- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Veteran biology teacher Sarah Huber researched, created and installed two dozen illustrated signs, which provide a self-guided tour of the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road.
The haven is as a year-around food source for bees, a demonstration garden and a research site.
Huber described the bee garden as “an amazing resource for anyone designing their own garden, taking their kids on a new adventure, or just meeting a friend for a walk.”
The haven is “a lasting source of inspiration for the public,” she said.
The numbered signs welcome visitors to the garden, relate why bees are amazing, why they are in trouble, and what folks can do to help.
Visitors can learn why beekeepers don't eat bananas before they tend their hives (“A bee in danger releases an alarm pheromone which is also a chemical found in bananas”) how many flowers a colony must visit to make one pound of honey (“two million flowers”), and how fast a bee's wings can beat (“12,000 times a minute”).
Huber's signs also point out why the honey bee is considered both an immigrant and migrant worker. European colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) to America in 1662. Today U.S. farmers rent 2 million colonies a year to pollinate their crops.
“Some farmers own their own hives, but many rent hives from beekeepers to pollinate their crops,” Huber wrote. “Hives travel by truck from one flowering crop to the next each season. Smaller farms in less developed areas may rely on wild native bees and feral honey bees for pollination. However, each year more than 2 million bee colonies are rented for U.S. crop pollination.”
The signage begins with: “Follow the numbered signs to gain an appreciation for the amazing adaptations of honey bees and the invaluable services they provide. Experience empathy for their plight and be inspired to take action to help save them as their population declines.”
Huber launched the signage project after consulting with Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis; Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty; bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of UC Davis and Washington State University; native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, who monitors the garden for different species of bees; staff research associate-beekeeper and haven coordinator Elizabeth Frost of the Laidlaw facility; and communications specialist Kathy Keatley Garvey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
Garvey provided the photos for the signs, which include a feral honey bee colony, activities inside and outside the hive, and pollinator “portraits,” including such floral visitors as honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, digger bees and butterflies.
“I am so glad that Tabatha gave me the project of designing a self-guided tour for the bee garden,” said Huber. “Using the signs seemed the most environmental and easy way to do this. I learned a lot about bees while researching what to put on each sign, as well as many cool tidbits of useful information, like how to build a nest site for native bees, and that it is best not to eat bananas when approaching a hive, just to name a couple.”
“Sarah is a fabulous educator,” Yang said. “We were incredibly fortunate to have her on our team. She is creative and fun and radiates enthusiasm for science education. It was an absolute pleasure to work with her.”
Huber also assisted with other outreach projects on the UC Davis campus, providing support for the Department of Entomology, the Bohart Museum of Entomology, and the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology (MWFB). In addition, she volunteered at the Explorit Science Center, Davis.
Huber joined the UC Davis volunteer workforce for a year while her husband, Parke Wilde, an associate professor at Tufts University, Boston, pursued academic work at UC Davis.
A former Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia and El Salvador, Huber received her bachelor of science degree, cum laude, in biology from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., and master's degree in secondary science education from Catholic University, Washington, DC. Huber's credentials include teaching interactive workshops for elementary-aged children and facilitating drop-in science, math and technology activities at the Museum of Science in Boston.
The garden is the work of scores of companies, people and volunteers. A four-member team from Sauslalito submitted the winning design in an international competition: landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker; interpretative planner Jessica Brainard; and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki.
“This garden is a living laboratory to educate, inspire and engage people of all ages in the serious work of helping to save honey bees,” Dori Bailey, former director of Haagen-Dazs Consumer Communications, said earlier this year. It offers bees and other pollinators “a place to thrive,” Bailey said, and “it contributes to finding answers that enable us to be better stewards of these tiny pollinators.”
Melissa “Missy” Borel, program manager of the California Urban Horticulture at UC Davis and a key developer of the garden under the watch of Bohart Museum of Entomology director Lynn Kimsey, then interim chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, posted plant identification signs so visitors can select what they might want to plant in their own gardens. A volunteer team of gardeners, headed by Mary Patterson of Davis and coordinated by Frost, tend the garden every week.
The garden also features art from the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, co-founded and co-directed by UC Davis entomologist-artist Diane Ullman and Davis artist Donna Billick. “Miss Bee Haven,” a six-foot long sculpture of a worker bee by Billick, anchors the art work. Painted bee boxes, showing activity inside and outside a honey bee colony, grace the entrance. The most recent addition to the garden is a native bee mural on a garden shed, a project coordinated by UC Davis graduate student Sarah Dalrymple.
Ullman, Billick and Dalrymple are now consulting with Frost and Thorp on other art projects that will showcase native bees, particularly leafcutting bees.
Sept. 11, 2012
As his Eagle Scout project, 17-year-old Derek Tully of Davis planned, organized and built a state-of-the-art fence around the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre pollinator garden at the University of California, Davis.
The public garden, adjacent to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, now boasts a post-and-rail fence to “bee-hold.”
The four-foot high fence, meshed with wire that extends six inches underground, is “meticulous,” “fabulous” and “beautiful,” agree UC Davis Department of Entomology officials, haven volunteers, and the garden's visitors.
Tully launched the project April 2, and with the help of fellow members of Scout Troop 111, adult volunteers, and his family and friends, including his father, Larry Tully, a retired machinist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, completed it on Sept. 7. The 33-member crew often toiled in 100-degree heat as they calculated, measured, cut, assembled, hammered, nailed, capped and stained the fence.
Derek Tully negotiated with area businesses to obtain discounted prices. The total cost of materials: $6300. The UC Davis Department of Entomology picked up the tab through a special account coordinated by entomology professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and the haven's faculty liaison.
“This project saved our department an estimated $24,000 to $30,000,” Kimsey said. The garden, publicly dedicated Sept. 11, 2010, was installed during her term as interim chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. It is open from dawn to dusk at no charge.
Tully, a senior at DaVinci Charter Academy, Davis, will be honored at a UC Davis Department of Entomology recognition ceremony at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 15 at the haven. The ceremony is part of two concurrent open houses, themed “Flower Lovers: The Bees,” planned from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Crocker Lane and the haven, located off Hutchinson Drive/Hopkins Road.
“Derek did a fabulous job organizing the project and the volunteers,” Kimsey said. She and her husband, UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, himself an Eagle Scout, supported the fence project from its inception. The Kimseys are longtime friends of the Tully family.
“The fence is meticulous, a professional job,” said Lynn Kimsey. “It's beautiful.”
The sturdy fence, complete with three gates, is meant to define the space, beautify the garden, allow easy entrance to visitors, and restrict the movement of jackrabbits, ground squirrels and pocket gophers. The underground wiring is designed to inhibit burrowing animals that feast on the plants in the garden.
“Everyone likes the fence but the rodents,” quipped Larry Tully. He and his wife, Leslie Woodhouse, a research support scientist at the USDA Western Human Nutrition Research Center on the UC Davis campus, serve as assistant scoutmasters of Troop 111. The troop is led by scoutmaster Mark Shafer.
The Eagle Scout project involved more than 488 volunteer hours, or to be exact, 488 hours and 15 minutes. Among the volunteers laboring on the fence, in addition to the adult volunteers, were 18 registered members of the Boy Scouts of America; forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey; Derek's brother, Shane, 21, also an Eagle Scout; and Derek's girlfriend, violinist Emily Talbot, 17.
“I think it's a good project,” Derek Tully humbly acknowledged. “I think it's one of the most solid Eagle Scout projects I've seen.”
“We're so grateful to Derek and his team for the contribution they have made to the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven,” said Melissa “Missy” Gable, program manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis and involved in the garden since its very beginning. “The fence really gives the garden a sense of place and welcomes community members in to stroll the paths and enjoy the plants. Thanks to Derek, the outside of the garden now matches the beauty of the inside.”
In organizing the project and obtaining volunteers, Tully received assistance from greenhouse superintendent Garry Pearson, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, who augured the holes for the fence posts.
Tully said the project required 91 fence posts, 211 2x4s, 46 2x6 railings (each 20 feet long), four yards of gravel, 18 bags of concrete, and 12 rolls of wiring at 100 feet each.
Tully, who joined Tiger Cubs at age 5, worked his way up through the ranks to become a candidate for Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scout program. To be eligible for the honor, candidates are required to earn a minimum of 21 merit badges; demonstrate scout spirit, service and leadership; organize a community project not related to scouting; and provide a detailed report of the project. Next step: Tully will appear before the Eagle Scout Board of Review. He is expected to receive his Eagle Scout rank in about a month.
In the meantime, Tully continues his studies at DaVinci Charter Academy and competes on the Davis High School water polo and swim teams, activities “way different” from working on the fence in triple-digit temperatures.
His brother Shane, a business major at Chico State University, earned his Eagle Scout rank in 2008. He built a 20-person observation deck at the Korematsu Elementary School garden, Mace Ranch, Davis.
Future plans? No, Derek Tully does not have his sights set on becoming a professional fence builder.
“I want to become a marine biologist,” he said.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“I like to play with words,” said noted artist Donna Billick who created “Miss Bee Haven,” a six-foot-long honey bee sculpture for the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the University of California, Davis.
The sculpture, funded by Wells Fargo, graces the half-acre bee friendly garden, located on the Department of Entomology grounds of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road.
“The bee sculpture is beautiful and provides the perfect focal point for the garden,” said entomologist Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology who oversees the garden. “On top of that it accurately represents a worker bee and provides an educational component as well as an aesthetic one.”
“The Wells-Fargo honey bee sculpture is a wonderful educational tool in the garden,” said Melissa “Missy” Borel, program manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture who has helped develop the garden since its inception. “Visitors can get up close and personal with the bee, even touch the pollen baskets on her legs. We're fortunate to have such a beautiful model as a showcase to the public.”
Kimsey, who is master-planning the grand opening celebration of the garden, set from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11, said the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven “is sure to become a campus destination.”
The bee, shaded by an almond tree, stands on a pedestal/bench decorated with ceramic art tiles, the work of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. Billick, who worked on the bee from her Davis studio, Billick Rock Art, is the co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. Billick founded the program in 2006 with entomologist-artist Diane Ullman, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and now associate dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The Art/Science Fusion Program includes design faculty, science faculty, museum educators, professional artists and UC Davis students. “Participants see and feel art and science, hold it in their hands, hearts and memories—in ceramics, painting, photographs, music, and textiles,” Ullman said.
Millions of yellow porcelain tiles resembling hair cover the structure. “It's pretty hairy,” the artist quipped.
Miss Bee Haven, placed in the garden in June, is no lightweight. Anchored with 200 pounds of cement and with six bronze legs drilled into the pedestal, this worker bee is destined to stay put—unlike the six million bees that forage from the 110 hives at the nearby Laidlaw facility.
Billick's sculpture is morphologically correct, said Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen, member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty. He praised the intricate detail of the head, thorax and abdomen.
“This is a surprisingly accurate rendition for a highly attractive work of art,” Mussen said. “I can gather a group around it and point out the special anatomical features that make the honey bee such an invaluable pollinator of our food crops. This bee and all the other magnificent ceramic works of art around our building, on-campus structures, and planned-for future structures demonstrate the enormous, highly visible value of the Art/Science Fusion Program.”
Billick used lost wax bronze casting to craft the six legs, which extend from the thorax to rest on a ceramic “purple dome” aster, fabricated by Davis artist Sarah Rizzo. The purple dome aster is among the flowers in the garden.
Billick created the double set of translucent wings with three sheets of fiberglass. The result: wings that are fragile-looking and true to life, but strong.
“During this entire process, I developed a real in-depth relationship with honey bees,” Billick said. For inspiration and detail, she visited the apiary in back of the Laidlaw facility, read about the functions of bees, and held the thoughts close. “It was not about expressing anything other than the beeness. I have a lot of respect for bees.”
“It was fun and satisfying to do,” the rock artist added.”I learned a ton.”
Billick is now creating a bee sculpture called “Swarmed,” which she calls a “wild-card idea” gleaned from the making of Miss Bee Haven. The piece, being finished for an art show in San Francisco, features 30 suspended bees.
A 35-year artist and an alumna of UC Davis, Billick toyed with a scientific career before opting for a career that fuses art with science. She received her bachelor of science degree in genetics in 1973 and her master's degree in fine arts in 1977, studying art with such masters as Bob Arneson, Roy De Forest, Wayne Thiebaud and Manuel Neri.
Billick traces her interest in an art career to the mid-1970s when then Gov. Jerry Brown supported the arts and offered the necessary resources to encourage the growth of art. He reorganized the California Arts Council, boosting its funding by 1300 percent.
The mid-1990s is when Billick and Ullman began teaching classes that fused art with science; those classes led to the formation of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.
Billick's work is displayed in numerous public and private collections, including the Oakland Museum, Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Carborundum Museum in New York, Richmond Art Center; Richard Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, William Sawyer Gallery in San Francisco and Mills College in Oakland.
Her work on the UC Davis campus includes the colorful Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility's ceramic sign that features DNA symbols and almond blossoms. A hole drilled in the sign leads to a bee hive.
Also in Davis, Billick created the whimsical Dancing Pigs sculpture and the Cow Fountain, both in the Marketplace Shopping Center on Russell Boulevard; the Mediation sculpture at Central Park Gardens; and the Frawns for Life near the West Area Pond.
She maintains a compound in Baja, where she teaches three workshops a year called "Heaven on Earth."
Miss Bee Haven also promises to provide heaven on earth--as a draw to admire the honey bee and as a sculpture to study the art form.
“Bees are very engaging,” Billick said. “I have a strong love for the work they do and how they go about doing it.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS—Honey bees aren't the only bees frequenting the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden planted last fall at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, who has been monitoring the garden for the past two years, from open field to planted garden, has identified more than 50 different species of bees in the haven and nearby Campus Buzzway, a quarter-acre field of wildflowers.
Representing five families, 21 genera, and 36 species, the bees include bumble bees, leafcutter bees, sweat bees, carpenter bees, cuckoo bees and sunflower bees.
Here's the list of what he's found from post-planting, October 2009 through July 2010.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Catch the Buzz on Saturday, Sept. 11: Garden Tours, Speakers, Hands-On Demonstrations, Ice Cream
DAVIS—Garden tours, hands-on demonstrations, educational speakers and children's activities will mark the grand opening celebration of the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, set from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.
The haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden planted last fall next to the research facility, is marking its first year of growth, said bee biology program coordinator Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
The key goals of the garden are to provide bees with a year-around food source for the Laidlaw Facility bees, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees, and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own.
“We expect the honey bee haven to become a campus destination,” Kimsey said. “This is a year-around food source for bees and other pollinators and an opportunity for visitors to learn more about the plight of bees and what to plant in their own gardens to help them survive.”
“This garden is a living laboratory to educate, inspire and engage people of all ages in the serious work of helping to save honey bees,” said Dori Bailey, director of Haagen-Dazs Consumer Communications. “We hope the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven not only offers bees and other pollinators a place to thrive, but that it contributes to finding answers that enable us to be better stewards of these tiny pollinators.”
True to its mission, the half-acre bee garden has drawn pollinators from the Laidlaw facility's 60 hives, each populated with some 60,000 honey bees. Other pollinators include bumble bees, butterflies, dragonflies, sweat bees and carpenter bees. Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, has identified more than 50 species of bees alone in two years of monitoring the grounds, as they changed from an open field to a planted garden.
Art created by students and the community in the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, founded and directed by UC Davis entomologist-artist Diane Ullman and artist Donna Billick, will be permanently displayed at the garden.
Speakers will address the crowd beginning at 10:30 a.m. Neal Van Alfen, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and entomology professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will welcome the crowd.
Other speakers:
11:15 a.m.: Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of UC Davis, “Honey Bee Decline”
11:45 a.m.: Garden co-designer Ann Baker of Sausalito, “Designing the Garden”
12:15 p.m.: Melissa “Missy” Borel, program manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture, UC Davis, “Bee Friendly Plants”
12:45 p.m.: Scientists-artists Diane Ullman and Donna Billick of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, which created permanent art work in the garden. Billick created the 6-foot-long “Miss Bee Haven” bee sculpture, funded by Wells Fargo
1:15 p.m.: Native pollinator specialist Neal Williams of UC Davis, “Pollinator Eco-Services and the Role of Bees in Sustainable Food Production”
A children's activity center, coordinated by Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will include arts and crafts, including button-making, face-painting and flower crafting. A “buzz kazoo” is also in the works.
Among others scheduled to participate at the various stations throughout the garden to converse with visitors: native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp; bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey; beekeeper and staff research associate Elizabeth Frost; Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum; members of the winning design team (landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki); graduate student Emily Bzdyk; and members of the Neal Williams' lab.
Complimentary Häagen-Dazs ice cream will be offered at the opening, as will samples of Gimbal's Fine Candies from its honey lovers' line. Gimbal's, of San Francisco, is donating 5 percent from the sale of its candy to UC Davis honey bee research.
Also at the grand opening, food will be available for purchase, as will “bee” t-shirts from graduate and undergraduate students at UC Davis. Visitors will be invited to participate in drawings for posters, honey and other items.
Honey bees pollinate more than 100 different U.S. agricultural crops, valued at $15 billion. However, the nation's beekeepers have reported losing from one-third to all of their bees due to a mysterious phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) that surfaced in 2006. CCD is worsening, according to Mussen.
In response to the declining bee population, the Häagen-Dazs brand launched the "Häagen-Dazs Loves Honey Bees" campaign in February 2008, committing a total $250,000 donation for bee research to UC Davis and Pennsylvania State University, and redoubled its efforts in 2009 with a second $250,000 donation, bringing the brand's total donation for honey bee research to a half million dollars. It also formed a scientific advisory Bee Board, created an educational Web site and introduced the new Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream flavor. Bees are crucial to nearly 50 percent of their all-natural flavors.
The garden design competition, funded by Häagen-Dazs and coordinated by the Department of Entomology and California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis, drew submissions from throughout the world. A Sausalito-based team won the competition with a series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook” and “Pollinator Patch.”
The design team zeroed in on sustainability and visitor experience. The four interconnected gardens, “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook,” “Pollinator Patch” and “My Backyard” form the “physical and interpretive framework” for the honey bee haven design. A series of trails connect the gardens.
“Incorporated into each of the four sections are gathering spaces that serve as orientation points for guided tours, facilitated programs and ‘chat time' with beekeepers and entomologists,” the team explained. Identification labels will help visitors identify select what they can plant in their own yards.
Judges scored the designs on diversity (the winning design has 40 different plants), bloom balance, vision, generational learning, cost feasibility and attention to detail. “Judges also declared the team's design as the best at adhering to the River Friendly Landscaping guideline for our area,” said Borel, who coordinated the design competition.
Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors, a Northern California company, installed the garden. Joining Wells Fargo as a sponsor is Annie's Homegrown, maker of Honey Bunny Grahams.
More information on the grand opening is available from event coordinator Chris Akins at (530) 752-2120 or crakins@ucdavis.edu.
Schedule10:30 a.m. Neal Van Alfen, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and entomology professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will welcome the crowd. Speakers at the podium will include: Garden Tours: |
Related links:
More than 50 Bee Species Found in Haven: Robbin Thorp
Artist-Scientist Donna Billick Creates Giant Bee Sculpture
Thinking Outside the Box: How the Beehive Columns Came to 'Bee'
Blending Art With Science: UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program (See More Photos)
Häagen-Dazs Educational Website
Eric Mussen on Colony Collapse Disorder (Video)
Directions
Winning design:
Sausalito team plan (PDF, 21 pages)
Sponsors of grand opening celebration
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