Forget about the birds and the bees.

Just think about the bees.

The 141st annual Dixon May Fair, California's oldest fair, is "Buzzing with Excitement," and that's the theme of the fair, which opens Thursday, May 5 for a four-day run.

Fairgoers will make a beeline for Madden Hall, the main thematic attraction. A glass bee observation hive from the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis will entice visitors to find the queen, worker bees and drones.  In addition, Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño and her fellow Laidlaw facility apiarists are providing beekeeping equipment, informative posters, decorated bee boxes made by the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, and interactive displays, including a pollination poster ("Can you guess if I'm a pollinator?"). The El Niño Bee Lab will answer questions from fairgoers on Thursday and Friday.

Garry Haddon, beekeeping project leader of the Vaca Valley 4-H Club, will showcase his honey as well as decorated bee boxes crafted by his 4-H'ers.

Chief administrative officer Patricia Conklin expects fairgoers to learn a lot about the importance of bees. Meanwhile, the final touches are underway.

On Monday morning, May 2, Madden Hall buzzed with activity as Chris Conklin hammered, sawed and nailed.   Enlarged photos of bees pollinating almonds (images donated by yours truly) lined the walls. On the floor, a mannikin in a beekeeping suit appeared almost ready for duty. Images of plants from "a" to "z" ("Plant These to Attract Bees") graced one wall. In between the "a" for alyssum and the "z" for zinnia, fairgoers will see everything from lavender, goldenrod and verbena to sage, alyssum, rosemary, borage, hollyhocks and thyme.

In the Youth Building, superintendent Stephanie Hill is totally focused on bees, from the displays to the decorations. Those bee-themed cakes and bee-themed table settings (Hello, Winnie the Pooh!) would make a beekeeper proud, not to mention the bees! A colorful "hive" of paper bees decorates one wall. Honey, too, has its place. Winnie the Pooh's menu boasts three items; just three items: (1) Honey (small) (2) Honey (large) and (3) Honey (extra large).

In the Interior Living building, superintendent Debee LaMont is surrounded by a display of tasty desserts made with honey, and the proverbial bear ready to partake. Or just take.

Indeed, there's much to see and do at the fair, located at 655 S. First St.  It's meant to inform, educate and entertain. Hours are neither "bankers' hours" nor "bee time." It's "people time":

• Thursday, May 5 from 4 to 11 p.m.
• Friday, May 6 from noon to 11 p.m.
• Saturday, May 7 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Sunday, May 8 from noon to 11 p.m.

The biggest bargain is Thrifty Thursday Day with everyone five years and older admitted for $5. (Children under five receive free admission.)  Check out the website at http://dixonmayfair.com for more information on prices and activities.

Meanwhile, it's good to see the focus on bees!

Make way for the new beekeepers! Or "beeks," as they fondly call themselves in the apiary industry.

A short course on "Planning Ahead for Your First Hive" drew an enthusiastic group of prospective beekeepers last Saturday, Feb. 13 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.

Aimed at those with little or no beekeeping experience, the all-day course included lectures and hands-on experience. The instructors--Extension apiculturist Elina Niño, Bernardo Niño, Charley Nye and Patricia "Tricia" Bohls--explained what beekeeping is all about. The lectures covered honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, how to start your own colony, and maladies of the hive.  The participants also learned how to build a hive, how to install a package, how to inspect your hive, and how to monitor for varroa mites.

This was the first in a series of several beekeeping courses that began Feb. 13 and will conclude on March 20. All classes  are filled, but folks can contact Bernardo Niño at elninobeelab@gmail.com or call 530-380-BUZZ (2899) to be put on a list.

Meanwhile, the instructors are busily gearing up for these courses, all filled:

Working Your Colonies on Feb. 20: For novice beekeepers who already have a colony and/or have taken a previous course, and seek to develop their skills. Lectures will cover maladies and biology review, products of the hive, and troubleshooting problems in the colony. Hands-on information will encompass colony evaluations, monitoring and managing pests, feeding your colony, and honey extraction.By the end of the course, participants will be knowledgeable about evaluating colonies, solving common beekeeping problems, extracting honey and wax, trapping pollen and propolis, and treating colonies for pests, the instructors said.  

Queen-Rearing Techniques: (two separate sessions) March 12-13 and March 19-20: Topics will include honey bee queen biology, basics of selective honey bee breeding programs, various queen-rearing techniques, testing hygienic behavior, and assessing varroa mite levels. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and practice multiple methods for queen rearing. “We will go through a step-by-step process for queen rearing via grafting, including setting up cell builders and mating nucs,” Elina Niño said.

The Niño lab launched a website last year at http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/, and administers a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/elninolab/. In addition, Elina Niño writes a bi-monthly apiculture newsletter, free and online.

Elizabeth "Liz" Frost, formerly of the University of California, Davis, is taking her love of honey bees back to Australia.

She's the newly hired honey bee development officer, an Extension-like position, in the state of New South Wales.

Frost left the States last Sunday, Jan. 10. The government position involves working with the commercial beekeeping industry in New South Wales in "course development and training, policy making, and other projects, including the importation of honey bee semen to Australia, and oxytetracycline prescriptions for European Foulbrood treatment, etc." she related.

We first met Liz in 2008 when she joined the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Facility as the staff research associate for bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, then manager of the  facility. Among her many duties, Frost maintained the apiaries and lab facilities, and aided in experiments and instruction in queen rearing and instrumental insemination.

We watched her lead tours with Cobey, now a geneticist-bee breeder at Washington State University; harvest honey; learn to drive the stick-shift bee truck; plant a pollinator garden in front of the Laidlaw facility; engage in a (private) bee bearding activity directed by Cobey; and even install pigeon-control devices on the eaves of the facility.

Frost also hosted the annual "Pi Day" every March 14 for faculty, staff and students at the Laidlaw facility. We all brought pies to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi). 

The Laidlaw facility buzzed with the enthusiasm, commitment and dedication of the Cobey/Frost team. 

Frost, who holds a bachelor of arts degree in English and Italian from UC Davis with a minor in entomology, left the Laidlaw facility to join the Bee Informed Partnership, based in College Park, Md. (read her posts), and then headed off to Australia to become a honey bee development officer with the New South Wales government. From California to Australia...and now it's back to Australia...

"I was originally hired by the Department of Primary Industries, within the New South Wales Government, and working out of Tocal Agricultural College as a honey bee development officer," Frost recalled.  Due to her VISA international work permit, she could work only for an employer for six months, maximum. So, after her time expired, she gained a new employer, the Tom Farrell Institute for the Environment, the University of Newcastle, also in the state of New South Wales.

As a honey bee development officer, she created educational tools for beekeepers in the form of an online Honey Bee Pest and Disease Course, a Queen Bee Breeding book in hard copy and online publication (iBook and EPUB), a bimonthly column (The Frost Report) in the New South Wales Apiarist Association magazine (Honey Bee News), face-to-face courses in queen breeding, and online fact sheets.

About the pest/disease course: "If a beekeeper with one or thousands of colonies wants to learn more about honey bee pests and diseases this course is a valuable, interactive tool with tutorials including videos to supplement the text, and short quizzes," she explained. "In Australia this is a nationally accredited course which awards participants units of competency upon successful completion of assessment tasks."

Her fact sheet on Hygienic Behavior Testing includes step- by-step instructions with illustrations. "Hygienic behavior is a honey bee trait which confers resistance to chalkbrood and American foulbrood (AFB), two serious brood diseases in Australia. AFB is especially serious in Australia considering it is illegal to treat AFB infected hives with oxytetracyline (OTC) as it only masks the symptoms and can contaminate honey. This fact sheet and others produced by New South Wales Dept. of Primary Industry Apiary Technical Officers are located on this site.  

She also taught a course on queen bee breeding in Australia with co-worker Doug Somerville. The late Gretchen Wheen, a pioneer in instrumental insemination in Australia, played key roles in establishing two bee breeding programs in Western Australia and the Eastern States (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria) and the Eastern Creek Quarantine Station which enabled safe, legal importation of new honey bee stock. (The course is listed on this site.)

"These products are educational tools for beekeepers worldwide, but are specifically geared toward the Australian beekeeping industry in regard to the subjects of relevant endemic and exotic pests and diseases and seasonal management and floral resources," Frost related.  (She also appeared in this news media-produced video: "Frost Spreads the Beekeeping Gospel.") 

When her VISA expired, Frost returned to the states and engaged in a number of projects, including a recent presentation to the California State Beekeepers' Association conference. She toyed with other apiculture opportunities in the States, but when the Australian opportunity surfaced, she made a beeline to return.

Liz Frost is excited to be back.

"Beekeeping in the Australian context is fascinating, not only because Varroa is absent in this country," she said. "The wealth of potential floral resources is astounding, giving beekeepers the opportunity to chase honey 12 months of the year. Around 70 to 80 percent of honey produced commercially is derived from eucalyptus and native forests. These stats shouldn't deceive the reader into thinking honey is easily had, however. The most successful honey producers in Australia know their country intimately. Part arborist, part meteorologist, and all beekeeper, they monitor buds on trees years in advance of a flowering event.

"Also to be considered is the fact that, while some native melliferous flora such as Yellow Box and Ironbark are profuse nectar producers in the right conditions, they can be seriously deficient as a pollen resource. This situation makes beekeeper management decisions before and after working such a honey crop vital to prevent colonies from working themselves to death in the absence of incoming and nutritious pollen."

So you want to be a beekeeper...but you don't know where to begin. 

You're in luck.

Bee experts at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis, are planning two short courses or sessions in September--the first on Sept. 13 and the second on Sept. 20.

This will be their inaugural "Planning Ahead for Your First Hives," taught by Extension apiculturist Elina Niño and staff research associate Bernardo Niño at the Laidlaw facility, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus. Each course will be limited to 24 participants and registration is now underway.

"The short course will include lectures and hands-on exercises," they announced. "This course is perfect for those who have little or no beekeeping experience and would like to obtain more knowledge and practical skills to move on to the next step of owning and caring for their own honey bee colonies."

Lecture modules will cover honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, how to start your colony and maladies of the hive. The practical modules will cover how to build a hive, how to install a package, how to inspect your hive and how to monitor for varroa mites. 

"Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and practice many aspects of what is necessary to get the colony started and keep it healthy and thriving," they said. "At the end of the course, participants will be knowledgeable about installing honey bee packages, monitoring their own colonies and possible challenges with maintaining a healthy colony."

This is a BYOV (that's Bring Your Own Veil--if you own one. If you don't, they have some on hand.) The $95 registration fee covers the cost of the course materials (including a hive tool), lunch and refreshments. For more information, contact Bernardo Niño at elninobeelab@gmail.com or call the lab at 530-380-2899.

Be sure to check on Elina Niño's monthly newsletter, from the UC Apiaries and the Niño lab's Facebook page.