- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
How it all began: Pollination ecologist Neal Williams, associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and postdoctoral researcher Rosemary Malfi set out to research how the short-term loss of floral resources affects bumble bees, specifically the yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, a common bumble bee native to the West Coast of the United States. Its importance to agriculture, including the pollination of greenhouse tomatoes, cannot be overstated.
So, "the bee team," led by Williams, decided they needed to weigh the bees as part of their research. They engaged mechanical and electrical engineers on the UC Davis campus to see if they could come up with a "bee scale" to weigh individual foragers.
They could and they did. The project is underway in a field west of the central UC Davis campus. The site includes fine-mesh tents filled with wildflowers to contain the bumble bees and an RV converted into a lab.
Fell began his piece with "How do you weigh a bee?"
"That's the question that brought together insect specialists at the University of California, Davis, and two teams of UC Davis engineering students this year, to try and solve what turns out to be a tricky technical problem," Fell wrote. "But the consequences are important: ultimately, understanding how California's native bumble bees respond to changes in the environment and the availability of flowers, and how we can protect these insects that are so vital to both agriculture and wild plants."
The entomologists worked with electrical engineers Anthony Troxell, Jeff Luu and Wael Yehdego, advised by Andre Knoesen, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and mechanical engineers Lillian Gibbons, Laurel Salinas and Ryan Tucci, advised by Professor Jason Moore.
Fell wrote: "The electrical engineers had to solve the problem of taking the raw signal from the scale and obtaining time-stamped data for individual bees."
“We were working with very small signals, at the low end of the technology, so noise in the data was an issue,” Troxell related in the news story. "A bumble bee weighs between 150 and 200 milligrams, and to get useful information about bee health or how much pollen they are carrying, the scale would need to be accurate to less than one milligram. A conventional laboratory balance averages several readings over a few seconds — but bees are much too fast and jittery for that to work."
Williams described the bee scale as "a great example of interdisciplinary work." And indeed it is.
This project is sure to gain national and international attention. It's not just about the plight of the bumble bees but the unique collaboration between entomologists and engineers and the resulting device they successfully designed and crafted.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Earlier this year she came out with an app, "Wild Bee Gardens," the first-known conservation app for North American native bees. That app was exclusively for an iPad, but she promised an app for an iphone later.
Later is "now."
It's out. "Wild Bee Gardens" is an educational tool "showing the dazzling diversity of North America's native bees." The app pairs native bees with many of the flowers they frequent.
Ets-Hokin, a UC Berkeley zoology graduate, wants us all to work together to protect North America's premier pollinators. She seeks to inspire an appreciation for the importance and diversity of our native bees, and anticipates that people will create a habitat for native bees in their own gardens. The habitats are not fancy; in fact, native bee habitats are "a bit on the wild side," she says.
The work is impressive. It opens up the world of native bees and their floral resources through her text and some 300 photographs of native bees, primarily the work of entomologist/insect photographer Rollin Coville of the Bay Area.
Topics covered include:
- The role of native bees in our natural ecosystems
- The ecology and life cycles of native bees
- How to create a successful bee garden
- How to identify the native bee visitors that will appear in these gardens
The app covers 26 genera and links the bees to their favorite plants. Consultants included three scientists: native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis and UC Berkeley faculty members Gordon Frankie and Clare Kremen. They are acknowledged for their contributions of scientific knowledge and research. Arlo and Rebecca Armstrong of the Bay Area designed the app.
Just as we need food and shelter, so do bees. Native bees forage for pollen and nectar for their offspring. The bee scientists suggest you leave areas of undisturbed, bare ground for ground-nesting bees, and provide "bee condos" (wood blocks drilled with the proper-size holes) for leafcutting bees and mason bees.
While many folks will be out buying computers, laptops, tablets, designer clothes, houseware and the like during the holiday season, Ets-Hokin hopes they will take time to think about the native bees and provide for them.
The app can be ordered from http://appstore.com/wildbeegardens. For gift-giving, access http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT2736, and scroll to the section entitled, “Gift an Item on an IOS Device.”
Meanwhile, Celeste Ets-Hokin continues to spread public awareness about the plight of bees, writing about them, speaking about them, photographing them, and now she has an app for that: "Wild Bee Gardens."
