- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's National Pollinator Week and there's exciting news on the horizon.
Staff research associate Billy Synk of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis, has been named director of Pollination Programs for Project Apis m. (aka Project Apis mellifera or PAm),
PAm executive director Christi Heintz posted today:
"The last month has been a banner month for PAm. First, we are very fortunate to have Billy Synk joining our staff as Director of Pollination Programs. He's been UC Davis' staff research associate and beekeeper. Billy will be a great asset to PAm. He knows bees, the beekeeping industry, apiculture research, and has the skills to expand not only our habitat projects but also our research program. Secondly, the Federal Strategy to improve honey bee health was released. PAm was part of the process since the initial meeting in Washington D.C. and was mentioned twice in the final document. PAm is poised to take full advantage of the multi-agency focus on honey bees and will work hard to pursue opportunities that can help bees and beekeepers as a result of this effort. Lastly, six new studies on Varroa control were approved for funding. We are very excited to get this research underway and prevent that anniversary party for Varroa when September, 2017 rolls around and the pest has been in the country 30 years. We committed to several innovative studies that also held a good chance for success. This week is Pollinator Week, but every day is Honey Bee Day at Project Apis m.!"
As the director of Pollination Programs, Synk will be based in Sacramento and manage PAm's "Seeds for Bees" project and work with Pheasants Forever on the Honey Bee and Monarch Butterfly Partnership, Heintz said.
Said Synk: "I've always been really passionate about bees, and I care about this industry, I'm enthusiastic and energized by the opportunity to work with PAm while developing and implementing programs that benefit honey bees and beekeepers."
PAm's mission "is to fund and direct research to enhance the health and vitality of honey bee colonies while improving crop production." It is headquartered in Paso Robles. Heinz works out of southern Arizona. "We are geographically mobile, just like beekeepers!" Heintz quipped.
Synk holds a bachelor's degree in environmental policy and management from Ohio State University, where he was trained by noted bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, who later worked at UC Davis before joining her fellow bee scientists at Washington State University. Synk appeared on the cover of the American Bee Journal in February 2014.
At UC Davis, Synk worked on research projects with bee scientists Brian Johnson and Neal Williams. He played a role in the behind-the-scenes publication of National Geographic's Quest for a Superbee. For about a year, Synk worked closely with Bay Area-based photographer Anand Varma on a time-lapsed photography project of the development of a honey bee: from an egg to an adult. You can see this incredible video on YouTube.
And, be sure to listen to Varma's TED talk on bees.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Varma's time-lapse video of 2500 images vividly shows the development of eggs to pupae to adults. He captured the video at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis. Varma's images of a bee in flight, and a close-up of an emerging worker bee are also from the Laidlaw apiary.
Those are our girls!
Indeed, our bees from the Laidlaw facility figured quite prominently in the piece, “Quest for a Superbee,” published in the May edition of National Geographic.
Staff research associate/beekeeper Billy Synk worked with and assisted photographer Varma for about a year. Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen, who retired last June after 38 years of service, served as a research fact-checker. National Geographic contacted him for data confirmation.
The article, authored by Charles Mann, questions “Can the world's most important pollinators be saved?' and ponders “how scientists and breeders are trying to create a hardier honeybee.”
In his article, Mann explores what it would take to build a better bee. He touches on RNAi and quotes bee researcher Marla Spivak of the University of Minnesota and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” as saying “If you target one specific area, the organism will always make an end run around it.” She advocates a “healthier, stronger” bee, or what Mann writes as “one that can fight (varroa) mites and disease on its own, without human assistance.”
Spivak was the keynote speaker at the Bee Symposium, hosted May 9 by the Honey and Pollination Center in the UC Davis Conference Center. It drew a crowd of 360. (Soon we'll post video from the symposium.)
Spivak and John Harbo of the USDA's research center in Baton Rouge, La. “both succeeded in breeding versions of hygienic bees by the late 1990s,” Mann writes. “A few years after that, scientists realized that hygienic bees are less effective as the mites grow more numerous.”
Both Spivak and Varma have presented TED talks on honey bees.
Spivak: Why Bees Are Disappearing
Varma: A Thrilling Look at the First 21 Days of a Bee's Life
Both of the TED talks should be required viewing for anyone who wants to know more about bees and their needs. Maybe these TED talks should be TEB talks--Take Every Bee Seriously.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But over at the 140th annual Dixon May Fair (May 7-May 10), you'll see another kind of buzz, another kind of palace and another kind of royalty.
The Buzzingham Palace will be buzzing. It's a bee observation hive belonging to the Honey and Pollination Center, UC Davis. Looking through the glass, fairgoers can observe a colony in action--the queen laying eggs, worker bees (females) tending to her every need and the needs of the colony, including the drones (males).
The bee observation hive is a product from Mann Lake, Woodland, said.Amina Harris, who directs the Honey and Pollination Center. The bees were donated by Ray Olivarez of Olivarez Honey Bees, Orland.
Staff research associate Billy Synk of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is tending the bees in the Buzzingham Palace.
The observation hive will be showcased inside a booth in the Southard Floriculture Building along with posters, photos and scientific information about bees from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Entomologists and graduate students from UC Davis will staff the booth. Among them will be entomologist Jeff Smith, an associate at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, who will talk about insects and spiders. Fairgoers can hold Peaches, a rose-haired tarantula; walking sticks, and Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
Want to see Buzzingham Palace, hold Peaches and talk to the entomologists?
The fairgrounds are located at 655 S. First St., Dixon. The Dixon May Fair is the oldest district fair and fairgrounds in the state of California, according to chief executive officer Patricia "Pat" Conklin. It's filled with many agricultural-related exhibits in keeping with the theme, "Nuttin' But Fun." (Think walnuts and almonds, two of the major agricultural industries in the county.)
Fair hours are:
Thursday, May 7: 4 to 11 p.m.
Friday, May 8: Noon to 11 p.m.
Saturday, May 9: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Sunday, May 10: Noon to 11 p.m.
For more information check out Dixon May Fair's "Fair at a Glance."
Meanwhile, the Buzzingham Palace is buzzing!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ever watched Valley carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) foraging on salvia?
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, recently noticed a flurry of carpenter bees in the grape-scented sage, Salvia melissodora, in the Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden on Bee Biology Road.
Native bee enthusiast Celeste Ets-Hokin of the Bay Area gifted the plant to him. It is now thriving in the department's half-acre bee friendly garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. Planted in 2009, the garden is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus.
When carpenter bees forage on the sage, they receive "pollen deposits" or "pollen caps" on their heads. "A perfect placement spot for pollen transfer from flower to flower," Thorp commented. "It also produces a striking orangish patch on the face of the all black bees."
The female Valley carpenter beesare solid black, while the males (which Thorp calls "teddy bear bees"), are green-eyed blonds.
As for the Salvia melissodora, the name "melissodora" originates from the Greek "Melissa" (honey bee) and "odora" (fragrance).
Mark your calendar for Saturday, May 2. That's when the Department of Entomology and Nematology will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the garden installation. Free and open to the public, the open house will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. UC Davis bee scientists will be there to help you observe and identify the native bees and provide information on honey bees. Download the flier for more information.
Thanks to a generous gift from Häagen-Dazs, the garden came to life during the term of interim department chair, Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, who coordinated the entire project.
A Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--won the design competition. The judges were Professor Kimsey; founding garden manager Missy Borel (now Missy Borel Gable), then of the California Center for Urban Horticulture (CCUH) at UC Davis and now director of the statewide UC Master Gardeners; David Fujino, executive director, CCHU; Aaron Majors, construction department manager, Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors, based in Novato; Diane McIntyre, senior public relations manager, Häagen-Dazs ice cream; Heath Schenker, professor of environmental design, UC Davis; Jacob Voit, sustainability manager and construction project manager, Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors; and Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Others who played a key role in the founding and "look" of the garden included the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, co-founded and co-directed by the duo of entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now Department of Entomology and Nematology), and self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick. The ceramic mosaic art is the work of UC Davis Entomology 1 students, taught by Ullman and Billick, and artists from the community. Billick's stunning ceramic bee sculpture of a worker bee, "Miss Bee Haven," anchors the garden. Eagle Scout Derek Tully planned, organized and built a state-of-the-art fence around the garden. Later the California chapter of the Daughters of the America Revolution provided a much-welcomed donation. (Read more about the history of the bee garden here). Chris Casey succeeded Melissa Borel as the manager of garden.
Now five years have come and gone, and generations of bees have come and gone. Life is good.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We're accustomed to seeing honey bees pollinating the almonds.
But carpenter bees do, too.
We spotted a female Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta, foraging in an almond tree on Feb. 24 in a field adjacent to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.
Sounding like a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, this lone carpenter bee buzzed loudly as she visited one blossom after another. She was on a mission: a do-not-linger, do-not-stop-me, and get-out-of-my-way mission.
The Valley carpenter bees, about the size of bumble bees, are the largest carpenter bees in California. The girls are solid black, while the boys are blond with green eyes. We can't count how many times people think the males are "golden bumble bees."
It's rare to get an image of "a blond and a brunette" (male and female) in the same photo. Gary Park, a contributor to BugGuide.net, did just that. Check out his amazing photos of a pair mating.
Carpenter bees derive their name from drilling holes in untreated, unfinished wood to make their nests. Only the females excavate the wood. Contrary to popular opinion, they do not eat the wood. To prevent these bees from nesting in your fence posts or deck, just paint or varnish the wood. We know some folks who like having them around and leave wood untreated and unfinished.
First and foremost, however, carpenter bees are pollinators. Excellent pollinators.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor entomology at UC Davis, tries to convince people to live with these bees as “they are important pollinators in our environment and have potential as pollinators of some crops.”
