- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You don't want to just keep bees, you want to devote your life to learning more about them and understanding them. And you want to engage in public service.
“Any universal and immutable scale with which to measure mastery of a human pursuit is at best elusive,” says Master Beekeeper Mea McNeil of San Anselmo, who doubles as a journalist, writing for beekeeping journals and other publications. “For those whose lives are devoted to understanding the wonders that are bees, every research answer begets a new question. So it is that an array of Master Beekeeper programs have been developed to bring dedicated beekeepers to a sophisticated level of knowledge that is defined by each course.”
McNeill, who is also an organic farmer, wrote those words for an article published 10 years ago in The American Bee Journal. Roger Morris of Cornell University taught the first known Master Beekeeping course, she related, and the first Master Beekeeping certificate went to beekeeper Peter Bizzosa in 1972.
The good news is that the University of California, Davis, is now planning its first-ever Master Beekeeping course. There are no times and dates. Not yet. It's all in the beginning stages, says Extension apiculturist Elina Niño of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
If you want to get on the Master Beekeeper list, send an email to sympa@ucdavis.edu from your email address or the address you want subscribed. In the subject line of your message, type in: subscribe camasterbee Firstname Lastname.
“I completed the Master Beekeeping Program at the University of Nebraska under Dr. Marion Ellis,” McNeil said, adding that it was quite comprehensive. “I learned enough about bees and beekeeping to become humbled at the vastness of the subject. An important component of that program is service, so, as a working journalist, I began writing about the bee world as a result.”
In her journal article, McNeil described several programs, but pointed out that “No two programs may be alike, but they spring from a common philosophy: the bees are precious and necessary, and those who know them well will serve to help them thrive. Most intend to create ambassadors for the bees, a mission to bring the public into greater awareness of their importance.”
These are university-level courses--extensive, detailed and challenging--with written, lab, oral and field exams. You have to know the material and be comfortable in explaining it. You may have to, for example, identify “a blob of unidentifiable substance” and “describe the cause and how to prevent it,” as McNeil wrote. One blob turned out to be “chewed up bees from skunks sucking the juices from bees, then spitting out bee parts.”
Take the Master Beekeeping Program at the University of Florida. It's an ongoing program that spans a minimum of five years. Participants work toward “advancing to the next level by reading books, demonstrating public service credits, participating in research projects, or extension programs, etc.," the website says. "In order to enter the program, you must begin by taking the written and practical examination for the Apprentice Beekeeper level." Master Beekeepers serve as an arm of the Extension services.
Meanwhile, in addition to the pending Master Beekeeper course, UC Davis offers beekeeping and queen-rearing courses for novices, intermediates and advanced beekeepers. If you're interested in joining the beekeeping course list, send an email to sympa@ucdavis.edu from the address you want to subscribed to the list. In the subject line, type: subscribe elninobeelabclasses Firstname Lastname.
If you want to learn more about the UC Davis honey bee program, access the E. L. Niño lab website at http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/ or the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/elninolab.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bee my valentine.
There's something about a honey bee foraging on a flowering quince that makes you long for Valentine's Day and the end of winter.
Flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.) is one of the first flowers of the year to bloom. And bloom it does, in between the rain drops and rays of sunshine.
It's a delight to see the honey bees buzzing in and out of the delicate pink flowers as they tightly pack their yellow pollen for the trip back to their colony. Protein for the bees.
They're the real winged cupids of Valentine's Day, not the baby with the bow and arrow.
Wikipedia says of Valentine's Day: "The day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as valentines). In Europe, Saint Valentine's Keys are given to lovers 'as a romantic symbol and an invitation to unlock the giver's heart,' as well as to children, in order to ward off epilepsy (called Saint Valentine's Malady).Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards."
Remember those traditional Valentine's Day cards?
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
And so are you.
Me thinks that "pink" and "flowering quince" and "yellow pollen" and "honey" should have been in there somewhere...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Did you feel the buzz in 2015?
The honey bees, bumble bees, sunflower bees, sweat bees...what a year it was!
It's time to walk down memory lane--or stray from the garden path--and post a few bee images from 2015.
It wasn't all flowers and sunshine. Bees took a beating--from pesticides, pests, predators, diseases, malnutrition, climate change and stress.
Often it was predator vs. prey. So we include an image of a praying mantis feasting on one of our bee-loved honey bees, and freeloader flies (family Milichiidae) dining on a spider's prey.
That's what praying mantids, spiders and freeloader flies do. They. Eat. Bees. If I were in charge of their menu planning and food preparation, however, they'd get five-star dining: stink bugs, aphids, mosquitoes, cotton whitefly, and the Asian longorned beetle.
Give me five! Give us all five!
Happy New Year! And may the buzz be with you.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Confusion exists as to whether National Honey Bee Day is Aug. 15 or Aug. 22.
The group that formed National Honey Bee Awareness Day says its Aug. 15. Pennsylvania Apiculture, aka PennApic, launched the National Honey Bee Awareness Day in 2009.
The U.S. Congress, however, has proclaimed National Honey Bee Day as Aug. 22.
It really doesn't matter which day it is. We should celebrate National Honey Bee Day every day.
European colonists brought the honey bee to America (Jamestown colony, Virginia) in 1622. It wasn't until 1853, however, that the honey bee made its way to California, San Jose, to be more specific.
But where did the honey bee originate? For centuries, scientists thought it originated in Asia, but recent genetic analysis reveals it originated in Africa.
So all honey bees are descended from a common ancestor in Africa. It was out of Africa and into Europe and then all over the world.
In an article published in Softpedia, Charles W. Whitfield, professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says that "Our analysis indicates that the honey bee, Apis mellifera, originated in Africa and spread into Europe by at least two ancient migrations."
Excerpts from the article:
"The genus Apis contains 10 species, nine of which endemic to Asia. The only exception, Apis mellifera, the common honey bee, is found from sub-Saharan Africa to Central Asia to Northern Europe, and it is represented by more than two dozen distinct geographical subspecies."
"From Africa, the species spread to Europe and Asia, creating distinct genetic lineages (subspecies), including the Italian bee, used extensively for agricultural pollination."
Whitfield points out that the migrations "resulted in two European populations that are geographically close, but genetically quite different. In fact, the two European subspecies are more related to honey bees in Africa than to each other."
Whitfield relates that Europeans introduced in the Americas at least 10 subspecies from different parts of Europe, Near East and Northern Africa beginning with 1622.
North and South America quickly learned about the South African savanna subspecies, Apis mellifera scutellata, which scientists brought to Brazil in 1956 in an effort to increase honey production. It became known as "the killer bee" because of its aggression as it hybridized and displaced European honey bees.
"By studying variation in the honey bee genome, we can not only monitor the movement of these bees, we can also identify the genes that cause the variations--and that will allow us to better understand the differences," Whitfield said in Softpedia.
We're glad to see the exploding interest in the honey bee--from the backyard beekeeper to the rooftop beekeepers--and the work underway to protect it.
Apis mellifera needs to bee all it can bee.
(Editor's Note: Like Bug Squad on Facebook)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you see a news story about "honey bees" in a newspaper or magazine, odds are you'll see it spelled as one word, "honeybees."
That's because the Associated Press Stylebook, the journalists' "bible," spells it that way. So do dictionaries.
However, in the entomological world, that's incorrect. "Honey bee" is two words because it's a true bee, just like "bumble bee." Similarly, you wouldn't spell "dragonfly" as "dragon fly" because a dragonfly is not a fly.
The Entomological Society of America (ESA) governs the worldwide references to insects in its Common Names of Insects. If you want to know the common name, scientific name, order, family, genus, species and author, the ESA database provides it. Type in a name and a drop-down menu appears. Find the honey bee!
Common name: Honey bee
Scientific name: Apis mellifera Linnaeus
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Apidae
Genus: Apis
Species: mellifera
Author: Linnaeus
Extension apiculturist Elina Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology writes about the misspelling in the Kids' Corner of her recent newsletter, from the UC Apiaries. "Since starting my new job at UC Davis, I have been corrected a few times for spelling 'honey bee' as two words rather than 'honeybee,' a single word. What do you think: which one is more appropriate?"
She goes on to explain why "honey bee" is accurate. "Honey bees belong to an order of insects (a group of insects that have several similar features) named Hymenoptera which contains bees, wasps, sawflies and ants. You might even say they are 'true' bees and therefore, should be spelled as two words."
In an article published in a 2004 edition of Entomology Today, the Entomological Society of America's communications program manager Richard Levine acknowledges that "Writing insect names using American English can be difficult. Some species have different names depending on where you are, or with whom you are speaking (think 'ladybug' or 'ladybird' or 'lady beetle'). More often than not, an insect may not even have an official common name because out of the million or so insects that have been discovered and described, only a couple of thousand have been designated with common names by the Entomological Society of America (ESA)."
"To make matters worse," Levine writes, "even the ones that DO have official common names — ones that we see nearly every day — may have different spellings depending on whether they appear in scientific publications or other print media, such as newspapers or magazines."
So the "bible" of journalists--or what the Associated Press sanctions and governs--does not always agree with the scientific "bible" of the entomological community--or what ESA sanctions and governs.
"The reason for the discrepancy is that entomologists use two words if a common name accurately describes the order to which a particular insect belongs," Levine points out. "For example, all true flies belong to the order Diptera, so true fly names will be spelled using two words by entomologists — house fly, horse fly, pigeon fly, or stable fly, for example. However, despite their names, dragonflies and butterflies are NOT true flies — their orders are Odonata and Lepidoptera, respectively — so they are spelled as one word."
As an aside, we wonder if the controversy over the spelling of "honey bee" extends to spelling bees. Would judges eliminate someone for spelling "honey bee" with a space in between? "H-O-N-E-Y (space) B-E-E?"
Still, things can and do change. For years, the AP Stylebook editors insisted that "under take" is two words, not one. They've relented now, and it's one word, "undertake." Glory bee!
Will the AP Stylebook follow the ESA's Common Names of Insects and decide it's "honey bee," not "honeybee?" Will the AP Stylebook give the honey bee some space? Just a little space?
Stay tuned. Or stay buzzed.