When the University of California marketing gurus decided to name the flavors of the Bar Gelato treats to be served during Onward California’s 10-campus tours, they opted to select the UC Davis campus flavor as “Honey Bee.”
That’s in reference to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, described as “the largest and most comprehensive state-supported apiculture facility in North America and the only one in California.”
Gelateria Naia has donated 50,000 Bar Gelato treats, or what Dave Jones, editor of UC Davis Dateline, describes as “gelato on a stick.” The company, located in Hercules, Contra Costa County, is the tour’s official gelato sponsor.
The marketing campaign, “Onward California,” will be at the Davis Farmers’ Market, Central Park, 3rd and C streets from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 3, and on campus on the East Quad from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4. Attendees will receive the free “Honey Bee Gelato.”
The East Quad event, part of the Davis Chamber on the Quad, “the annual event where Davis businesses introduce themselves to the campus community,” Jones said. The Davis Chamber Day on the Quad will be from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., while the Onward California tour will take place longer—from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Berkeley: Vitamin (K)iwi — Kiwi is naturally high in vitamin K, a vitamin discovered by UC Berkeley.
San Francisco: Super Strawberry — UC San Francisco researchers found that eating lots of fruits and vegetables is associated with a 50 percent reduction in the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
Santa Cruz: Vanill-Lick — With headquarters at UC Santa Cruz, Lick Observatory is home to many astronomical discoveries, including several moons of Jupiter and extra-solar planets.
Merced: Cognitive Chocolate — UC Merced professors helped IBM develop experimental computer chips designed to emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition.
Santa Barbara: Energizer Coffee — UC Santa Barbara Professor Daniel Morse has led development of a biologically inspired nanostructured battery that promises high power, longevity and low cost.
Los Angeles: The Limelight — Star power: UCLA alumni have 107 Academy Award wins and nominations. UCLA’s film school draws upon industry leaders for its faculty, advisers and mentors.
Irvine: HTTP Pistachio — UC Irvine alum Roy Fielding is co-founder of Apache HTTP Serve Project and architect of the HTTP/1.1 protocol used worldwide for Internet access.
Riverside: Citrus Grove (tangelo and lemon) — UC Riverside has roots as a Citrus Experiment Station and continues to help grow California’s citrus industry, developing more than 40 new citrus varieties.
San Diego: Being Green (matcha green tea) — Sierra Club’s magazine ranked UC San Diego the “greenest” school in California and the third “greenest” in the country.
See Dateline for "A Honey of a Treat Just for UC Davis" and "UC's Statewide Tour Heads to Davis--City and Campus."
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
DAVIS--The Bohart Museum of Entomology will host 10 weekend open houses during the 2012-2013 academic year. All will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. except for the open house during UC Davis Picnic Day, April 20, when the hours will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The open houses are free and open to the public.
They are:
Friday, Sept. 15
Theme: "Flower Lovers: The Bees"
Saturday, Oct. 27
Theme: "Insects and Death"
Sunday, Nov. 18
Theme: "Insect Societies"
Saturday, Dec. 15
Theme: "Insects in Art"
Sunday, Jan. 13
Theme: "Extreme Insects"
Saturday, Feb. 2
Theme: "Biodiversity Museum Day"
Sunday, March 24
Theme: "Aquatic Insects"
Saturday, April 20:
Theme: UC Davis Picnic Day
Saturday, May 11
Theme: "Moth-er's Day"
Sunday, June 9
Theme: "How to Find Insects"
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America. It is also the home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum in 1946.
The insect museum includes a gift shop and a live "petting zoo," complete with Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and a rose-haired tarantula that you can hold and photograph.
The Bohart’s regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. It is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
DAVIS--“Bounty of Pollination: More Than Just Honey” will set the theme for the debut event of the Honey and Pollination Center on Saturday, Oct. 27 at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science (RMI), University of California, Davis.
The public event will take place from 1 to 5:30 p.m. in the RMI’s Silverado Vineyards Sensory Theater. The site is on the UC Davis campus near the Mondavi Center for the Performing Art. Tickets are available through the RMI website. The cost is $60 per person, with special discounts for UC faculty, staff and students.
Ed Lewis, vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is the faculty director of the newly formed Honey and Pollination Center.
The event is billed as “an afternoon of lively discussions, unique tastings and interesting displays on the science behind honey and non-honeybee pollinators.”
Clare Hasler-Lewis, executive director of RMI, and Lewis will give the welcome and introductions. Among the speakers will be Amina Harris, owner of Z Specialty Foods, Woodland; Rebecca Ets-Hokin of the San Francisco Bay Area, certified culinary professional, who will discuss “Varietal Honeys—Blending the Flavors in the Kitchen”; and Neal Williams, assistant professor of entomology, whose topic is “Integrated Pollination Strategies: Managed and Wild Bees for a Sustainable Future.”
Also planned is a best honey competition, a Pollinator Partnership activity, and a reception that will include tastings and best honey competition results.
Goals of the fledgling center include:
- Expand research and education concerning nutrition, health, quality and appreciation of honey
- Develop useful information for California’s agricultural bounty that depends on insect pollination
- Help the honey industry establish labeling guidelines to guarantee pure and unadulterated varietal honey
- Coordinate a multidisciplinary team of experts in honey production, pollination and bee health
- Promote the use of locally procured honey in the home, food industry and restaurants.
Further information, including a coupon code for discounted prices, is available from event coordinator Tracy Dickinson at tdickinson@ucdavis.edu. Those who would like to become a Friend of the RMI may contact Kim Bannister at kbannister@ucdavis.edu.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
That's because a permanent one will be installed soon.
This morning (Aug. 16) Derek Tully of Boy Scout Troop 111 and other volunteers began the task of erecting a permanent fence as part of his Eagle Scout project. They have scheduled work day for Saturday, Aug. 18, beginning around 8:30 a.m., and are coordinating the volunteers.
Tully, a senior at Davis High School, is coordinating the project. He and his father, Larry, conferred with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, and UC Davis forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey.
TheHäagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is a half-acre bee friendly garden next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road. It was planted in the fall of 2009. A grand celebration of the garden took place Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010.
The garden is open year-around, from dawn to dusk. Admission is free.
A Sausalito-based team created the series of interconnected gardens to win the international bee-friendly garden design competition, a gift to the UC Davis Department of Entomology from the Häagen-Dazs brand.
The UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program, co-founded and co-directed by Diane Ullman and Donna Billick, created the art in the garden and are continuing their projects there.
Billick, a self-described rock artist whose work is exhibited in many countries of the world, crafted the six-foot-long bee ceramic sculpture in the garden. She titled it "Miss Bee Haven." Listen to her TedX talk on YouTube.
Ullman is a professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and associate dean for undergraduate academic programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Listen to her TedX talk on YouTube.
Ecology graduate student/teaching assistant Sarah Dalrymple was a key person behind the native bee mural on the tool shed and the native bee condos being installed.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Nov. 9, 2012
Johnson will discuss “Completed and Ongoing Research at the Laidlaw Bee Research Facility” during the Nov. 15th session. He will be presenting information on two sets of experiments he and his associates conducted at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, headquartered on Bee Biology Road.
“First we collected data suggesting that high fructose corn syrup blends are not harmful to colonies and that they may even be preferable to sucrose solution in the context of commercial beekeeping,” Johnson said. “Second, we showed that rates of multiple and single viral infection are higher in commercial beekeepers than in queen breeders or small scale hobbyists. This suggests that management practices can strongly affect rates of pathogen infection and that future efforts should be directed to mitigating these effects.”
Mussen, who also serves as parliamentarian on the CSBA governing board, will speak on “Honey Bee Nutrition” on Tuesday, Nov. 13 and “Keeping Your Bees in the Hive” on Wednesday, Nov. 14.
“In the honey bee colony’s quest to obtain adequate nutrition, the foraging bees visit an acre equivalent of flower blooms that they seek out in the 50-square mile area over which the foragers can range,” Mussen said.
In his other talk, “Keeping Bees in the Hive”—a play on words in the title—Mussen will discuss how “not allow honey bee colonies to swarm.” He also will tell why strong colonies require an abundant supply of good pollens and nectar all the active season. “And finally, I will mention ways in which bees can be confined to the hive for short periods of time to avoid pesticide exposure or for moving the hives to new locations.”
Time permitting, following the board of directors’ meeting, Mussen will deliver a third talk on “Africanized Honey Bees,’ tracing the history of the bees to 1956 when entomologist/professor Wawick Kerr imported 26 queen honey bees into Brazil from South Africa. Warwick hoped to hybridize tropical (African) and temperate climate (European bees) to obtain high honey production and better disposition. However, a beekeeper inadvertently released some of the descendants into the Western Hemisphere and they have now southern and central California.
See CSBA schedule
Editor's Note: Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen talks about Africanized honey bees on the national Fox network (Aug. 1). He drew rave reviews on a Jefferson Exchange radio program celebrating bees (Aug. 15, 2012). Wrote one fan: "I heard you on the Jefferson Exchange the other day. I have studied honey bees for a long time, and you have the most comprehensive grasp of their biology, behavior, health--and their economic and historical relationship to people--that I have seen."
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
