- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
There's a good reason why they're called "the menace in the mattress." The mattress is one of their hiding spots.
They? Bed bugs. Parasites that feed on human blood.
"Bed bug infestations are rampant locally, nationally and globally," says Tanya Drlik, integrated pest management (IPM) coordinator of Contra Costa County who will speak at the May 3rd meeting of the Northern California Entomology Society, to be held in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.
“We’ve had a reprieve from bed bugs for about 50 years, but now they’re back,” said Drlik, who will discuss “The Resurgence of Bed Bugs and Current Effective Control Methods” at 9:45 a.m. in the Laidlaw conference room.
The society (membership is open to everyone) will meet from 9:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Drlik is one of five speakers on topics ranging from bed bugs to lacewings to endangered species.
Drlik, who formed the Bed Bug Task Force to help prepare Contra Costa County to meet the challenges of the mounting bed bug infestation, says that bed bugs “have no regard for wealth or class—everyone is vulnerable. Bed bugs can be found all across the country in apartment buildings, hotels and motels, private residences, hospitals, waiting rooms, fire station, taxis and buses…and the list goes on. They’ve infested four-star hotels and penthouses as well as homeless shelters and rundown apartment buildings.”
“Judging by history and the experience of other jurisdictions across the country, the problem is only going to increase, and more and more public buildings and homes will experience infestations,” said Drlik, who has a master’s degree in ecosystem management and nearly 40 years of experience in the field of IPM.
“Bed bugs are difficult to control because of their small size, their secretive nature and their growing resistance to the pesticides we have at our disposal. Poverty, clutter, and poor housekeeping do not cause bed bug infestations, but they make eliminating infestations much more difficult.”
Bed bugs “can be seen in epidemic proportions in some areas of the United States, including New York City and central and southwestern Ohio,” said Drlik, adding that since 2004, New York City has experienced a 2277 percent increase in complaints about bed bugs in the five boroughs (source: New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development). “Colleagues in the Franklin County Health Department in central Ohio have commented to us that they were completely unprepared for the rapidity with which bed bugs spread throughout their county.”
Other topics at the Nor Cal Entomology Society meeting include:
- “Protecting Invertebrates Listed as Threatened or Endangered Species in California” by Darlene McGriff, California Natural Diversity Database (California Department of Fish and Game).
- “California Forest Insect Conditions Going into 2012” by Cynthia Snyder, U.S. Forest Service, Shasta-McCloud Management Unit.
- “PG&E’s Use of Safe Harbor Agreements and Programmatic Permits to Protect Endangered Organisms on Utility Rights of Way” by Peter Beesley, PG&E.
- “In-Depth Look at Lacewings, an Augmentative California Biological Control Agent” by Shaun Winterton, California Department of Food and Agriculture Biological Control Program.
All great topics, to be sure. Bed bugs, however, are the big draw, in more ways than one.
We remember an Entomological Society of America (ESA) seminar on these bloodsuckers that resulted in a flurry of inspections back in the hotel rooms: mattress, baseboard, furniture, closet and luggage checks.
For excellent bed bug resources, check out the ESA website. And for more information on the Nor Cal Entomology Society meeting, see the UC Davis Department of Entomology website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you head over to the UC Davis Department of Entomology's displays at Briggs Hall and at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Saturday, April 21 during the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day, you'll find them.
Bug doctors. Lots of them. They'll be there from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will be behind a sign that says "Dr. Death" in Room 122 of Briggs Hall. (Briggs is located off Kleiber Hall Drive.) There you can ask him all kinds of questions about forensic entomology and he'll let you peer through his microscope. Ask him about CSI!
Out in front of Briggs Hall will be a "Bug Doctor" booth where you can "bug" the experts about bugs. Entomology faculty and graduate students will rotate shifts.
The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will have a team of experts at Briggs, too, to answer all sorts of questions. "We will do our usual display of information and tools for managing pests in homes and gardens," said Mary Louise Flint, the UC IPM's associate director of urban and community IPM and an Extension entomologist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "We'll give advice on managing pests with less toxic, environmentally sound IPM methods. We will have Quick Tips to hand out, people can try out our touch screen IPM kiosk to answer questions and we will also be distributing live lady beetles (aka ladybugs) for children."
Over at the Bohart Museum in Room 1124 of Academic Surge on California Drive, you'll meet the team of bug experts headed by director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology. You can examine the specimens (there are more than seven million housed in the museum) and they'll even let you hold the critters in their live "petting zoo" which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks.
Yes, there will be doctors in the house, but you know what? They will be far, far outnumbered by insects. (See the UC Davis Department of Entomology website for the full list of activities.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Those who attend the free public event, “Mentawai: Listening to the Rainforest,” on Sunday, April 22 on the UC Davis campus will find out.
The unique art/science fusion program, held appropriately on Earth Day, will be presented at 7 p.m. in the UC Davis Main Theatre. Doors open at 6:30. The event is affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance and the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.
The program is the work of scholar/performer/composer Linda Burman-Hall, professor of music/ethnomusicology at UC Santa Cruz, and biologist Richard Tenaza, professor of biological sciences, University of the Pacific, Stockton.
Tenaza's UC Davis connection: he received his doctorate in zoology from UC Davis in 1974.
Burman-Hall will present an electronic sound collage composition and videography, coupled with Tenaza’s field recordings and photography of threatened and endangered species in Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands, located more than 100 miles west of Sumatra.
In the abstract, Burman-Hall asks: “What does the rainforest tell us about ourselves and the world? In the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, wildlife communicates using a complete spectrum of sound that exceeds the range and timbre of a western orchestra. More than 50 meters overhead, female gibbons sing expressive duets in the tree-tops. Hundreds of unique species of birds, frogs, and insects also call and chorus, and in the midst of this sonorous world live indigenous tribes who have listened to the rainforest and existed harmoniously with its flora and fauna for millennia.”
“Mentawai, Listening to the Rainforest, is a extraordinary opportunity to enhance environmental literacy,” said artist Donna Billick, co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program. “Listening engages all our senses to a heightened awareness that brings consciousness into the present moment. This approach to research, using sound image and videography, is as good as it can be. I applaud Linda Burman-Hall and Richard Tenaza for drifting out into the Art/Science borderland to bring back the Mentawai gifts.”
Billick, a noted artist who created the six-foot-long bee sculpture in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, will be one of the respondents (asked for their views) following the presentation. Other respondents are UC Davis faculty members Lynne Isbell, professor of anthropology; Andrew Marshall, associate professor of anthropology; Sarah Hrdy, professor emerita of anthropology, Henry Spiller, associate professor of music (ethnomusicology).
The program will showcase wildlife of the rainforest. Tenaza, a wildlife biologist, photographer, world traveler and adventurer, has conducted research in the Arctic, Antarctica, Africa, South America, China, and throughout Southeast Asia with a focus on Indonesia. He specializes in primates and has worked extensively to document and preserve Kloss's gibbon (Hylobates klossii) of Mentawai.
And insects? Among the Mentawai insects Tenaza has photographed are nasute termites and assorted butterflies, including the Malay Lacewing (Cethosia hypsea) and The Cruiser (Vindula erota).
All in all, it promises to be "fantastic," says entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, who does triple duty as (1) professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (2) associate dean for undergraduate academic programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and (3) the co-director and co-founder of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Yes, you heard that right. Cactus honey.
The plant may present a prickly situation to us, but not to the bees.
In addition to cactus honey, honey bee guru Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, will share five other varieties: California buckwheat, avocado, Eucalyptus, sage and orange.
Visitors can taste the honey from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Briggs Hall courtyard. Some 25,000 toothpicks will be provided. The honey? It's from Bennett’s Honey Farm in Ventura County.
Mussen has been staffing the honey-tasting table every year at the UC Davis Picnic Day since 1980. This year, due to popular demand, the department will add another table.
Mussen, with the UC Davis Department of Entomology since 1976, also will answer questions about honey and honey bees.
The event, free and open to the public, is part of the entomological activities that will take place at two locations: Briggs Hall, off Kleiber Hall Drive, and the Bohart Museum of Entomology, 1124 Academic Surge on California Drive.
The scores of activities at Briggs Hall will include Maggot Art, cockroach races and termite trails. At the Bohart Museum, home of more than seven million specimens, visitors can check out not only the pinned specimens but the live “petting zoo,” which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks. In keeping with the museum theme, “Insects Are Forever”--and that insects can be a girl's best friend--the Bohart officials will post photos of women entomologists.
Indeed! You'll see professors, researchers and graduate students.
More information is on the UC Davis Department of Entomology website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology was quoted in a news story published today about a bee swarm on a Stockton ballfield.
"It came from over the center-field wall during the top of the fourth inning, a dark cloud headed straight for home plate," wrote Stockton Record staff writer Alex Breitler. "Bees. Perhaps 20,000 of them."
Breitler related that "players dived into the dirt or spring for the dugout, while the public address announcer asked the crowd to stay calm."
These weren't Africanized bees. They were European honey bees. But the buzzing apparently scared a lot of people.
Mussen explained to the news reporter why swarms occur: a honey bee colony grows so large that the queen takes off with half of the bees, leaving her hive to a daughter queen.
"When the bees are swarming," Mussen told the reporter, "it's about the craziest thing you ever saw. There's this big mass of bees moving back and forth, up and down, forward and backward."
When bees swarm, they're following their leaders or scouts, who are seeking a new home for the colony. (Read Thomas Seeley's The Honeybee Democracy.)
Often bee swarms move along in a couple of hours or a couple of days.
The bee swarm occurred on Sunday.
What happened next probably disgusted a lot of people, especially beekeepers and others who are trying to help the bees.
"The bees were still there the next morning," Breiter related. "With another game in a matter of hours, the team took action Monday."
Someone called an exterminator who "zapped them" dead.
All 20,000 of them. No more pollination services or honey producers for these bees.
As an aside, if you encounter a bee swarm, you can contact your local beekeeping association to collect the swarm. The UC Davis Department of Entomology maintains a list of California beekeeping groups and state beekeeping associations on its Bee Biology Program's website. Indeed, we in the UC Davis Department of Entomology frequently field calls about bee swarms. Three came in over the last couple of days. Each time a beekeeper came out and gratefully collected them.
Almost all of the calls we receive are prefaced with "I know that the bee population is declining and I don't want them killed. Do you know of someone who could come out and get them?"
Unfortunately, some call a exterminator. Me thinks that a beekeeper could arrive as quickly as an exterminator.
