January is cold in Bruce, S.D., where the average nighttime temperature dips to 3 degrees.

Beekeeper Kelvin Adee, who hails from Bruce, isn't experiencing any of that right now.

He's in California--and so are his bees for the almond pollination season. 

Adee is the president of the American Honey Producers' Association, which is meeting Jan. 7 through Jan. 12 for the 2020 North American Honey and Pollinator Summit and Trade Show at the Hyatt Regency, Sacramento.

Adee and other members of the executive board met Tuesday morning, Jan. 7 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, for a pre-conference session. They then participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour of the newly constructed USDA-ARS bee research facility, corner of Bee Biology and Hopkins roads. (See news story)

“Is it true that the national tree of South Dakota is the telephone pole?” we asked him during the luncheon.

He laughed and said the state does indeed have wide-open spaces. The population in Bruce is sparse, too. In fact, the 2019 census recorded the population at 204.

Bruce is the home of Honey Days Festival, held the last week of July. In fact, Adee Honey Farms, known as the world's largest producer of honey (and a prominent employer in town) inspired it.

But back to Kelvin Adee. He's a third-generation beekeeper. He actually lives in nearby Brookings but works out of the home office in Bruce. 

His biosketch indicates: “Growing up in a commercial beekeeping family, Kelvin developed his interest in beekeeping at a young age, learning the business and the science from his father. As a third-generation beekeeper, he also gathered beekeeping knowledge from his grandfather, uncles and cousins who have been involved in beekeeping operations." Adee attended college in Bartlesville, Okla., receiving a bachelor's degree in business and accounting. and then returned to the beekeeping business. He has been actively involved in growing the business into an 80,000 colony farm operating in multiple states, according to the biosketch. He oversees the queen rearing/nuc operation in Mississippi and Texas along with company-wide honey production.​

His biosketch also relates: “In addition to beekeeping, Kelvin has served on boards in various positions for the state beekeeping association and the national association. He is active in his community and his church and has served numerous years on the school board. Kelvin married his high-school sweetheart Darla and recently celebrated 37 years of marriage. They have four grown sons and five grandchildren. Three of Kelvin's sons have joined him working full time in the beekeeping business, and the fourth son works in crop production ag. He also enjoys working in the business with his father, Richard, brother, Bret and his sister Marla.”

Meanwhile, it's brrrr cold in Bruce, but here in the Davis area, it's warming up. Plants such as tidy tips, Kniphofia "Christmas Cheer" and manzanita are blooming on the UC Davis campus. 

Almonds usually start blooming around Valentine's Day, heralding the beginning of almond pollination season. Hear that buzz? No? It's coming.

It's always a good day when you encounter a dragonfly on Main Street USA.

Such was the case on Wednesday, July 17 when seemingly out of nowhere, a shiny Tramea lacerata "black saddlebags" appeared in front of me on the sidewalk fronting the Vacaville Chamber of Commerce. 

Its habitat is near ponds, lakes, ditches, slow streams,  or other bodies of water, but there it was.

"It is a freshly emerged female, probably on its maiden flight," said naturalist Greg Kareofelas of Davis, an associate with the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis. "This is its most vulnerable time. If it gets through the next day or so, off to fast flying it will go and you will never get close to it again."

I gingerly picked it up and photographed it on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). Half an hour later, I witnessed it fly over our fish pond, never to be seen again. At least by me!

This species, found throughout North America, is included in a Bohart Museum's poster, "Dragonflies of California." Designed by Fran Keller (then a doctoral student in entomology at UC Davis and now an assistant professor at Folsom Lake College), with images by Kareofelas, the poster is available in the Bohart Museum's gift shop in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.

The black saddlebags dragonfly belongs to the Order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), suborder Anisoptera (dragonflies) family Libellulidae (skimmers), genus Tramea (saddlebags) and species lacerata (black saddlebags). "It flies constantly, often gliding, perches infrequently," according to BugGuide.net. The University of Michigan biokids website yields more information.

It's easily distinguishable. Says Wikipedia: "It has distinctive wings with characteristic black blotches" at its proximal ends, "which make the dragonfly look as though it is wearing saddlebags. The black saddlebags is a relatively large dragonfly at about 5 centimeters in length. The body is thin and black, and the female may have lighter spotting or mottling dorsally. The head is much wider than the rest of the body and is dark brown in color...Some populations of this dragonfly undertake migrations. Both the larvae and adult forms are efficient predators of mosquitoes so they are a helpful insect to have in wet areas where mosquito infestations occur." A wonderful predator...

Of predators, sidewalks and black saddlebags...

What a show!

Last weekend we spotted female European wool carder bees (so named because they collect or card plant hairs for their nests) buzzing in and out of our snapdragons.

The bees, about the size of honey bees, are mostly black and yellow. The females range in body length from 11 to 13 millimeters, while the males are 14 to 17 mm. 

The males are very territorial. As we mentioned in a previous Bug Squad blog, they put the "terror" in territorial. The males bodyslam other insects, as they try to protect their turf, per chance to mate with the females. We've seen the males terrorize the much larger Valley carpenter bees--bodyslamming them, dislodging them and chasing them away.

The European wool carder bees, Anthidium manicatum, are natives of Europe. Their "immigrant ancestor" was first detected in the United States (New York) in 1963, and the species spread west. It was first recorded in California (Sunnyvale) in 2007.

The bee, according to research entomologist Tom Zavortink of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis, was accidentally introduced into New York state.  It was not purposefully introduced to pollinate alfalfa, as some reports allege, he said.

Writing in a 2008 edition of the Pan-Pacific Entomologist, Zavortink and fellow entomologist Sandra Shanks, now of Port Townsend, Wash., pointed out that several papers “have documented its spread from neighboring areas in the northeastern United States and southern Canada” and that the species has since crossed the country. It was confirmed in Colorado in 2005, Missouri in 2006, and Maine, Michigan, Maryland and California (Sunnyvale) in 2007, the entomologists wrote. Records show it was first collected in Davis on July 26, 2007.

It was well established in the Central Valley by 2008, according to Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology.

In Vacaville, we first encountered the European wool carder bee in the spring of 2010.

Its plant preferences include lamb's ear (Stachys byzantine, in the mint family Lamiaceae), a perennial grown for its fuzzy, silvery gray-green foliage. It's also been collected in the figwort/snapdragon family (Scrophulariacae) and the pea and bean family (Fabaceae), according to the Zavortink-Shanks research.

Usually the European wool carder bees are hanging around our foxgloves and catmint (neither is blooming yet) and our lavender (blooming but being ignored).

But snapdragons? We've never seen them foraging on snapdragons (Antirrhinum) until now. That's because we've never planted snapdragons until this spring!

Hear that buzz? Today is World Bee Day!

We celebrate honey bees every day, but they are especially celebrated on May 20, World Bee Day. It's an annual day to raise awareness about the importance of bees and beekeeping. It's a day to acknowledge the industriousness of Apis mellifera,  their role in our lives, and their place in our ecosystem. Bees pollinate a third of the food we eat.

A bit of history: The United Nations approved Slovenia's proposal to proclaim May 20 as World Bee Day in December of 2017. Slovenia also sought to pay tribute to noted beekeeper and native son Anton Janša (1734-1773) of Carniola (now Slovenia), a pioneer of modern apiculture, a noted painter, and an apiculture teacher at the Habsburg Court in Vienna.

Janša became a full-time beekeeper in 1769. He began by tending his father's 100 hives, but a year later, he received a royal appointment as Austria's teacher of apiculture. He kept bees in the imperial gardens (Augarten) and traveled the country, eager to present information about his beloved bees.

Janša "became famous for his lectures in which he demonstrated his knowledge of bees," according to Wikipedia. "He also wrote two books in German: Discussion on Beekeeping and A Full Guide to Beekeeping. The latter was published in 1775, after his death. In Full Guide, Janša noted: Bees are a type of fly, hardworking, created by God to provide man with all needed honey and wax. Amongst all God's beings there are none so hard working and useful to man with so little attention needed for its keep as the bee."

Janša is known for "changing the size and shape of hives to a form where they can be stacked together like blocks," according to Wikipedia. "As a painter, he also decorated the fronts of hives with paintings." Slovenia beekeepers preserved his Janša Beehive and also erected a plaque at his home.  A Yugoslavian stamp (1973) bears his portrait.

A tip of the veil to Anton Janša!

More locally, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, celebrated bees during the "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work" Day. UC Davis employees and their offspring visited the half-acre garden on Bee Biology Road, admiring the flowers and the six-foot-long bee sculpture, Miss Bee Haven, that anchors the garden. The ceramic-mosaic sculpture is the work of Donna Billick of Davis, a self-described "rock artist."

Anton Janša would have felt right at home!

Among the bee haven visitors that day were two beekeepers: elementary school student Adelaide Grandia of Woodland and her grandfather Dwight Grandia of Gulf Shores, Alabama, who has kept bees for 39 years. "I've had hives in the Atlanta area for 25 years and in northern Alabama for 10 years," he said. "I'm teaching my granddaughter beekeeping." He recently set up a bee hive for her.

"My grandpa is a beekeeper," Adelaide said, "and a pilot." Her mother, UC Davis Professor Liza Grandia of Native American Studies, is also interested in bees.

David Hernandez, who works in the Facilities Management Steam Shop, brought his sons, Aayden, 10, and Evan, 8. They checked out the garden, installed in the fall of 2009, and gathered for a photo behind the pollinator cut-out board, as did colleague Kris McBride of the Facilities Management Steam Shop and son, Deegan, 4-1/2.

UC Davis staff employee Xu Chunying and son, Andy, delighted in the catch-and-release activity, in which youths catch bees in a vacuumlike tube device, examine them, and then release them. Honey bees, native bees and carpenter bees are favorite subjects.

Ariel Cormier, who works in the Office of the Chancellor and Provost as manager of Budget and Financial Analysis, attended with her eight-year-old twin daughters Casey and Gabrielle.  They delighted in the bees, blossoms, and  the beautiful day.

The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, is open to the public from dawn to dusk. Admission is free. Group tours are also available for a small charge. For more information, access the website.