Today is Labor Day 2019, a federal holiday celebrated the first Monday of September.

However, "the girls" are working, as they do every day of the year, weather permitting.

"The girls" are the worker honey bees.

Unless you keep bees or have access to a hive, you mostly see them foraging. But inside the hive, they are also nurse maids, nannies, royal attendants, builders, architects, dancers, honey tenders, pollen packers, propolis or "glue" specialists, air conditioning and heating technicians, guards, and undertakers.

They ensure the survival of the hive, but their life span is short.

"Worker bees live for approximately five to six weeks in the spring and summer," writes author and retired bee scientist and bee wrangler Norman Gary, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, in his book, Honey Bee Hobbyist: The Care and Keeping of Bees."Those reared in the fall live for several months--long enough for the colony to survive the winter--and are replaced by young bees in late winter or early spring."

In peak season, a honey bee queen can lay 1500 to 2000 eggs a day, and most of them will be worker bees, the most needed of the three castes (queen, drone and worker) in the hive.  Although the smallest, but they do most of the work.  The queen is the egg layer. The drone's role is strictly reproduction.

Worker bees forage within four to five miles of their hive. If you provide no nectar or pollen sources in your yard, they'll go elsewhere.

Theirs is a dangerous occupation. No thanks to predators (such as birds, praying mantids and spiders) and pesticides, many do not return home at night.

Like to photograph them? Try the "magic hour," which occurs about an hour before the sun sets. We love photographing them on Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia). The light is soft, warm and welcoming.

(Editor's Note: Interested in becoming a beekeeper or learning more about beekeeping? Be sure to check out the UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program, directed by Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. The next course is on managing varroa mites, a major pest.)

If you want to bee-come a beekeeper, bee scientists at the University of California at Davis will oblige.

Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty and director of the UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMPB) teaches classes with her lab associates throughout much of the year.

Participants agree that the classes are "the bees' knees," a phrase which means they're excellent, of the highest quality.

One of the most recent classes, "Planning Ahead for Your First Hives," drew the maximum of 23 participants at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road.

The group spent a Saturday learning all about honey bees via lectures and hands-on activities.They learned bee biology, components of the hive, where to place the hive, and how to plan for their first hive--all under the tutelage and watchful eyes of the two Niños: Elina Lastro Niño and husband/beekeeper Bernardo Niño, who is the CAMPB educational program supervisor and a staff research assistant in the E. L. Niño lab.

Then the participants donned bee veils and stepped outside to the apiary to learn hive inspection basics. They returned to the classroom for lunch and a Powerpoint presentation on "Keeping Bees Year-Around."

Highlights included opening a hive and engaging in queen wrangling, hands-on activities (holding a frame and identifying the queen, worker bees and drones), and varroa mite monitoring. The participants also examined several different types of the hives in the apiary, including the traditional Langstroth hive, Kenya top bar hive or horizontal top bar-hive, Warré hive and a flow hive. The short course ended with a session on "Save us from the hive intruders!" and a question-and-answer period.

The next day CAMPB hosted another short course, this one on "Working Your Colonies."  Participants learned what is necessary to maintain a healthy colony. Lectures covered advanced honey bee biology, honey bee integrated pest management, and products of the hive. The group also learned about queen wrangling, honey extraction, splitting/combined colonies, and monitoring for varroa mites.

Both courses drew maximum enrollment. "The classes were excellent," commented Wendy Mather, program manager of CAMPB.  "We received really great feedback and the participants were thrilled to get the in-hive experience. And we got to sample some melipona honey (from stingless bees) from the Yucatán, as one of our participants had recently returned from a trip there."

The participants "now have some science-based knowledge and skills about honey bees and beekeeping that they can confidently share," Mather said. CAMPB uses science-based information to educate stewards and ambassadors for honey bees and beekeeping.

Next Class: Varroa Mite Management Strategies
The next beekeeping class? "Varroa Mite Management Strategies" from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 13 at the Laidlaw facility. Participants will learn how to monitor, mitigate and manage the pests.

"Current beekeeping challenges call for all beekeepers to have a solid understanding of varroa mite biology and management approaches," said Elina Lastro Niño, in describing the course. "We will dive deeper into understanding varroa biology and will devote majority of the time to discussing pros and cons of various means to monitor, mitigate, and manage this crucial honey bee pest."

Niño, who serves as the state's Extension apiculturst, is known for her expertise on honey bee queen biology, chemical ecology, and genomics. She holds a doctorate in entomology from Pennsylvania State University (PSU), where she served as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Christina Grozinger, director of the PSU Center for Pollinator Research.

The course, limited to 20 participants, will cover varroa biology, treatment options and chemical-free options.  Participants are to bring their bee veil or suit. The $200 registration fee covers the cost of course materials, lunch and refreshments. The last day to register is Monday, Oct. 7.  Click here to register.

The eight-legged varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is an external parasite that attacks and feeds on honey bees. The female is reddish brown, while the male is white. They measure 1–1.8 mm long and 1.5–2 mm wide. Originating in Asia, varroa mites are now found throughout most of the world. Scientists first detected the pest in the United States in 1987.

For more information on the varroa mite course or other CAMPB courses, access the website or contact Mather at wmather@ucdavis.edu.

If you're a beekeeper or plan to be a beekeeper, you're aware of Public Enemy No. 1.

That would be the varroa mite, Varroa destructor, an eight-legged external parasite that attacks and feeds on honey bees. Those mites can spread viruses and decimate a healthy colony.

How can you monitor, mitigate and manage them?

Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño and her lab are hosting a short course on "Varroa Mite Management Strategies" from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 13 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.

"Current beekeeping challenges call for all beekeepers to have a solid understanding of varroa mite biology and management approaches," said Niño, in describing the course. "We will dive deeper into understanding varroa biology and will devote majority of the time to discussing pros and cons of various means to monitor, mitigate, and manage this crucial honey bee pest."

The course, limited to 20 participants, will cover varroa biology, treatment options and chemical-free options.  Participants are to bring their bee veil or suit. The $200 registration fee covers the cost of course materials, lunch and refreshments. The last day to register is Monday, Oct. 7.  Click here to register.

Originating in Asia, the varroa mite is now found throughout most of the world. It arrived in Japan and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s and South America in the 1970s. From the 1970s to 1980s, it spread to South America, Poland, France, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal. The pest was first detected in the United States in 1987, in Canada in 1989, and in 1992 in the United Kingdom. It has since spread to Ireland, New Zealand and Hawaii, but to date, has not been found in Australia.

The female is reddish brown, while the male is white. They measure 1–1.8 mm long and 1.5–2 mm wide.

The course is sponsored by the UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program, (CAMBP). directed by Niño. The program uses science-based information to educate stewards and ambassadors for honey bees and beekeeping. For more information, contact CAMBP program manager Wendy Mather at wmather@ucdavis.edu. 

The global decline of pollinators ought to concern everybody, and everybody ought to get involved, said bee conservation researcher Lynn Dicks of the School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, in her keynote address at the fourth International Pollinator Conference, held July 17-20 at the University of California, Davis.

She spoke on "The Importance of People in Pollinator Conservation" to a capacity crowd gathered July 18 in the ARC Ballroom.

“Who needs to act?" she asked. "Farmers, governments, conservationists, researchers, the general public and businesses.”

Quoting noted biologist/author E. O. Wilson, Dicks said that insects are “the little things that run the world.”

Dicks began her presentation by chronicling news media accounts of “insectageddon,” which Cambridge fellow Robert Macfarlane defined on Twitter as “the current calamitous population decline of insect species globally, with catastrophic results for life on earth.”

One news story, by environment editor Damian Carrington of The Guardian, warned that "The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems." Carrington, in his Feb. 10, 2019 piece, titled “Plummeting Insect Numbers ‘Threaten Collapse of Nature," wrote that “More than 40 percent of insect species are declining and a third are endangered...The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.”

Dicks is widely known for her research and as the lead author of the book, The Bee Conservation: Evidence for the Effects of Intervention (2010, Pelagic Publishing) with co-authors David Showler and William J. Sutherland. The trio worked with international bee experts and conservationists to develop a global list of interventions that could benefit wild bees. The interventions ranged from protecting natural habitat to controlling disease in commercial bumble bee colonies. The book, described as a "thorough guide to what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of bee conservation actions throughout the world," is the first in a series of Synopses of Conservation Evidence, linked to the online resource, www.ConservationEvidence.com.

“Wild insect pollinators have declined in occurrence, diversity, and in some cases, abundance, in Europe and North America,” Dicks told the crowd. “Lack of data for other regions prevents global assessment of status for insect pollinators, but the main drivers of decline are operating everywhere.”

“Why does pollinator decline matter?” she asked. “Eighty-eight percent of wild plant species depend on pollinators. At least half of the crop pollination serves are provided by wild pollinators—half by managed honey bees.”

Farmers, governments, conservationists, researchers, the general public and businesses must get involved, she reiterated.

What Farmers Should Do

For example, she said, farmers should

• Plant flowers for nectar and pollen
• Manage hedges and forest edges for wildlife
• Restore and protect flower-rich native habitats like meadows, scrubland and woodland
• Provide set aside or fallow areas
• Leave field edges and corners to naturally generate
• Provide nesting sites for bees ("bare ground, big old trees and bee hotels")

What the General Public Should Do

The general public's role should be:

• Grow more flowers, shrubs and trees
• Let your garden grow wild
• Cut your grass less often
• Don't disturb insect nest and hibernation spots
• Think carefully about whether to use pesticides

What Governments Should Do

Dicks touched on 10 "pollinator policies" that governments should do:

1. Raise pesticide regularly standards
2. Promote integrated pest management
3. Include indirect and sublethal effects in GM crop risk assessment
4. Regulate movement of managed pollinators
5. Develop incentives, such as insurance schemes, to help farmers benefit from ecosystem services instead of agrochemicals
6. Recognize pollination as an agricultural input in a extension services
7. Support diversified farming systems
8. Conserve and restore 'green infrastructure” (a network of habitats that pollinators can move between) in agricultural and urban landscapes
9. Develop long-term monitoring of pollinators and pollination
10. Fund participatory research on improving yields in organic, diversified and ecologically intensive farming

Dicks, in her position at the University of East Anglia, engages in research in entomology, agroecology, management of biodiversity and ecosystem services on farms. (See research profile.)

In addition to addressing pollinator decline and "who needs to act and what should they do," the researcher touched on how to motivate people: "insights from the behavioral sciences; and the importance of local knowledge and culture."

Awareness and Understanding Are Not Sufficient

She offered key insights from behavioral science, noting that "awareness and understanding are not sufficient; decisions are not always rational; social norms are important; peer-to-peer communication within social groups drives behavior change and people must feel ABLE to act in their current context."

Dicks recommended that the attendees become acquainted with the work of the coalition Promote Pollinators (https://promotepollinators.org). An excerpt from the website: "Pollinators play a key role in the conservation of biological diversity, ecosystems, food production and the global economy. The effects of current human activities hamper animal pollination. Promote Pollinators, the Coalition of the Willing on Pollinators, reaches out to potential new partners to develop and implement national pollinator strategies. The coalition believes that country-led politics can foster policy measures and innovative action on protecting pollinators."

She also cited the work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

Dicks described pollinator decline as "a complex issue." People--including some politicians--have to change to help protect the pollinators and the ecosystem.

How Some Politicians Use Science

Dicks quoted author Mark Avery, former director of conservation at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: "I have rarely seen a policy argument won through logic and science, even though everybody pretends that they are. No, politicians use science like a drunk uses a lamp post--more for support than for illumination."

The conference, “Multidimensional Solutions to Current and Future Threats to Pollinator Health,” covered a wide range of topics in pollinator research: from genomics to ecology and their application to land use and management; to breeding of managed bees; and to monitoring of global pollinator populations. (See agenda.)

Dicks keynoted the conference on Thursday morning, July 18, and Christina Grozinger, distinguished professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, Pennsylvania State University, delivered a keynote address on Friday, July 19, discussing "Bee Nutritional Ecology: From Genes to Landscapes."

Pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams and Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, both of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, co-chaired the conference. Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, and events manager Elizabeth Luu coordinated the four-day event.

Presenters from 15 Countries

Williams said that presenters represented 15 countries: Australia, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Colombia, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. "And we had at least one attendee from China--although not presenting."

"This was the fourth International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy," Williams said. "Each time we try to add new elements that address emerging challenges and new directions in research. This year's sessions felt as fresh and innovative as ever, adding symposia on climate change, innovative monitoring and data collection, and urban bees. By restricting presenters to those who had not presented in the past six years we also added new voices and perspectives."

"We also grew.  In the past the conference has been just under 200 attendees. This year it topped 250, and we had to turn away several people because we simply could not fit more into the space. We added a second evening of posters to provide more time to interact. The response was overwhelming with 112 poster presenters!"

Williams said that the conference "also added more explicit policy elements by creating a set of ViewPOINTS documents summarizing key areas in pollinator biology and heath that target policy makers. This has allowed for collaborative interaction across the attendees and a set of deliverable products from our interactions."

The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, directed by Amina Harris, coordinated the conference, with events manager Elizabeth "Liz" Luu serving in the lead role. 

"It was an amazing team effort pulling it all together," Williams said. "Liz Luu from the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center (HRC) was in a word, fantastic, keeping every thing and everyone together. The HPC really showed what it can do and what tremendous value it adds to our campus. The organizing committee worked so well together, sharing the load throughout. A great set of colleagues!"

The next International Pollinator Conference will take place at Pennsylvania State University.  Grozinger and Rufus Isaacs of Michigan State University launched the conference in 2012. They are held every third year.