- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The 4-H Youth Development Program is an incredible opportunity for youths to learn new skills, make new friends, and become involved in leadership activities and community service projects. It's all about "Making the Best Better" and "Learn by Doing."
One of the scores of projects 4-H'ers can enroll in is entomology. That would include beekeeping!
But you don't have to be a beekeeper or be enrolled in an entomology project to enter the statewide bee essay contest. You just have to be a 4-H'er.
"Every year The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees, Inc. runs a contest for the 4-Hers and this year is no exception," wrote Extension Apiculturist Elina Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in her current newsletter. "California 4-H members have participated in this national contest organized by Dr. Eric Mussen (Extension apiculturist for 38 years before his retirement in June of 2014) on the state level. Last year Dr. Mussen passed the torch onto me, but I was a little disappointed that I received no essays from the California 4-H members. So let's see if we can get your creativity buzzing."
This year's essay theme is "Bees and Pollination: How Important Is It?" Niño urges California 4-H'ers to "put your pens to paper (or fingers on your keyboard) and start telling everyone else just how important bees and pollination are to our own wellbeing." Or maybe well-bee-ing.
The deadline to submit the essays (750 and 1000 words) to Niño is Feb. 15, right after Valentine's Day. Her email is an easy one to remember, especially when El Niño is visiting us. It's elnino@ucdavis.edu.
The contest details are at http://preservationofhoneybees.org/essays#rules-overview-2. Essays from previous years are also posted.
"And if you need more motivation, every state's winner receives a book about bees and beekeeping," Niño says, "and the national winners receive a nice sum of money that they can put in their piggy banks. "
Yes. Each state winner goes on to compete at the national level. The national champion wins $750, while the second and third place winners will receive $500 and $250, respectively. Plus, there's another incentive: the national-winning essays will be published in the American Beekeeping Federation's newsletter.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But have you ever seen a honey bee cleaning her tongue?
Bay Nature contributing editor Alison Hawks recently asked two of our UC Davis bee experts why bees clean themselves. Their joint answer is posted on the Bay Nature website under "Ask a Naturalist." Bay Nature, as you've probably surmised, is based in the Bay Area--Berkeley, in fact. It explores nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Answering Bay Nature's question were Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen, who retired in June of 2014 after 38 years of service, and new Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño.
Mussen continues to maintain an office in Briggs Hall, while Niño is based at Briggs and at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus.
The Question:
Ask The Naturalist: Why Do Honeybees Clean Themselves?
The Answer:
"The inside of a bee hive is considered to be a pretty clean environment. The bees produce honey there and we eat it. But, why are honey bees and their hive so clean? It is in their genes.
"Honey bees are akin to animated robots that move around in their environment responding to stimuli with behaviors that have served them well for millions of years. Building wax combs to use for food storage and baby bee production allows the bees to keep tens of thousands of bees huddled close together. However, if any type of microbial outbreak occurs, all this closeness could lead to an epidemic and colony death.
"As for the bees themselves, it is common to see them using their legs or mouthparts to clean off other parts of their bodies. For bees, we might think that they are simply moving around or brushing off pollen that they picked up when foraging. However, honey bees live in a suit of armor called an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is waterproof and protects the insects from invasive microbes. But bees also have to sense what is going on around them, so they have sensory receptors on the surface of their exoskeleton. The most obvious sensory organs on bees are their compound eyes. Honey bees can see objects, detect polarized sunlight, and have good color discrimination, similar to that of humans, but shifted a bit in the color spectrum. Bees wipe their eyes every so often to keep them clean. We humans have eye lids that keep our eyes clean and moist.
"The rest of the sensory organs on the exoskeleton are sensilla (stiff hairs and protuberances) or pits that serve as sensory receptors. The tips of honey bees' antennae have many touch receptors, odor receptors, and a special sensory organ called Johnston's organ that tells them how fast they are flying. Other sensilla bend when the bee changes positions, so it remains aligned with gravity when it is building comb cells. Sensilla on a queen bee's antennae help her determine the size of a comb cell, which determines if she lays a worker- or drone-destined egg. So, all those sensilla must remain dust and pollen-free to function properly, allowing bees to remain as busy as, well, bees."
So, there you have it--why bees clean themselves. Great information! Thanks, bee experts and Bay Nature!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The event, hosted May 9 in the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science by the Honey and Pollination Center and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, drew some 360 people.
Entomology doctoral candidate Matthew Prebus of the Phil Ward lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, video-recorded the presentations and uploaded them today.
You can watch them on YouTube.
Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center, and Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, welcomed the crowd.
Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight Professor, University of Minnesota and a 2010 MacArthur Fellow, keynoted the symposium, speaking on "Helping Bees Stand on Their Own Six Feet."
The presentations on YouTube:
Marla Spivak: Protecting Pollinators
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation generously provided funding.
Upcoming blog: Who won the student poster competition at the symposium and with what topics?
/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The new UC California Cooperative Extension apiculturist, Elina Lastro Niño, has moved it to her website now that Eric Mussen has retired. Mussen, now Extension apiculturist emeritus, wrote the newsletter from 1976 to 2014 and loaded it on his UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website. The editions are now archived.
The new home? It's on the elninobeelab website.
It's available online for free, of course. The newsletter is published bimonthly: in February, April, June, August, October and December. Niño relates: "If you wish to have this newsletter sent directly to your email address, please follow the instructions below. Enter this URL into your browser: https://lists.ucdavis.edu/sympa/subscribe/ucdavisbeenews. When it opens, it should relate to subscribing to this newsletter. Enter your email address and then click submit. It is time to decide whether to continue your hard copy subscription. The mailed subscription rate is now $25 per year (six issues). If you'd still like to continue this subscription please send a check by April 10, 2015 payable to the UC Regents and mailed to Elina L. Niño at the address in the signature block. Be sure to include your name and mailing address. If the check is not received you will not receive the next issue of the newsletter as a hard copy. This, of course, does not apply to those who have already prepaid for a certain time period."
In the newest edition, published today, you'll learn about how to treat those nasty Varroa mites, known far and wide (except in Australia, which doesn't have them) as beekeepers' Public Enemy No. 1.
Niño writes about HopGuard® II, "basically an 'old' product developed by BetaTec Hop Products, Inc., but it has an improved delivery system."
You'll also learn
- what Niño said when she addressed the the Avocado Pollination Seminar series
- that EPA is registering a new insecticide, flupyradifuron
- about exciting upcoming events, including a bee symposium, open house, and queen-rearing workshops, and
- some great information about how honey bees collect nectar.
How honey bees collect nectar is her Kids' Corner feature. "Usually after about three weeks of life as a house bee, all healthy honey bees in a normal, healthy colony become foragers," she writes. "They start every morning by going out into the world looking for the best sources of sugary nectar and protein-rich pollen. Some of them even collect water. Now, I'm sure you've seen these friendly ladies just buzzing along visiting flowers in your back yard. By the way, just a reminder, forager bees will not attack unless they feel threatened so just make sure you don't bother them and you should be fine (and tell your friends too!). "
Niño goes on to explain the process, and points out, as Mussen emphasizes, that honey is "not actually bee vomit as it never goes through a digestion (breakdown) process in the digestive tract of a honey bee." (Mussen officially retired in June 2014 after 38-years of service, but he continues to maintain an office in Briggs Hall and assists wherever he can, including writing a few articles for the newsletter.)
Niño, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology on Sept. 1, 2014 from Pennsylvania State University—2600 miles away--is as busy as the proverbial worker bee.
“California is a good place to bee,” she told us recently. “I just wish I could have brought some of that Pennsylvania rain with me to help out California's drought."
Niño operates her field lab at Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, and at her lab in Briggs Hall, on the central campus. Her aims: to conduct practical, problem-solving research projects; to support the state's beekeepers through research, extension and outreach; and to address beekeeper and industry concerns.
The mission of her program is "to provide support to California beekeepers and other relevant stakeholders through research, extension and outreach." Niño studies honey bee biology, health, reproduction, pollination biology, insect ecology, evolution, genomics and chemical ecology.
Check out her lab's website at http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/; and her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/elninolab. Her email is so easy to remember: elnino@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You'll learn more about honey bees if you attend the Crop Pollination Workshop next month.
UC Cooperative Extension Apiculturist Elina Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology will speak on “Multiple Stresses Impact Honey Bees” at the Crop Pollination Workshop on Tuesday, Feb. 3 on the Colusa County Fairgrounds, 1303 10th St., Colusa.
Niño is the first of six speakers at the workshop, which begins at 1 p.m. and continues through 3:30 p.m.
Pollination is important for a number of crops grown in Colusa County, said workshop coordinators Katharina Ullmann of the Xerces Society and Farm Advisor Rachael Long, Yolo County Cooperative Extension Office. At the Crop Pollination Workshop, regional experts will share the latest on honey bee health, onion pollination, management practices that support pollinators of cucurbits and almonds, and how to encourage beneficial insects on your farm using hedgerows.
The event is free and open to all interested persons. No reservations are required. Sponsors include UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Xerces Society, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Colusa County Resource, and UC Agricultural and Natural Resources.
The complete schedule:
1 p.m. Welcome
1:05 p.m. "Multiple Stresses Impact Honey Bees" by Elina Niño, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
1:25 p.m. “Insecticides Reduce Honey Bee Visitation and Pollen Germination in Hybrid Onion Seed Production” by Rachael Long, Farm Advisor, UCCE, Yolo County
1:50 p.m. “Best Management Practices for Squash and Pumpkin Pollinators” by Katharina Ullmann, Pollinator Conservation Specialist, Xerces Society and formerly of UC Davis (she received her doctorate in entomology last year)
2:15 p.m. “Enhancing Habitat in Almonds and Almond Pollination” by Kimiora Ward, staff research associate, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
2:40 p.m. “Hedgerows Enhance Pollinators and Pollination Services” by Lauren Ponisio, graduate student, Environmental Sciences and Policy Management, UC Berkeley
3:05 p.m. “Hedgerows Enhance Biodiversity and Provide Crop Benefits in Agricultural Landscapes” by Rachael Long, Farm Advisor, UCCE, Yolo County
3:20 p.m. “USDA-NRCS Financial and Technical Support for Hedgerows,” Andrea Casey, Colusa NRCS DC
For more information, contact Long at (530) 666-8734 or rflong@ucanr.edu.