedule was Serge Labesque of Glen Ellen, who will be unable to participate. Gene Brandi of Los Banos will be speaking instead.)
