- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A brilliant sunflower clinging to the red ring of autumn.
And here comes a common sunflower bee, Melissodes agilis (this is a female, as identified by native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis.)
The sunflower bee is a specialist on sunflowers (Helianthus spp.). Scientists know this as a long-horned ground-nesting bee, a member of Anthophoridae. Both the plant and the bee are native to the United States.
Melissodes agilis is commercially important. And it's common.
But there's nothing "common" about it when "sunflower bee" meets "sunflower."
The beauty is overwhelming.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sue Cobey is world renowned for her work in trying "to build a better bee." With colleagues, she collects drone semen throughout Europe and deposits it in Washington State University's honey bee germplasm repository, aka "the world's first bee sperm bank." Cobey works closely with entomologist Steve Sheppard, professor and chair of the WSU Department of Entomology.
Cobey is renowned, too, for teaching courses on queen bee insemination and queen bee-rearing courses. She draws students from all over the world, and there's always, always, a waiting list.
We first met Sue in May 2007 when she began managing the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis (she's now based at WSU).
You won't find anyone, anywhere, more passionate about honey bees or the need for diversity. Or the need to protect them. In October 2010, she told us that her overall goal "is to improve colony health to supply the critical and demanding need for pollination of the nation's agricultural crops."
Reporter Joel Millman of the Wall Street Journal successfully captures Cobey's passion.
Cobey talks about queen bee insemination, why bees are in trouble, and why the United States needs to unplug the genetic bottleneck. Honey bees, you see, are not natives. European colonists brought them to what is now the United States in 1622. Indeed, honey bees didn't arrive in California until 1853.
Cobey is especially fond of the subspecies, the Carniolans, originating from Slovenia. But she also works with Caucasians from the country of Georgia, and the Italians, the most common bee reared in the United States. To paraphrase Will Rogers, she's never found a bee she didn't like.
We are continually asked if Cobey still offers queen bee insemination classes. Yes, she does, but they're small, private classes. She will offer the classes in July and August. She also plans to teach a queen-rearing class at Mt. Vernon, Wash.. Dates not set. (She can be reached at scobey@mac.com)
Meanwhile, Cobey is working her hives on Whidbey Island and doing research at WSU. And enjoying every minute of it.
The Queen Bee of the Queen Bees--that she is.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
To bee or not to bee?
That was not the question. There was no question. The answer was "yes" before the event began.
When visiting bee scientist Jakub Gabka of Warsaw, Poland, studied at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis last summer with noted bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, she held a bee beard event for the Laidlaw crew.
Gabka struck this pose--which graces the cover of the current edition of American Bee Journal.
How did it feel? It’s heavy, it's hot, and it tickles, he said.
Cobey, now a bee researcher at Washington State University (she also teaches queen bee insemination classes and queen bee rearing classes), loves doing bee beard events.
It’s an educational and entertaining activity best done in the spring when the nectar flow is heavy, when the temperatures are optimum, and when the bees “are fat and happy,” she says.
You do not want to try this at home. Only beekeepers should do this, and with a seasoned bee beard coordinator. Proper knowledge, preparations and training of the bees are crucial. A novice, unaccustomed to being around bees, might freak out. Literally.
“The fact that honey bees are venomous insects with the ability to sting when threatened, must be respected,” Cobey says.
Cobey has organized bee beard venues at a number of places, including Ohio State University’s Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Laboratory and the Laidlaw facility (her former workplaces), and in Washington state, where she and her husband, Tim Lawrence, a county Extension director, now reside. (See her research lecture, "Enhancing Genetic Diversity in the U.S. Honey Bee Gene Pool" on the Lewis County (Wash.) Beekeepers' Association website), along with more bee beard photos.)
Beekeepers are passionate about their fascination with honey bees, Cobey acknowledges. "The ultimate beekeeping experience is getting intimate with bees and literally looking a bee in the eye."
Cobey will be writing a "how to" piece on bee bearding in the near future.
Meanwhile, if a photo is worth a thousand words, what is a photo of thousands of bees on your head worth?
Priceless.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No, it's not a honey bee.
But many people think all floral visitors are bees.
It's a fly. A drone fly.
Family: Syrphidae; subfamily Eristalinae; tribe Eristalini; genus, Eristalis. Like all syrphids, it has two wings. The honey bee has four.
In its larval stage, the drone fly is known as a rat-tailed maggot. You'll see it in stagnant water, floating in ditches, ponds and drains. It feeds on stagnant rotting organic material.
We spotted this drone fly last Sunday sipping nectar on our bulbine (Bulbine frutescens). The plant is known as a bulbine, typically meaning a bulbous plant, but Bulbine frutescens has no bulb.
The drone fly, a pollinator, glittered in the late afternoon sun as it headed for the bulbine.
Then came the "drone strike"--on the nectar!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a topic we've all been waiting for: "Honey Bee Health and Disease Resistance."
Jay Evans, a research entomologist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Beltsville Bee Research Laboratory for the past 14 years, will discuss "Bee Disease Resistance and Colony Health" on Wednesday, Oct. 2 to open the fall seminar series hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
His lecture, open to all interested persons, is from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, located on Kleiber Hall Drive, UC Davis campus.
"Honey bees are vulnerable to poor nutrition, parasites and pathogens, and exposure to chemicals," Evans said. "These threats can occur in batches and little is known about the impacts of multiple challenges to honey bee health, and about the abilities of bees to fend off these threats. I will present recent work aimed at determining the impacts of multiple parasites on bee health. I will also discuss the impacts Varroa mites, chemicals, and bacterial symbionts on bee health and colony losses."
As a research entomologist, Evans has focused his projects on a range of bee pests including bacteria, fungi, viruses and, mites, and beetles. He is especially interested in the immune defenses of bees toward these threats.
Evans was an early proponent of the Honey Bee Genome Project and helped recruit and organize scientists interested in applied genomics for bees. He has improved and applied genetic screens for possible causes of colony collapse disorder and is now heading a consortium to sequence the genome of the Varroa mite in order to develop novel control methods for this key pest.
Evans holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Princeton and a doctorate in biology from the University of Utah.
The fall seminars, coordinated by faculty members Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson, will be held every Wednesday noon through Dec. 11 in 122 Briggs Hall, except for Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Week, when no seminar will be held.
Under the coordination of professor James R. Carey, all seminars are to be videotaped and posted at a later date on UCTV.
Anyone with a computer can view the seminars, and yes, they're free.
