- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It was good to see the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) conduct its recent "Be a Scientist" project. Thousands of participants across the state counted pollinators (and also mapped places where food is grown and checked off the ways they are conserving water), according to Pam Kan-Rice, assistant director, News and Information Outreach, UC ANR.
In a news release posted this week, she reported that "10,697 people counted pollinators, including bees, butterflies, bird and even a few bats."
“It's encouraging to see so many Californians interested in pollinators because they play a vital role in producing food,” said Barbara Allen-Diaz, UC vice president for agriculture and natural resources, in the news release. “People are conserving water in many different ways, which is important because water is a limited resource even in non-drought years. And, surprisingly, almost half of the people participating in our survey said they grow food.”
"Preliminary results," Kan-Rice reported, "show that people counted 37,961 pollinators in a three-minute period. Flies were by far the most abundant, accounting for 79 percent of the pollinators counted."
Meanwhile, on the national level, the Pollinator Partnership announced that National Pollinator Week, established by U.S. Congress in 2007, is growing by leaps and bounds. (Or maybe by wings and feet.)
In a press release, the Pollinator Partnership officials wrote: "Pollinators, like bees, butterflies, birds and other animals, bring us one in every three bites of food, protect our environment. They form the underpinnings of a healthy and sustainable future."
One of the many ways we can protect our pollinators is to pass the Highways BEE Act, introduced in Congress by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), co-chairs of the Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus (CP2C), to create and/or preserve pollinator habitat along our highways. Individuals, along with regional and local organizations, are signing an online petition at http://www.pollinator.org/BEEAct.htm.
BEE is an acronym for "Bettering the Economy and Environment" Pollinator Protection Act.
And at the UC Davis level, the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology is hosting an open house at its Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Friday night, June 20, in observation of National Pollinator Week. The event, free and open to the public, will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus. Visitors will receive zinnia seeds until they're all gone.
The bee garden, installed next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility in the fall of 2009 with generous financial support from the premier ice cream company, is a year-around food source for bees and is also intended to raise public awareness of the plight of the honey bees and to provide ideas on what to plant in our own gardens.
When you walk through the front gates, you'll immediately see the six-foot-long mosaic ceramic honey bee created by self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick, co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. It's anatomically correct right down to the wax glands.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Since this is National Pollinator Week, you're probably out celebrating the bees--maybe doing hand stands, cartwheels and pirouettes.
But have you ever thought about beetles as pollinators? They are.
We spotted this little critter on a California golden poppy at the Sonoma Mission in Sonoma, Calif. Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, knew what it was immediately, even though through all the pollen.
It's a melyrid beetle, a flightless beetle. Some species found elsewhere in the world are loaded with poison and are eaten by poison-dart frogs and passerine birds, including the pitohui. Scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) say these frogs and birds derive their poison from melyrid beetles and if they don't eat enough of them, they lose their toxicity. Indeed, there's a golden poison-dart frog that carries enough venom to kill 10 people, according to National Geographic.
If you want to know what this melyrid beetle looks like when it's not wearing its coat of many pollen grains, check out this photo by Peter Bryant of UC Irvine and another photo by Thomas Roach of Lincoln, Calif., an insect photographer and a frequent visitor to the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Have you hugged your favorite pollinator today?
It's National Pollinator Week, and you're allowed to do that this week. Actually, any time you feel the inclination.
Honey bees, bumble bees, wool carder bees, leafcutter bees, sweat bees--they're all out there, ready for a hug.
'Course, they may misinterpret your actions.
This is the fifth annual Pollinator Week, when we pay tribute to bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles--and flies, too. Don't forget the flies. And all the other pollinators out there.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging us to celebrate pollinators June 20-26. Perhaps what we should do, along with celebrating them, is vow to save them.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You'll be hearing more about the CP2C.
What's that?
The first-ever Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus.
In keeping with 4th Annual National Pollinator Week, June 21-27, the Pollinator Partnership announced today that both parties of the U.S. House of Representatives have agreed to form the first Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus (CP2C). Co-chairs are Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL).
Hastings and Johnson said they will be sending a “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow members of Congress to encourage their participation in the caucus.
As Hastings so accurately stated: “With one out of every third bite of food we humans consume dependent on bees and other animals for their pollination services, legislators need accurate information to help inform their positions."
“The caucus," Johnson added, "will seek out the best of pollinator science, economics and best practices."
Said Laurie Davies Adams, executive director of the Pollinator Partnership (P2): "This bi-partisan effort aims to support legislators’ understanding of the needs of their constituents with respect to pollinators, and we salute their cooperative drive to ensure that this issue gets the attention it deserves."
Kudos to Hastings, Johnson and the Pollinator Partnership.
Meanwhile, in conjunction with the CP2C launch, the Pollinator Partnership will host a briefing for members of Congress, staff, and the public on Thursday, June 24 at 3:30 p.m, at Longworth House Office Building, Room 1302.
Häagen-Dazs ice cream and Burt’s Bees will provide ice cream and lip balm for attendees. Häagen-Dazs, a strong supporter of UC Davis honey bee research at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, is committed to strengthening the health of the honey bees. (On Sept. 11, the public will celebrate the grand opening of the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a bee friendly garden planted last fall next to the Laidlaw facility.)
Burt's Bees is also a strong pollinator-supportive business.
Through research, public awareness, and concerted actions, we can all help preserve and protect our pollinators, especially honey bees.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When we think of pollinators, we usually think of honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, syrphid or flower flies, and butterflies.
But wait, blow flies can be pollinators, too.You see them stopping on flowers for a sip of nectar, and in their travels from one flower to the other, they can--and do--transfer pollen.
Blow flies, though, aren't exactly what the organizers of National Pollinator Week had in mind when they set aside June 21-27 to celebrate the pollinators.
The U. S. Forest Service says that "of the 1,400 crop plants grown around the world, i.e., those that produce all of our food and plant-based industrial products, almost 80% require pollination by animals. Visits from bees and other pollinators also result in larger, more flavorful fruits and higher crop yields. In the United States alone, pollination of agricultural crops is valued at $10 billion annually. Globally, pollination services are likely worth more than $3 trillion."
So, when we talk about "the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees," we ought to include an occasional blow fly from the order Diptera and family Calliphoridae.
Besides, this little bugger does lend itself to alliteration: birds, bees, bats, beetles, butterflies and blow flies.