Those dratted mites.

UC Davis entomologist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor and a native bee pollinator specialist, sent us a BBC report linking a varroa mite infestation to a devastating honey production loss in the UK. It's the worst honey crisis ever to hit the UK.

In short: beekeepers are concerned that by Christmas, there may be no more domestically produced honey left on the supermarket shelves.

The mite infestation has already killed off an estimated quarter of the UK's honey bees, according to BBC correspondent Jeremy Cooke, who said about "one in three colonies has been wiped out."

The varroa mite, or the Varroa destructor, is a nasty pest. Now found in most countries (Australia is an exception), it's an external parasite initially discovered on the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana. Over the last few decades, however, it has spread to the Western honey bee (also known as the European honey bee), Apis mellifera.

The varroa mite entered the UK in 1992, reports show. It has since spread throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The blood-sucking parasite feeds on both adults and the brood (immature larvae). It weakens the bees, opening them up to all sorts of diseases. And eventually, if not controlled, it will destroy the colonies.

The bad news is that the varroa mite cannot be completely eradicated, but with proper control methods, the mite population can be kept at a low level.

When California State Secretary of Agriculture A. G. Kawamura visited the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis last month, bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey showed him dead mites  on a hive floor. (See story on UC Davis Department of Entomology site.)

Kawamura is no stranger to bees or bee pests. As a youth, he reared bees--until the infectious bee disease, American foulbrood, upset his plans.

To control the mite, beekeepers usually use a combination of management methods. They use biotechnical methods and chemical controls. Unfortunately, in some areas, the varroa mite is developing resistance to miticides--another worry for beekeepers.

Said Cobey: "You need to reduce mite levels in colonies  by late summer--August/September--to have healthy bees in spring."

Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of UC Davis says that in California, the Department of Pesticide Regulation "is close to approving another chemical treatment" to help control the mite problem.

It may be ready by next spring.

The mites will be waiting.

Okay, what are the answers?

It's a fun game that draws entomologists and would-be entomologists from throughout the world. Professor Tom Turpin of Purdue, decked out in a tuxedo and a monarch butterfly bowtie, moderates the event and provides more humor than some of the late-night TV shows. This year's ESA meeting, the 56th annual, took place Nov. 16-19 in Reno.

Question: U.S. states have an official state insect.  List three states that do not have one.
Answer: Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and   Wyoming.  Source: See  http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Lists/state_insects.html

Question: What is the purpose of the process in folklore known as “Telling the Bees?”
Answer: To keep honey bees from leaving the hive when a bee keeper had died.

Question: Approximately how many beetle species have been described to date? Choices:
a. 50,000
b.100,000
c. 350,000
d. 500,000
e. 650,000
Answer: 350,000 (c)

Answer: Gil Grissom

Answer: None.  This would be their first blood meal, and Lyme disease is not transovarially transmitted.

UC Davis, our home team (Go Aggies!), also competed.  Hillary Thomas, Andrew Pederson, Dominic Reisig and Michael Branstetter gave it the ol' Aggie try but didn’t quite make the finals.  Next year! Their coach, Larry Godfrey, was on a University of Kentucky championship team.

(Godfrey received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Purdue and his doctorate at the University of Kentucky.)

Question: Name three insects of the five that are athletic team mascots at universities in the United States.
Answer: Bees, Black Flies, Hornets, Wasps, Yellowjackets

Question: What well known American poet wrote a poem entitled “The Bird to the Bees” that began with the lines “There is obviously a complete lack of understanding between the bee/ And me?"
Answer: Ogden Nash

In future columns, we'll take a look at some of the other questions and answers.

Meanwhile, check out the Smithsonian Magazine article on the University of Maryland team at the Linnaean Games. The article mentions that the students crammed for the Linnaean Games by poring over  "The Insects," written by UC Davis entomology professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston.

In football lingo, a curl is a spin on a football, which makes it swerve when it's kicked.

Honey bees can also "curl."

I took this photo today of a lone bee curled on purple sage. The worker bee was gathering nectar in the summerlike weather.

"That's the same position a bee has to get in to sting you,"  observed UC Davis apiculturist Eric Mussen. "She can't lie flat to sting. She curls up and stings."

 Like a comma.

A death "sentence" for her; a little pain for the victim.

He knows his ants.

Michael Branstetter,  a doctoral candidate in entomology at the University of California, Davis, won a coveted President’s Prize for his oral presentation on ants at the  56th annual Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting in Reno.

Branstetter delivered an illustrated presentation on “Phylogeny and Biography of the Ant Genus Stenamma: Uncovering the Evolutionary Origins of Mesoamerican Taxa.” Stenamma is a little studied genus of leaf litter ants.

He competed in the Revisions and Evolution Section, moderated by scientists from Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada, and the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Following his presentation, judges and spectators asked questions, an integral part of the competition.

Fourteen graduate students from throughout the United States participated in the Revisions and Evolutions Section.

A fourth-year graduate student, Branstetter studies with UC Davis entomology professor Phil Ward and specializes in the systematics of Neotropical ants. Systematics deals with the diversity and evoution of life and its classification.

Branstetter, a native of Toledo, Ohio,  received his bachelor of science degree from Evergreen State College, Olympia, Wash., where he studied entomology, evolution and ecology.

The recipient of several grants, Branstetter has collected ants in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and in Chiapas, Mexico. His collecting trips are funded by the National Science Foundation’s Biodiversity Surveys and Inventories program as well as National Geographic.  Principal investigator of the grant is John Longino of the Evergreen State College.

Branstetter’s next collecting trip will be a two-month excursion in Guatemala next May and June. He will be in charge of an international group of students who will be collecting leaf litter throughout the country.

This is the second consecutive year that a UC Davis graduate student in systematics has won the President’s Prize at the ESA meeting, said Lynn Kimsey, chair of the Department of Entomology and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology.  Last year Nate Hardy, student of professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston, won the prize for his “A New Mealybug Subfamily Classification Based on Integrated Morphological and DNA Sequence Data.”
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