- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's bee-ginning to look a lot like Christmas...
All hail our littlest agricultural worker.
European colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) to what is now the United States in 1622. Specifically, the bees arrived at the Jamestown colony (Virginia). Native Americans nicknamed the honey bee "the white man's fly."
California would have to wait until 1853 for honey bees to arrive. That's when Texas beekeeper Christopher Shelton, brought his colonies to the San Jose area. A plaque outside the international terminal of the San Jose airport documents their arrival.
The plaque, "First Honeybees in California," reads:
"Here, on the 1939-acre Rancho Potrero de Santa Clara, Christopher A. Shelton in early March 1853 introduced the honey bee to California. In Aspinwall, Panama, Shelton purchased 12 bee hives from a New Yorker and transported them by rail, “bongo,” pack mule and steamship to San Francisco. Only enough bees survived to fill one hive, but these quickly propagated, laying the foundation for California's modern beekeeping industry. California registered Landmark No. 945 plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in Cooperation with E. Clampus Vitus, Mountain Charlie Chapter No. 1850, and in honor of San Jose City Historian Clyde Arbuckle, March 6, 1982."
According to atlasobscura.com, "In 1853, Texan Christopher A. Shelton purchased 12 hives of bees from an unknown beekeeper in what is now Colon, Panama. The bees, already transported to Panama from New York, were then sent up to San Francisco and Alviso, the nearest port to San Jose, by steamer. They then continued their journey via train and mule to the 1939-acre Rancho Potrero de Santa Clara where Shelton settled."
"Only enough bees to form one hive survived," the Atlas Obscura post related. "These German black bees (Apis mellifera mellifera) endured the tedious trek and were propagated throughout California and soon the whole of the West Coast. Shelton was not so fortunate and died alongside other prominent South Bay Residents of the time on the infamous Jenny Lind steamship explosion just a month after the receipt of his bees. His three hives—it didn't take long for his original stock to multiply—were sold at auction for $110 each, 22 times the price of a beehive on the East Coast."
Ever seen the inside of a hive? That's where the magic begins. You'll see "The Girls": the queen, nurse maids, nannies, royal attendants, builders, architects, dancers, honey tenders, pollen packers, propolis or "glue" specialists, air conditioning and heating technicians, guards, and undertakers.
And in spring, summer and early fall, you'll see "The Boys," the drones. They have one responsibility: reproduction. The drone mates in mid-air with a virgin queen, and then he dies--"and with a smile on his face," according to the UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022).
As we celebrate Merry Christmas and the New Year, the bees could use some cele-bee-tion, too.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Bug Squad.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Just a partridge in a pear tree, 2 turtle doves, 3 French hens, 4 calling birds, 5 gold rings, 6 geese-a-laying, 7 swans-a-swimming, 8 maids a'milking, 9 ladies dancing, 10 lords-a-leaping, and 11 pipers piping.
Where, oh, where, are all the insects?
So we replaced "five gold rings" with "five golden bees." Other insects crawled, hopped, leaped and fluttered into the song. We sang the piece during our 2010 UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology holiday party. The lyrics went viral when U.S. News picked it up:
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a psyllid in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 2 tortoises beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 10 locusts leaping, 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 11 queen bees piping, 10 locusts leaping, 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 12 deathwatch beetles drumming, 11 queen bees piping, 10 locusts leaping, 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree
"On the 13th day of Christmas, Californians woke to see: 13 Kaphra beetles, ?12 Diaprepes weevils, ?11 citrus psyllids, ?10 Tropilaelaps clareae, ?9 melon fruit flies, 8 Aedes aegypti, 7 ash tree borers, 6 six spotted-wing Drosophila, 5 ?five gypsy moths, 4 Japanese beetles, 3 imported fire ants, 2 brown apple moths, and a medfly in a pear tree."
Today the song is still making the rounds, but with some different pests--pests that challenge entomologists in the California Department of Food and Agriculture:
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a psyllid in a pear tree.
One the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two peach fruit flies
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, three false codling moths
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, four peach fruit flies
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, five gypsy moths
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six white striped fruit flies
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, seven imported fire ants
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eight longhorn beetles
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, nine melon fruit flies
On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, ten brown apple moths
On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eleven citrus psyllids
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, twelve guava fruit flies.
On the 13th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, thirteen Japanese beetles
And, then, of course, there's that dratted pest, the Varroa destructor (varroa mite) from Asia, which arrived in the United States in 1987. Known as the No. 1 enemy of beekeepers, this external parasitic mite feeds on fat body tissue, and can transmit debilitating viruses. This is not what you want for Christmas--or any other time.
'Tis the season to celebrate the holidays...and to check your Yule tree branches for a praying mantis egg case (ootheca).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Whiteman, UC Berkeley professor of genetics, genomics, evolution and development, and director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, writes with a passion bestowed on him by his late father, a naturalist. “....he was a used car salesman, and later, a furniture salesman, but in his heart, he was a naturalist.”
The 336-page book is captivating, transparent, and fascinating--an “I-didn't-know-that-tell-me-more!” read.
Take monarchs.
Whiteman recalls a scene from his childhood. He and his father are in a patch of milkweed. His father tears a leaf in half. As "white latex" drips from the leaf, his father tells him: "That's why they call it milkweed. Don't ever eat it. Heart poisons are in that sap.”
The toxins are terpenoids called cardiac glycosides. “One of the principal toxins in the common milkweeds that my dad and I encountered is aspecioside,” Whiteman wrote. "The monarchs obtained these heart poisons during their caterpillar stage. But the caterpillars did something even more extraordinary—they concentrated the toxin to levels even high than those found in the milkweed itself.”
“The butterflies were poisonous, my dad explained, because as caterpillars, they had eaten toxins from the milkweed leaves. The insects then stored the toxins in their bodies all the way through metamorphosis, from a zebra-striped caterpillar to a chrysalis encircled at the top by a golden diadem, to the familiar brightly colored butterfly.”
Whiteman points out that monarch butterflies "evolved to become brightly colored to warn predatory birds and other predators of the bitter and emetic cardiac glycosides within." When a bird eats a monarch, it vomits, associating "the butterfly with danger, just as Pavlov's dogs learned to associate the ring of a bell with food.”
That led Whiteman to the question “How do animals that sequester these toxins, as the monarch does, resist them?”
Whiteman researched cardiac glycosides with evolutionary ecologist Anurag Agrawal of Cornell University, who received his doctorate in population biology in 1999 from UC Davis, studying with major professor Richard "Rick" Karban, Department of Entomology and Nematology.
You'll have to read Chapter 4, "Dogbane and Digitalis," to learn what Whiteman, Agrawal and their colleagues discovered.
All 13 chapters of “Most Delicious Poison” are deliciously intriguing and inviting, from “Deadly Daisies,” “Hijacked Hormones,” “Caffeine and Nicotine” to “Devil's Breath and Silent Death” to “Opicoid Overloads” to “The Spice of Life.” And more.
His father's death in 2017 from a substance use disorder (alcohol) pushed him to write the book. "His long struggle with nature's toxins came to a head just as my collaborators and I uncovered how the monarch butterfly caterpillar resists the deadly toxins made by the milkweed host plant.”
Toxins are why the monarch can migrate thousands of miles to overwintering spots without getting eaten by predatory birds.
Nature's chemicals are not a side show, as Whiteside emphasizes. They're "the main event."
(Editor's Note: The Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, displayed Whiteman's book at its Nov. 4th open house on monarchs. Whiteman plans to deliver a presentation on the UC Davis campus sometime next spring.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you're feeling overwhelmed during the holiday season and just can't seem to concentrate, check out the focus and intensity of this male territorial bee, a Melissodes agilis.
It was back in July of 2015 when I spotted a meloid beetle on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, in a Vacaville pollinator garden.
The Melissodes did, too.
Now the meloid beetle is a blister beetle (family Meloidae). Don't touch these beetles because they emit a poisonous chemical, cantharidin, that can blister your skin. It makes for great defense. Touch me, and I'll blister your skin. No wonder the chemical is used to remove warts.
Blister beetles are also known to infest alfalfa hay, and are toxic--even deadly--to livestock. See "Blister Beetles" published by the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station.
"Cantharidin, a vesicant produced by beetles in the order Coleoptera, has a long history in both folk and traditional medicine...Historically, cantharidin has been used as an aphrodisiac, an abortifacient, and a veterinary medicine diuretic." --Cantharidin Revisited, JAMA Dermatology.
So here's this bee targeting the beetle. Oh, the intensity of those eyes...much like a last-minute shopper eyeing a 50 percent-off gift, the last in stock, and ignoring the attempts of last-minute shoppers to grab it.
Did the beetle move?
Not a bit. It rose and ate some of the pollen that the bee was trying to save for its own species.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a week before Christmas and it's not just the geese that are getting fat.
If you're thinking that the bathroom scale and you are not good friends, not to worry.
We remember the late Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen (1944-2022) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, emphasizing the massive weight gain that occurs during the larval stage of the honey bee. He used to speak at scores of beekeeping functions throughout the year, and every time he talked about larval weight gain, he always drew a "Wow!" or "Incredible!" or "Amazing!"
"A honey bee egg weighs about 0.1 mg," Mussen told us. "The first stage larva weighs the same. Over the next six days of larval life the larva goes from 0.1 mg to around 120 mg. It defecates once, just before pupating, and the resulting adult bee weighs around 110 mg. Thus, the new bee weighs about 1,000 times the weight of the one-day-old larva."
Now get this:
"If a human baby, weighing eight pounds at birth, were to grow at the same rate, the baby would weigh 8,000 pounds, or 4 tons, at the end of six days."
Four tons in six days? Fortunately, what goes on with Apis mellifera does not apply to Homo sapiens.
