Since this is National Pollinator Week, you're probably out celebrating the bees--maybe doing hand stands, cartwheels and pirouettes.

But have you ever thought about beetles as pollinators? They are.

We spotted this little critter on a California golden poppy at the Sonoma Mission in Sonoma, Calif. Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, knew what it was immediately, even though through all the pollen.

It's a melyrid beetle, a flightless beetle. Some species found elsewhere in the world are loaded with poison and are eaten by poison-dart frogs and passerine birds, including the pitohui. Scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) say these frogs and birds derive their poison from melyrid beetles and if they don't eat enough of them, they lose their toxicity. Indeed, there's a golden poison-dart frog that carries enough venom to kill 10 people, according to National Geographic.  

If you want to know what this melyrid beetle looks like when it's not wearing its coat of many pollen grains, check out this photo by Peter Bryant of UC Irvine and another photo by Thomas Roach of Lincoln, Calif., an insect photographer and a frequent visitor to the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus.

Sometimes you see honey bees "making a beeline."

Such was the case when this honey bee (below) encountered a native wildflower, blue lupine (Lupinus).

Lupines are known more as pollen plants than nectar plants, according to Frank Pellett's book, American Honey Plants, a Dadant publication. Lupines, native to North America, belong to the legume family (Fabaceae).

"There are many species of lupines which are common, especially in the plains region and west to the Pacific coast," Pellett wrote. "Some are of no value to the bees, or yield pollen only." However, beekeepers in Colorado and Texas, he acknowledged, tout it for the nectar, too.

Authors C. E. Sanborn and E. E. Scholl, in their book, Texas Honey Plants, published in 1908, considered the blue lupine or bluebonnet (Lupinus subcarnosus, the state flower of Texas), as a good source of honey and of pollen. They described the pollen as "very bright" and "orange."

No matter what it's considered--a good pollen plant or a good nectar plant, depending on the locale, species and point of view--it's very  attractive to honey bees. 

They'll make a beeline for it.

Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey with queen cells. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A team of scientists from UC Davis and Washington State University will be heading for Italy tomorrow (June 19) to gather germplasm (sperm) of Old World/Italian honey bee stock. They'll bring it back to the United States to inseminate bee queens. 

Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, who has a joint appointment at UC Davis and WSU, will be in Italy with colleagues Walter "Steve" Sheppard, professor and chair of the WSU Department of Entomology, and Ph.D. student Brandon Hopkins of WSU. They're scheduled to return June 27.

Increasing the overall genetic diversity of honey bees may lead to healthier and hardier bees that can better fight off parasites, pathogens and pests, says Cobey, director of the Honey Bee Stock Improvement Program. Just as stock improvement has served the poultry, dairy and swine industries well, the beekeeping industry needs access “to stocks of origin or standardized evaluation and stock improvement programs.”

So, which honey bee did the European colonists introduce to America in 1622? It wasn't the Italian (blond) subspecies, now the most prevalent here. It was the dark subspecies (Apis mellifera mellifera), that made its way to the Jamestown colony (present-day Virginia) from England. 

 The Italian bees were not introduced into our country until 1859, records show.

"The American beekeeping pubic was enamored with the newly available yellow and relatively gentle bees," authors Cobey, Sheppard and David Tarpy wrote in a chapter of the newly published book,  Honey Bee Colony Health: Challenges and Sustainable Solutions. "As a result, Italian-type honey bees form the basis for most present-day commercial beekeeping stocks in the U.S." 

However, a genetic bottleneck resulted from the U.S. Honey Bee Act of 1922, which restricted further importation of Old World honey bees to prevent the introduction of the tracheal mite, Acarapis woodi.

The importation of germplasm from the Old World stock of the Italian subspecies could very well result in a better bee.

That's the plan. That's the hope. The trio wants to make it happen.

The UC Davis/WSU team will fan out to bee labs and to commercial beekeepers' apiaries  and then deliver the germplasm to the WSU lab in Pullman, Wash., where they'll inseminate queen bees.

Cobey talked about the Stock Improvement Program at her May 2nd seminar presented to the UC Davis Department of Entomology.  Based at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility since 2007, she was trained by Laidlaw (1907-2003) himself. He's known as "the father of honey bee genetics."

If you access this web page, then click on the link at the top of the page below the headline, you can listen to Cobey's seminar. 

Fascinating stuff.

Let's have a pause--and applause--for the pollinators.

Next week, June 18-24, is National Pollinator Week, as designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

That means, says Pollinator Partnership, that it's time to celebrate all our pollinators--the bees, the birds, the butterflies, the bats and the beetles.  Those are just the B's. Don't forget the flies, particularly the syrphid or flower flies. And all the others, including ants, hawk moths, wasps, midges, thrips, carrion flies and fruit flies.

Pollinator Partnership officials remind us that pollinators "are responsible for pollinating nearly one-third of every bite of food we eat." And, "the global value of crops pollinated by bees is estimated to be nearly $217 billion."

What they want you to do is  S.H.A.R.E., which stands for Every landscape can Simply Have Areas Reserved for the Environment.  The idea is that when you plant for pollinators, everyone benefits: plants, pollinators, and people.

Take a look in your garden or a nearby garden. What's pollinating your ornamentals, vegetables and fruits?

We took a look in our garden and spotted:

--a yellow-faced bumble bee pollinating an ornamental plant, a rock purslane

--a squash bee  nestled in a squash blossom, and

--two honey bees battling it out for first rights to a pomegranate blossom.

Life is good.