- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
She and 51 other beekeepers had gathered that day in September 2016 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis to undergo testing to become California Master Beekeepers at the apprentice level.
The UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program, launched and directed by Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, continually seeks science-based bee ambassadors. CAMBP's vision is "to train 2500 apprentice beekeepers over the next 5 years so they can effectively communicate the importance of honey bees and other pollinators within their communities, serve as mentors for other beekeepers, and become the informational conduit between the beekeeping communities throughout the state and UCCE (UC Cooperative Extension) staff."
The 52 beekeepers had just answered 125 questions on the written test, dealing with basic honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, maladies of the hive, and management techniques. Then they took the practical exam, which consisted of 20 minutes of one-on-one time with an examiner. They demonstrated their mastery of basic colony and hive inspections, identification of equipment and different hive types, and various management techniques.
Veretto, then president of the Sonoma County Beekeepers' Association (SCBA) and a member of the Sonoma County Master Gardeners (SCMG), had no qualms being first in line to take the practical test.
“I signed up to get it over with," Veretto told us. "I hate waiting for a test--it is nerve-racking. But once I opened the hive, I felt at home. The Master Beekeeper session was somewhat intense studying for the test. There is a lot of science/biology and vocabulary that I learned. Overall, it was a great experience. And I passed."
Sadly, Cheryl Veretto died on Aug. 3 after a hard-fought battle with cancer.
"It is with a heavy heart that I inform you all that Cheryl passed away on Tuesday 8/3," wrote a daughter on a Go Fund Me page. "She fought long and hard and in the end, she was surrounded by family and love. I want to thank you all for for the love and support you sent to Cheryl. She was loved and treasured by us all."
Cheryl had moved several years ago from a small town in Sonoma County, California, to a small town in Hays County, Texas, west of Austin, to be closer to family. She was a member of the Hays County Beekeeping Association.
The accolades are pouring in on social media:
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"What a sad day when we lost Cheryl. A beautiful person inside and out."
- "I have missed Cheryl and her vivaciousness and energy since she left Sonoma County a few years back. I will always remember her in her bee outfit practically giving away the plants she propagated at the bee club meetings. She was a talented master gardener, artist, graphic designer, leader and beekeeper. Hard to believe she is gone. Much love to the family."
- "The story I remember the most is when you put down your hive tool and couldn't find it just when you needed to put the hive back together because the bees were angry and coming at you. I'll never put my hive tool down again while I am in the hive!"
“No, my family runs from bees,” she quipped. “I come from a family of gardeners-- generations of them."
We wrote about her and the California Master Beekeeping Program in a Bug Squad blog on Dec. 13, 2016.
At the time, Veretto said she lived on a small rural farm with her human family and 12 bee hives, along with Cashmere goats, chickens, cats, dogs, a food garden and several pollinator forage gardens.
"I started beekeeping with one hive six years ago and gradually built up to 12," she told us. "I think that is a good size of apiary for me; it takes a little more time for management but I am learning so much more, having several colonies to watch, and something different is going on in each. I keep bees in both Langstroth and TopBar hives, and have an observation hive for demonstration.“
Veretto related that she joined SCBA seven years ago, and had been keeping bees for six years.
How did she decide to be a beekeeper; what interested her in bees and in beekeeping? “I started out as a greedy gardener-- wanting everything to be pollinated so that I could select my best,” Veretto recalled. “I have always planted for pollinators in my gardens, but wanted to maximize, and so, I started beekeeping--and what a journey its been. I am now an activist for pollinators, and you never stop learning when you get into bees/beekeeping. The honey bee and humans are tied together closer than many think."
Veretto said she thoroughly enjoys keeping bees and engaging in public service. “I enjoy building community. We have an awesome bee club with a membership that is fully engaged--we have activities going on most every week, and we are active in the community, doing presentations and demonstrations,” she said. “I do public speaking with both SCBA and SCMG groups talking on 'Planting for Pollinators' and 'Safe Gardening' practices. I just finished the Advanced Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program with Master Gardeners and hope to include much of that information in my presentations as well. My true passion is gardening and propagating bee forage plants; most days you find me outside in the gardens and apiary.”
"It is important to recognize we have to change our landscapes, build community, reclaim yards and convert them to gardens, grow food--share with your neighbors--plant it and they will come. Our environment is changing rapidly and we have to act fast to make a difference."
Let it "bee" known that Cheryl Veretto made a difference, a huge, definable difference.
Beekeeper Christine Kurtz of Petaluma said it well: "Cheryl was an amazing person, gardener extraordinaire and deeply cared about bees and all pollinators. She ran circles around us and her enthusiasm was intoxicating. We miss her so but she lives everywhere in our pollinator gardens because we all got plants from her. We will all continue planting in her honor. Life is short embrace the ones you love even if it's virtual."
Current SCBA president Kelli Cox related that in Cheryl's memory, "we are going to have a very informal gathering at Bees N Blooms in Santa Rosa on Saturday, Oct. 2 from 4-6. Her beekeeping friends, her gardening friends, her fellow Master Beekeeping Friends and family members are among those planning to attend. (For more information, contact her at president@sonomabees.org)
Cheryl Veretto's passing brings to mind, "telling the bees," a European-based ritual that involves telling the bees when a beekeeper dies so that bees can share in the mourning.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Dear Ms. Mantis,
We see you. You're trying to camouflage yourself, but we see you.
You're hanging out on a showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa, trying to catch a butterfly or a bee.
So, will you try to nab a monarch? A Mama Monarch that's trying to lay her eggs on her host plant?
You know, the declining monarch population is on “life support,” as butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, says.
Ms. Mantis, we remember when one of your kin ambushed a monarch on our butterfly bush in September of 2015. Your kin ate the head, thorax and abdomen and discarded the wings. The wings fluttered to the ground. Yes, we know you have to eat, too. Everything in the garden eats.
But now that we have your attention, Ms. Mantis, would you kindly consider the following menu--à la carte, if you wish?
- Appetizing aphids
- Scrumptious stink bugs
- Magnificent milkweed bugs
- Crunchy cabbage white butterflies
- Luscious leaffooted bugs
Thank you, Ms. Mantis, for your kind attention to this culinary matter. If we may be of any future help in menu planning (it's important to consider the principles of adequacy, balance, calorie or energy control, nutrient density, moderation and variety), please let us know.
Signed,
The Gardeners
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Congratulations are in order!
Associate professor Guodong Zhang of the University of Massachusetts' Department of Food Science and a former UC Davis postdoctoral scholar advised by UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock, has just been named the recipient of the “Foods 2021 Young Investigator Award.”
This is quite an accomplishment and well deserved!
In announcing the winner of the international competition, Professor Christopher John Smith, editor-in-chief of the journal Foods, described Zhang as a “rising star in the field of food science and technology.”
Zhang focuses his research on foods for health and wellness with an emphasis on the roles of bioactive lipids in colonic inflammation and colon cancer. He served as a postdoc in the Hammock laboratory from 2010 to 2013.
“This is fantastic news,” said Hammock, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. “I am so pleased over the award recognizing Guodong for his contributions to nutrition, cancer and gastrointestinal health. Since graduate school, he has based his work on innovative physiology, nutrition, and biochemistry, with all studies on a firm analytical basis. In our laboratory, he was the perfect postdoctoral fellow, bringing new technologies to UC Davis and rapidly integrating into UC Davis projects."
"Guodong was broadly collaborative at Davis and internationally,” Hammock noted. "He was a wonderful mentor and colleague to others in the lab while here, and has continued since, leaving not only to collaborate here but to forge wonderful international collaborations. Guodong is a star in all ways. He sent us two outstanding postgraduate scientists Yuxin Wang and Weicang Wang (trained in Zhang's UMass lab), who, like their mentor, have been wonderfully innovative and productive scientists at Davis.”
As the award recipient, Zhang will receive an honorarium of 2000 Swiss francs, or $2,206 in American funds; publication of a peer-reviewed paper in Foods; and an engraved plaque.
Zhang has an “outstanding publication record, comprising 73 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and 4 international patents,” said Smith, who also called attention to his grants. Zhang serves as the principal investigator (PI) of grants totaling $1.7 million, and he is the co-PI of grants totaling $5.1 million. “This is an outstanding achievement in today's competitive environment,” Smith said.
Guodong holds a bachelor of science degree in chemistry (2003) from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, and a master's degree in chemistry (2005) from the National University of Singapore. He received his doctorate in food science in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As a postdoctoral fellow in the Hammock laboratory, "my research was about bioactive lipids on angiogenesis and cancer," Guodong said. Reflecting on his years in the Hammock lab, he said: "During this period, 2010-2013, I received comprehensive training in pharmacology and oncology. I really want to thank the mentorship and support from Dr. Hammock: for taking the time to discuss the experiments, provide career advice, help me with personal issues, and hike together in the Bay Area. The days in Davis are some of my best life moments.”
Zhang joined the faculty of the UMass Department of Food Science as an assistant professor in 2013, and in 2014, joined the faculty of the UMass Molecular and Cell Biology Program. In 2019, he advanced to associate professor with tenure.
The recipient of a number of high honors and awards, Zhang won the 2020 Samuel Cate Prescott Award from the Institute of Food Technologists, and the 2019 Young Scientist Research Award from the American Oil Chemists' Society.
Foods is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal of food science and is published monthly online by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
An 11-member team of researchers led by UC Davis scientists reveals insight on "how and why" in a newly published article in the journal New Phytologist.
The title, "Flower Orientation Influences Floral Temperature, Pollinator Visits and Plant Fitness," tells part of the research, headed by senior author Stacey Harmer, professor of plant biology, College of Biological Sciences.
"Sunflowers face the rising sun because increased morning warmth attracts more bees and also helps the plants reproduce more efficiently, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Davis," wrote UC Davis science writer and public information representative Andy Fell in a news release.
"While sunflowers are growing, their heads turn back and forth to track the sun during the day," Fell related. "Previous work from Harmer's lab showed that this tracking is controlled by the plant's internal circadian clock."
Some excerpts from the UC Davis news story:
"...as the flower heads, or capitula, mature and their stems become stiff and woody, this movement decreases until the heads are all facing the morning sun. When postdoctoral researcher Nicky Creux changed the orientation of sunflowers by turning their pots around, she (Harmer) noticed that east-facing flower heads attracted a lot more bees, especially in the morning, than plants facing west."
"The orientation of the plants also affected flower development and reproductive success. East-facing plants tended to produce larger and heavier seeds. They also released pollen earlier in the morning, coinciding with the times when bees visit."
The team included scientists from the Harmer lab, as well as researchers from the University of Virginia and UC Berkeley.
The researchers summarized their work--funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA)--with these four key points:
- Effective insect pollination requires appropriate responses to internal and external environmental cues in both the plant and the pollinator. Helianthus annuus, a highly outcrossing species, is marked for its uniform eastward orientation of mature pseudanthia, or capitula. Here we investigate how this orientation affects floral microclimate and the consequent effects on plant and pollinator interactions and reproductive fitness.
- We artificially manipulated sunflower capitulum orientation and temperature in both field and controlled conditions and assessed flower physiology, pollinator visits, seed traits and siring success.
- East-facing capitula were found to have earlier style elongation, pollen presentation and pollinator visits compared with capitula manipulated to face west. East-facing capitula also sired more offspring than west-facing capitula and under some conditions produced heavier and better-filled seeds. Local ambient temperature change on the capitulum was found to be a key factor regulating the timing of style elongation, pollen emergence and pollinator visits.
- These results indicate that eastward capitulum orientation helps to control daily rhythms in floral temperature, with direct consequences on the timing of style elongation and pollen emergence, pollinator visitation, and plant fitness.
You can read the entire paper here.
Harmer and Creux created a video that illustrates the research, basically "that bees prefer to visit east-facing sunflowers than sunflowers that have been turned to face west. East-facing sunflowers are warmer and release pollen earlier to coincide with bee visits." Access the YouTube video below.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Zoom symposium, “Insect Olfaction and Taste in 24 Hours Around the Globe,” begins at 9 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), Wednesday, Aug. 11. It's free and open to all interested persons.
The 24-hour symposium is limited to 3000 persons and has already drawn registrants from 66 countries, Leal said. Registration is underway at https://bit.ly/3k68c2m.
The event will cover such topics as why mosquitoes are so persistent; the origins of insect olfaction; bitter perspectives (and insect taste); and novelty detection in the early olfactory processing of the honey bee.
“We will have 15 invited (keynote) and 36 contribution presentations,” said Leal, who will host the PDT segment. One of the interviews will feature olfaction research pioneer Karl-Ernst Kaissling of Germany.
Co-hosts with Leal are Wynand van der Goes van Naters of Cardiff University, UK, who will host the British Summer Time (BST) segment; and Coral Warr of La Trobe University, Australia (formerly of the University of Tasmania), host of the Australia Eastern Standard Time (AEST) segment. The trio, along with Karen Menuz (PDT), Wei Xu (AEST), and Emmanuelle Jacquin-Joly (BST), will moderate the symposium.
The speakers will focus on a wide variety of insects, including three species of mosquitoes (Culex, Aedes and Anopheles); honey bee (Apis mellifera); fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila sechellia, and Drosophila suzukii); sand flies (the blood-sucking dipteran flies); cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera); housefly (Musca domestica); cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae); and the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana).
The speakers include icons in the field as well as graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early career professionals, and under-represented minorities. Of the 15 keynote lectures, seven will be delivered by woman scientists.
“The attendees will be engaged by questions and answers,” announced Leal, a UC Davis distinguished professor with the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). “We will give priority to questions from students, postdocs, and early career professionals, but will attempt to address everyone's questions. Attendees can ask anonymous questions.” Many of the attendees would not otherwise have an opportunity to travel to an international symposium, he added.
The first segment--the PDT segment hosted by Leal--begins with a welcoming address by John Hildebrand of the University of Arizona, International Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences. Presentations by Josefina del Marmol of The Rockefeller University, New York, and Jon Clardy of Harvard Medical School will follow. “There will be four keynote lectures and 10 contributed presentations,” Leal said.
The last presentation in this segment, by Ke Dong of Duke University, will bridge with the AEST segment, hosted by Warr. It will include two keynote lectures and 14 contributed presentations. Then, a keynote lecture by Richard Benton of the University of Laussanne will bridge with the BST segment, hosted by van der Goes van Naters. It will include six keynote lectures and 12 contributed presentations. After the last lecture by John Pickett of Cardiff University) the symposium returns to UC Davis for closing remarks.
For a list of the keynote speakers, those who will give presentations, and other logistics, see the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website.
The registrants hail from 66 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Réunion, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Cayman Islands, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, The Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United States Minor Outlying Islands, Uruguay, and Vietnam.
For updates, videos and more information, follow Leal on Twitter at @wsleal2014.