- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And the yellow.
On a camping trip last week to Doran Regional Park, Bodega Bay, we admired our neighbors' display of American flags—bordered with a dozen honey bees.
These bees, however, didn't buzz. They spun.
The colorful yellow, black and white mobiles attacked the wind like fierce little windmills, livening up the campground.
“Are you beekeepers?” I asked the neighbor.
“No,” she replied. “We just like bees.”
So did George Washington (1732-1799), the founding father of our country.
Mount Vernon research historian Mary Thompson notes that George Washington was the first U.S. president to keep bees. In Washingtonpapers.org, she writes that his "indentured English joiner," Matthew Baldridge, received 300 nails at the Circle Storehouse on July 28, 1787 "to make a bee house."
"Two days later, Matthew received another 200 nails for the same project," Thompson notes. "In addition to getting honey from his own bees, George Washington is known to have purchased honey, as well as other foodstuffs such as chickens, eggs, vegetables, and fruit from his slaves. Honey, for example, was acquired at various times from Nat (a blacksmith); Davy, who was an enslaved overseer;and carpenters Sambo an Isaac, indicating that they, too, probably kept bees."
Thompson says President Washington also liked cake spread with honey and butter: "A visitor from Poland reported that Washington had “tea and caks (sic) made from maize; because of his teeth he makes slices spread with butter and honey….”
And, according to step-granddaughter Nelly Custis, Washington "ate three small mush cakes (Indian meal) swimming in butter and honey," and "drank three cups of tea without cream."
The founding father also liked gifts of honey. Knowing his fondness for honey, sister Betty Washington Lewis gifted him with a "large Pot of very fine in the Comb," when the president was recovering from a serious illness.
The Mount Vernon research historian also relates: "At the close of Washington's presidency eight years later, among the many things the family packed to ship back to Mount Vernon from Philadelphia was 'one demijohn with honey.' A demijohn was a very large glass bottle, covered with wickerwork."
Honey for the hoecakes, hoecakes swimming in honey...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Dr. Mussen, known as "Eric," died Friday, June 3 of liver cancer at age 78.
Family, friends, colleagues and associates are RSVP'ing at https://
Eric joined the UC Davis entomology department on July 1, 1976. Although he retired in 2014, he continued his many activities until a few weeks prior to his death. For nearly four decades, he drew praise as “the honey bee guru,” “the pulse of the bee industry" and as "the go-to person" when consumers, scientists, researchers, students, and the news media sought answers about honey bees.
Born May 12, 1944 in Schenectady, N.Y., Eric received his bachelor's degree in entomology from the University of Massachusetts (after declining an offer to play football at Harvard) and then obtained his master's degree and doctorate in entomology from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and 1975, respectively. Mussen credits his grandfather with sparking his interest in insects. His grandfather, a self-taught naturalist, would take his young grandson to the woods to point out flora and fauna.
Bees became his life, and Eric thoroughly enjoyed his career. For nearly four decades, he wrote and published the bimonthly newsletter, from the UC Apiaries, and short, topical articles called Bee Briefs, providing beekeepers with practical information on all aspects of beekeeping. His research focused on managing honey bees and wild bees for maximum field production, while minimizing pesticide damage to pollinator populations.
Gene Brandi, the 2018 president of the American Beekeeping Federation, remembers presenting him with the prestigious Founders' Award from the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees at the 75th annual American Beekeeping Federation conference in Reno in 2018. "Eric received a well-deserved rousing standing ovation!” said Brandi, extolling him as "an outstanding liaison between the academic world of apiculture and real-world beekeeping and crop pollination."
"Eric was a legend in the beekeeping world who was always willing to go the extra mile to help beekeepers and bee industry organizations deal with issues pertaining to honey bee health, regulations, and various threats to the industry," Brandi said. "He also helped agricultural organizations, government officials, and the general public better understand the value of honey bees to the world. Eric was a great advocate for the honey bee and beekeepers. He was truly a national treasure.
"Eric served on the California State Beekeepers Association Board of Directors for 39 years as apiculturist, but he also was the parliamentarian for many years, and due to his long tenure, was quite the historian as well," Brandi added. "He co-founded the Western Apicultural Society and served as president for six terms. He founded the American Association of Professional Apiculturists and was either president of secretary/treasurer for the first ten years."
"In addition to his work with the aforementioned organizations, Eric was the UC Honey Bee Liaison to California Department of Food and Agriculture, California Department of Pesticide Regulation, EPA, California Farm Bureau Federation, Almond Board of California, National Honey Board, California Bee Breeders' Association, and others. Eric was always willing to help the beekeeping industry by testifying at hearings or writing letters to support the bee industry on various issues. He received many awards from a number of organizations, but the ones with which I am most familiar are the California State Beekeepers Association Distinguished Service Award as well as the Beekeeper of the Year Award. The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees honored Eric in 2018 with the coveted Founders; Award.
Brandi related that "Eric also conducted a number of research projects over the years including research on sacbrood virus, effects of medfly sprays on honey bees, effects of antibiotics of honey bee brood, potential of Neem as a varroa control, effects of selected fungicides on honey bee brood, effects of antibiotics, and effects of high-fructose corn syrup on packaged bee development. Eric's "From the UC Apiaries" newsletter was a renowned publication which contained valuable information about current events in the beekeeping world which beekeepers needed to know. There is so much more that can be said about Eric and his many contributions to the beekeeping world."
When Mussen was nominated (and received) the 2013-14 Distinguished Service Award for Outstanding Extension from the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR), MacArthur Genus Awardee Professor Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight University Professor Apiculture/Social Insects at the University of Minnesota, wrote: "Without question, Eric is the No. 1 Extension person dealing with honey bees in the nation, if not the world. Research colleagues, beekeepers and the public are all very lucky to have him.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Have you seen any Checkered White butterflies lately?
They're quite common in the southern United States and northern Mexico (they're known as the Southern cabbage butterfly), but one CW fluttered through our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Solano County, Calif., on June 23.
It's in the same family, Pieridae, as the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae.
This one, a female Pontia protodice, as identified by butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, seemed to like our lavender.
"There was one laying eggs at Gates Canyon (Vacaville) two weeks ago," Shapiro noted. "This is an immigrant, which occasionally overwinters here--not very recently, though. It lives in the desert, both in SoCal and in Nevada. I don't know which direction these are coming from."
He reported two recently at Lang Crossing (Nevada County) on the Sierran West slope at 5000 feet. "This is probably a significant incursion."
He saw "scads of them" on June 30 in Rancho Cordova (Sacramento County)--clearly breeding there!"
The Checkered Whites "tend to fly in a straighter line than rapae, like it's late for an important date," he quipped. The females have more extensive markings than the males.
On his website, Art's Butterfly World, he points out that:
"In the 1970s this species was often abundant at low elevation along the transect, overwintering only locally and sporadically-mostly on dredge tailings along the American River. It has since become much rarer and in most years is seen only in September and October. At Sierra Valley it overwinters unpredictably but colonizes each year from the desert in May or June, and usually becomes common by late summer. It has been recorded at all sites but is not a permanent resident at any of them at this time!"
"A highly vagile species, the Checkered White breeds on a great variety of Brassicaceous plants, preferring smaller and unsucculent species such as Peppergrasses (Lepidium, but L. latifolium is unpreferred), Tumble Mustard (Sisymbrium altissimum), and the short-lived perennial Hirschfeldia incana (formerly called Brassica geniculata). The eggs are orange, laid conspicuously near the top of the plant, and the larvae, which are striped lengthwise in whitish yellow and greenish gray, feed primarily on buds, flowers and fruit. However, eggs are also often laid on small rosettes, especially if the larger plants in the area are senescent. This is overwhelmingly a species of grassland and steppe and occurs in wooded areas only along roadsides."
Shapiro, who has been monitoring the butterfly population of central California since 1972, says the Checkered White adults visit mustards, composites, legumes "and almost anything else; they are often abundant in irrigated alfalfa and visit its flowers freely. Males patrol in host-plant areas and often mate with teneral females."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It was Saturday, June 25.
Gregory Zebouni of Davis, program manager of the Bruce Hammock laboratory, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, decided he wanted to attend the UC Davis "Eight-Legged Encounters" open house, co-hosted by the Bohart Museum of Entomology and the American Arachnological Society.
His wife, gastroenterologist-hepatologist Valentina Medici, on the faculty of the UC Davis School of Medicine, was unable to attend.
So he asked his son Niccolo, 7, and daughter, Clio, 9, if they wanted to head over to the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane and participate in the spider and insect activities.
"They first were reluctant to go," he acknowledged. "They preferred to go to the pool and Clio has some level of arachnophobia like her dad!"
"However, when they started walking in the corridors of the building and seeing the stuffed animals and then the insects (in the Bohart Museum), holding walking sticks in their hands, and then discovering the treasures of the butterflies' collections, then they did not want to leave and we spent a couple of hours there!" Zebouni said.
"They visited and played at all the exhibits in the hallway. They gave their first names to be immortalized in the naming of the newly found spider by Jason Bond." (Bond and his lab were inviting students 18 and under to suggest names for a new species of trapdoor spider from the genus Promyrmekiaphila.)
A favorite activity at Eight-Legged Encounters? "We were all very much intrigued by the spider who would throw a sticky ball to catch moths at night."
The open house kicked off the annual meeting of AAS, co-hosted by Bond, associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Tables of exhibits and hands-on activities lined the hallway of the Academic Surge Building. Visitors also toured the Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building. The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop.
During the Zebouni visit, entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection, and Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas, a naturalist and insect enthusiast, showed them butterflies and moths.
It was a great Saturday afternoon, the trio agreed. Nobody missed the pool.
And that arachnophobia? Well, it dissipated!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Tens of millions of years before the orb web evolved, spiders used major ampullate silk in various forms (lampshades, tangles, sheets, funnels, etc.)," according to AAS member Eileen Hebets of the University of Nebraska, who co-hosted the open house as part of her National Science Foundation grant, "Eight-Legged Encounters," aimed at providing community outreach programs, especially for youth. "The first webs were horizontal and were not orbs. Currently, scientists believe that orb web evolved only once."
The open house kicked off the AAS meeting on the UC Davis campus. Arachnologist Jason Bond, associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is co-chairing the June 26-30 conference.
"It was about about cribellate and ecribellate silk--or sticky and not-sticky silk," said Keller, a Bohart Museum scientist who studied for her doctorate with UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum. "Some spiders produce silk and place small drops of 'sticky glue' along the silk fibers in a web and that glue traps prey when they hit the web. Other spiders produce 'fuzzy' silk, for lack of a better word, and they spin it very close together. The station was set up to have glue silk and non-glue silk."
As Hebets explains on her website:
- Cribellate silk is produced from numerous tiny silk glands underneath a specialized spinning organ called the cribellum.
- The cribellum is derived from spinnerets (the anterior median spinnerets) and its surface is covered by hundreds- thousands of tiny, elongate spigots which each produces an extremely thin single fibril of cribellate silk (~0.00001mm thick). All spigots act together to produce a single cribellate thread made up of thousands of silk fibrils. All araneomorph spiders were once cribellate, but the cribellum has been lost numerous times.
- Cribellate spiders also possess a row of toothed bristles – the calamistrum – on the metatarsal segment (2nd to last) of the last leg (4th walking leg).
- The combination of flagelliform silk threads and aggregate silk protein glue ~136 million years ago represents a major explosion in spider species numbers. Spiders that combine flagelliform and aggregate silk proteins are in the superfamily Araneoidea. In these spiders, a sticky liquid silk is carried on fibrous silk support lines.
- In summary, cribellate (wooly) and ecribellate (sticky) catching silks increase the prey holding efficiency of webs that act as snares or traps. They represent completely different evolutionary solutions to the same problem.
The procedure:
- Take a piece of pre-cut yarn.
- Pick up one piece of confetti.
- Toss the confetti at the yarn…does it stick?
- On one-half of the yarn, add droplets of glue and toss the confetti at the yarn…does it stick?
- On the other one-half of the yarn, comb it out using the eyebrow brush.
- Once the yarn is combed out, toss a piece of confetti at it…does it stick?
"It was nice to see so many folks out to an event about arachnids," Keller said. "We normally have many people out visiting the Bohart on our weekend open houses. But this was different because it focused on 8-legged invertebrates. It was such a great event getting back in person and interacting with families. It made me realize how much I have missed these outreach events and open houses where we share our passion for insects and science."
The next Bohart open house is set from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, July 16 and will celebrate 50 years of the California dogface butterfly (Zerene eurydice) as the state insect. The state Legislature designated the butterfly as the state insect in 1972. Keller and Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas will share their expertise on the insect. The event is free and family friendly.
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insect and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop.
