- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“I have had a lifelong love and respect for bees and I spent a lot of my childhood watching them, attracting them with sugar water, catching and playing with them and even dissecting them during a time when I imagined myself to be a junior scientist,” Jamison said. “Back in those days, there was an abundance of bees, usually observed by this kid in her family’s backyard full of clover blossoms—something you rarely see any more due to spraying of pre-emergents and other weed killers.”
So when Jamison became state regent of the California State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), she adopted the motto, “Bees are at the heart of our existence” and vowed to support research to help the beleaguered bees. Her project resulted in DAR members raising $30,000 for bee research at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis.
“Every state regent has a fund-raising project; I chose honey bees,” said Jamison, whose first name, Debra, means “bee” in Hebrew. Fresno, in the heart of San Joaquin Valley, is “The Food Basket to the World,” Jamison said, and “a place where we grow a large variety of crops that require bees for pollination.”
“When the California State Society Board of Directors approved this project, we knew that it was an important one,” she told the crowd at a recent ceremony at UC Davis. “However, we did not know just how vital this project would be until we began talking to staff at UC Davis. We hope that our contribution helps provide needed funding for the extremely important research going on at this well-known and well-respected facility.”
Jamison and her state regent project chair, Karen Montgomery of Modesto, presented the $30,000 check to Edwin Lewis, professor and vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and bee scientist/assisant professor Brian Johnson at a ceremony in the department's Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road. More than 125 DAR members from throughout California attended.
Lewis gratefully accepted the check on behalf of the department and noted that his mother, Betty Lewis, is an active member of the DAR Owasco Chapter in Auburn, N.Y. “My mother would definitely approve of this project,” he quipped. Lewis gifted Jamison with a mosaic ceramic figure of a bee, crafted by Davis artist Donna Billick, co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.
The funds will be used in the Johnson lab. His graduate student, Gerard Smith, researches the effect of pesticide exposure in the field on honey bee foraging behavior, and graduate student Cameron Jasper studies the genetic basis of division of labor in honey bees.
Johnson and fellow UC Davis bee scientists Neal Williams and Robbin Thorp discusssed their work and the importance of bees as pollinators. Williams, an assistant professor, researches wild or non-managed bees. Thorp, a native pollinator specialist and emeritus professor of entomology, does research on bumble bees and other bees. Like Lewis, Thorp is closely linked with DAR: his mother, the late Elizabeth Thorp was active in the Algonquin Chapter, Benton Harbor, Mich.
The “Year of the Bee” began when Jamison and her fellow DAR members studied what she called “the amazing history of beekeeping that goes back more than 2000 years.” In doing so," we gained a new perspective on the necessary work these small insects perform” for humankind.
Jamison thanked Fresno beekeeper Brian Liggett and Cooperative Extension specialist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology for helping educate them about the bees. Among the others she acknowledged were Christi Heintz, director of Project Apis m., “who provided information on the plight of bees and helped us get in contact with UC Davis.”
The DAR congregation attending the ceremony included Honorary President General Dorla Kemper of Granite Bay, who held DAR’s highest national office; and Honorary State Regent Leonora Branca of Pebble Beach, who held DAR's highest California office. Jamison's governing board attending were vice regent Carol Jackson, Malibu; recording secretary Midge Enke, Tracy; corresponding secretary Sally Holcombe, Walnut Creek; treasurer Gayle Mooney, Elk Grove; parliamentarian Mary Brown, Westlake Village; librarian Donna Riegel, Pasadena; and chaplain Sandra Orozco, Tehachapi.
The DAR members toured the Laidlaw research facility and the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, which is designed to provide a year-around food source for the Laidlaw bees and other pollinators; to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees; and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own. A six-foot-long ceramic mosaic sculpture of a worker bee, crafted by Billick, anchors the garden.
The Almond Board of California provided packages of almonds for the crowd.
Not missed was the DAR/bee connection: a gift from the nation’s oldest genealogical society to support one of the world’s oldest--and the most beneficial--insect, the honey bee. European colonists brought the honey bee to the Jamestown Colony, Virginia, in 1622, some 153 years before the American Revolution. Native Americans called it “the white man’s fly.” Honey bees did not arrive in California until 1853, transported via the Isthmus of Panama.
The U. S. honey bee population has declined by about a third since 2006 due to the mysterious malady known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), said Mussen, attributing CCD to multiple factors including disease, pests, parasites, pesticides, malnutrition and stress.
Founded in 1890 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., DAR is a non-profit, non-political volunteer women's service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America's future through better education for children, Jamison said. Its worldwide membership totals some 170,000 descendants of American Revolutionary War patriots in 3000 chapters. More than 890,000 women have joined DAR since its founding 123 years ago. The California State Society, founded in 1891 and based in Glendora, is comprised of nearly 9,900 members.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When honey bee guru Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist and member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty since 1976, received the Alexander Hodson Graduate Alumni Award from his alma mater, the University of Minnesota, he was praised as an outstanding apiculturist who does the university--and the nation--proud.
He was also roasted. Colleague Mark Epstein, senior insect biosystematist at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, managed to obtain footage of Mussen singing doo-wop—off-key. The crowd roared.
So did Mussen.
Mussen sings doo wop as a member of a Davis Art Center-based group led by Frank Fox. “We were joking around at the end of a song, ‘Looking for an Echo,’ and we crashed,” Mussen acknowledged.
William Hutchison, professor and head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota, presented Mussen with the award. The award memorializes Alexander C. Hodson, Department Head from 1960-1974 who died in 1996. The Hodson Graduate Alumni Award was established in 1998 to recognize and honor outstanding alumni of the Department of Entomology.
Mussen was nominated by former recipient Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Apiculture and 2010 MacArthur Fellow, and Gary Reuter, apiculture technician, both with the University of Minnesota. Faculty and staff from UC Davis contributed to the nomination package.
While visiting the University of Minnoesta, Mussen met with faculty members Spivak, Timothy Kurtti and Vera Kirchek and their students. Professor Kurtii is working on the permanent honey bee cell culture line. Kirchek, an associate professor and urban forester, is conducting research on the residue of neonicotinoids, a class of neuro-active insecticides recently banned by the European Commission as being harmful to honey bees.
A native of Schenectady, N.Y., Mussen received his bachelor’s degree in entomology from the University of Massachusetts (after turning down an offer to play football at Harvard) and then received his master’s degree and doctorate in entomology from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and 1975, respectively.
His doctoral research focused on the epidemiology of a viral disease of larval honey bees, sacbrood virus. "During those studies I also was involved in studies concerning sunflower pollination and control of a microsporidian parasite of honey bees, Nosema apis," Mussen recalled. "Now a new species of Nosema has displaced N. apis and is even more difficult to keep subdued."
“Given this foundation, he was confronted with many new challenges regarding honey bee health and pollination concerns when he arrived at UC Davis in 1976,” said Hutchison. “Some 37 years later, he is still actively ‘tackling’ these new challenges--mites, diseases, and Africanized honey bees, to name a few--to enhance the pollination success of California's diverse agricultural cropping systems, with considerable emphasis on almonds. In brief, he is in demand, and he continues to be the primary source for objective information on honey bee health, and pollination in California.”
"I am basically all pro-bee,” Mussen told the American Bee Journal in a two-part feature story published in the September of 2011. “Whatever I can do for bees, I do it...It doesn’t matter whether there is one hive in the backyard or 15,000 colonies. Bees are bees and the bees’ needs are the bees’ needs.”
Mussen, who plans to retire from UC Davis in June 2014, credits his grandfather with sparking his interest in insects. His grandfather, a self-taught naturalist, would take his young grandson to the woods to point out flora and fauna.
As a child, “my only concern was what if, by the time I went to college and became an entomologist, everything we wanted to know about insects was known,” Mussen told writer Mea McNeil for the American Bee Journal series.
"When he enrolled in graduate school, the only research opening was in the Basil Furgala lab," McNeil wrote. "Furgala, who researched bee viruses, took him to the apiary, grabbed a bee and let it sting him to make sure he could work there."
Mussen's nomination packet included the following comments:
- "Eric is without a doubt the epitome of a State Extension Specialist."
- "Without a doubt, Dr. Mussen is the premier authority on bees and pollination in California, and is one of the top beekeeping authorities nationwide."
- "He is a treasure to the beekeeping industry... he is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to honey bees."
- "He is a trusted information source."
Considered by his peers as one of the most respected and influential professional apiculturists in the nation, Mussen was named the California Beekeeper of the Year in 2006, won the American Association of Professional Apiculturists’ Award of Excellence in Extension Apiculture in 2007, and in 2008 he received the Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension from the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America. He received the statewide Pedro Ilic Outstanding Agricultural Educator Award in 2010. This year he and four other colleagues ("The Bee Team"--Neal Williams, Robbin Thorp, Brian Johnson and Lynn Kimsey) won the team award from the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America.
Mussen educates the beekeeping industry and general public with his bimonthly newsletter, from the UC Apiaries, which he launched in 1976. It appears on the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website, as does his Bee Briefs, addressing such issues as diseases, pesticides and swarms.
Mussen is a five-time president of the Western Apicultural Society, an organization he helped found in 1977. He was a founder and alternated between president and secretary/treasurer of the American Association of Professional Apiculturists for many years.
Mussen, who is the UC Davis representative to the California State Apiary Board, offers input to the Department of Pesticide Regulation, particularly with the pesticide registration group. He works closely with Cooperation Extension, California Department of Food and Agriculture, California Department of Pesticide Regulation, the California Farm Bureau Federation, researchers in the UC system, researchers at the USDA/ARS honey bee laboratories at Beltsville, Md.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Tucson, Ariz., and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among others.
Highly sought by the news media for his expertise on bees, Mussen has appeared on the Lehrer Hour, BBC, Good Morning America, and quoted in scores of news media, including the New York Times, National Public Radio, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times.
Mark your calenders!
The Honey and Pollination Center at the University of California, Davis, has postponed its "Luncheon in the Garden" initially set Sunday, June 2 from noon to 3 p.m. in the Good Life Garden at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science on campus.
Executive director Amina Harris says plans call for the event to be rescheduled in October. it will be a "dazzling five-course meal from appetizers to cheese and desserts. Each course features honeys from around the globe."
The luncheon, open to the public, supports and introduces the Honey and Pollination Center. Food and drink will be provided by chefs, apiaries, wineries and meaderies (think wine made from honey), and the farmers of California.
What is the Honey and Pollination Center? Its vision is to establish UC Davis as a global center of excellence and education on bees, honey and pollination.
Its mission:
- Promote the use of high quality honey in the California market, help ensure the sustainability of honey production in California, and showcase the importance of honey and pollination to the well-being of Californians.
- Spearhead efforts to gain support and assemble teams for research, education and outreach programs for various stakeholder groups including: (1) the beekeeping industry, (2) agricultural interests who depend on bee pollination, (3) backyard beekeepers, and (4) the food industry
Its specific goals are five-fold:
- To optimize university resources by coordinating a multidisciplinary team of experts in honeyproduction, pollination and bee health
- To expand research and education efforts addressing the production, nutritional value, health benefits, economics, quality standards and appreciation of honey
- To serve the various agricultural stakeholders that depend on pollination services
- To help the industry develop informative and descriptive labeling guidelines for honey and bee-related products to establish transparency in the marketplace
- To elevate the perceived value of varietal honey to producers and consumers through education, marketing, and truth-in-labeling with the end goal of increasing the consumption of honey
For more information, contact events manager Tracy Diesslin at (530) 752-5233 or at tdiesslin@ucdavis.edu.
And if you'd like to make a donation, contact Harris at (530) 754-9301 or aharris@ucdavis.edu.
(Editor's Note: Here's the newly created Facebook page.)
Sept. 23, 2011
DAVIS--“I am basically all pro-bee. Whatever I can do for bees, I do it.”
So says Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the University of California, Davis in a two-part cover story in the American Bee Journal (ABJ).
Mussen, a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty since 1976, definitely knows his bees, said author and master beekeeper M.E.A. (“Mea”) McNeil of San Anselmo.
McNeil describes Mussen by what he does: “lecturing to bee clubs and university classes, doing media interviews, writing and editing science articles, participating in hands-on studies, organizing conferences, submitting pesticide label recommendations, writing a newsletter and responding to questions from the public and professionals.”
Mussen, who received his bachelor's degree in entomology from the University of Massachusetts, and his master's degree and doctorate from the University of Minnesota, credits his grandfather with sparking his interest in insects, McNeil recounts. His grandfather, a self-taught naturalist, would take his young grandson to the woods to point out flora and fauna.
As a child, “my only concern was what if, by the time I went to college and became an entomologist, everything we wanted to know about insects was known,” Mussen told McNeil.
When he enrolled in graduate school, the only research opening was in the Basil Furgala lab. Furgala, who researched bee viruses, took him to the apiary, “grabbed a bee" and let it sting him to make sure he would work there,” McNeil wrote.
Mussen's passion for bees is well expressed in the ABJ article. “It doesn't matter whether there is one hive in the backyard or 15,000 colonies,” Mussen told her. “Bees are bees and the bees' needs are the bees' needs.”
Of the ABJ feature, Mussen said Sept. 23: “I am honored to have been selected by Mea as someone worthy of being featured in a national publication. It always is pleasant to receive a pat on the back.”
ABJ, established in 1861 by Samuel Wagner, has been published continuously since that time, except for a brief period during the Civil War. It is now published by Dadant and Sons and ranks as the oldest English language beekeeping publication in the world. It draws its readership from hobby and commercial beekeepers, bee supply dealers, queen breeders, package-bee shippers, honey packers, and entomologists.
Mussen, considered by his peers as one of the most respected and influential professional apiculturists in the nation, was named the California Beekeeper of the Year in 2006, won the American Association of Professional Apiculturists' Award of Excellence in Extension Apiculture in 2007, and in 2008 he received the Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension from the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America. He received the statewide Pedro Ilic Outstanding Agricultural Educator Award in 2010.
Mussen educates the beekeeping industry and general public with his bimonthly newsletter, from the UC Apiaries, which he launched in 1976. Since 1976, he has also written Bee Briefs, addressing such issues as diseases, pesticides and swarms. Both publications are on the UC Davis Department of Entomology Web site.
“Eric is a worldwide authority on honey bees, but no problem is too small and no question too involved for him to answer,” said Extension specialist Larry Godfrey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, who nominated Mussen for the Pedro Illic award. “He devotes his research and extension activities to the improvement of honey bee health and honey bee colony management practices. Eric helps growers, consumers, UC Farm Advisors, agricultural commissioners, scientists, beekeepers, researchers, pesticide regulators, 4-H'ers, and state and national agricultural and apicultural organizations. He ignites their interest in maintaining the health of bees, cultivates their friendship, and generously gives of his time and intellect.”
With the decline of the honey bee population and the increase of the mysterious colony collapse disorder, his expertise is now more highly sought than ever,” Godfrey pointed out. “Any threat to honey bees is a threat to agriculture and a cause for his concern and a desire to assist. He is the only Extension Apiculturist in the UC system and in many regards, functions as the Extension entomologist for apiculture in the western U.S. and indeed, much of the country.”
Mussen is a five-time president of the Western Apicultural Society, an organization he helped found in 1977. He's delivered the keynote addresses at the California State Beekeepers' Association (CSBA) and at the American Honey Producers' Association conventions. In addition, he provides leadership roles in the CSBA, the California Bee Breeders' Association, California Farm Bureau Federation, American Honey Producers' Association, National Honey Board, American Beekeeping Federation, American Association of Professional Apiculturists, and the Northern California Entomology Society, among others.
Mussen periodically speaks to some 20 beekeeping organizations a year, taking time from his busy schedule (often on the weekends and evenings) to travel to all parts of California and beyond. Mussen also mans the honey-tasting table at the annual UC Davis Picnic Day, where he encourages patrons to sample honey and ask questions. He displayed an observation hive at the 2008, 2009 and 2011 Dixon May Fair, where he answered questions from fairgoers.
“He is just as open to answering a question about Nosema to a beginning beekeeper or responding to a child's question about queen bees as he is to helping a commercial beekeeper with 15,000 hives, or engaging in intricate scientific research,” Godfrey said.
Mussen, who is the UC Davis representative to the California State Apiary Board, offers input to the Department of Pesticide Regulation, particularly with the pesticide registration group. Lately he assisted U.S. beekeepers in writing letters to receive compensation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their CCD (colony collapse disorder) bee losses.
Mussen works closely with Cooperation Extension, California Department of Food and Agriculture, California Department of Pesticide Regulation, the California Farm Bureau Federation, researchers in the UC system, researchers at the USDA/ARS honey bee laboratories at Beltsville, Md; Baton Rouge, La.; Tucson, Ariz., Weslaco, Texas, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among others.
Mussen serves on various committees and task forces of state and national organizations, reviews numerous manuscripts for journals; reviews annual research proposals to the California State Beekeepers' Association, the Almond Board of California, and the National Honey Board; reviews Small Business Innovation Research applications at the federal level; and is requested to comment on promotion evaluations for university and USDA researchers.
For the last 10 years, Mussen has been in charge of the California State 4-H Bee Essay Contest, disseminating guidelines, collecting entries and chairing the judging. The state winner advances to national competition. This year's California winner, Rachel Ricchiuto, 14, of Gold River, won the national award.
A popular bee spokesperson, Mussen has been interviewed by the BBC, Lehrer Hour, Associated Press, National Public Radio, Good Morning America, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, KGO Radio, Boston Globe and scores of other media. Two of his videos on bee health appear on the UC Davis Department of Entomology Web site and the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. An hour-long video on colony collapse disorder is on the national eXtension Web site.
(Editor's Note: Below are the links to the ABJ articles (authorized by ABJ editor Joe Graham and author M.E.A. McNeil and used with their permission)
August publication from American Bee Journal (PDF)
September publication from American Bee Journal (PDF)
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bee breeder and geneticist Susan Cobey, who leads the bee breeding program at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Biology Research Facility at the UC Davis, scours a hive for the queen bee.
Her trained eye quickly spots the elongated queen. Dozens of worker bees circle the queen. Their job is to protect and nurture the matriarch of the 50,000- to 80,000-member colony. The queen's sole job is to reproduce; typically she lays about 2,000 eggs a day during her two-year life span.
And it's Cobey's job to ensure that queen bee breeding programs thrive, that bees literally be all they can be.
“The queen, mother of all individuals in a hive, determines the inherited characteristics of the colony,” she wrote in a published paper. “Her success, productivity and lifespan are dependent upon the number and genetic diversity of drones with whom she mates.”
“The challenge with honey bee genetics is that queens always mate in flight,” Cobey said. “They'll mate with multiple drones, as many as 60, although average about 10, within a couple of days. The drones die after mating and the impregnated queen settles down to begin her lifelong egg-laying.”
“With instrumental insemination, we can control mating, enabling selection to enhance commercial stocks and maintain desired traits, including temper and resistance to disease and parasites.”
Cobey, a 30-year veteran of bee fertility research programs, is considered the world's most renowned bee insemination authority and instructor. Hired by UC Davis in May, she teaches courses on “The Art of Queen Rearing,” “Instrumental Insemination and Bee Breeding” and “Advanced Instruction Instrumental Insemination.”
Over the last 25 years, she's taught researchers and beekeepers from Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, France, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, China, India, United Kingdom, England, New Zealand. Korea, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, and Nigeria.
By invitation, she's also taught in Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Egypt and South Africa.
Cobey's job is basically to build a better bee by maximizing the good traits and minimizing the bad traits. “Controlled mating,” she said, “is the basic foundation of all stock improvement programs.”
The issue is timely, especially since CCD — “colony collapse disorder” or “massive honeybee die-off” — killed a quarter of the nation's 2.4 million commercial bee hives last winter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Colony collapse disorder appears to be a complex issue,” Cobey said. “Similar situations have been experienced in the past. CCD may involve a variety of factors; parasitic mites, bee pathogens, chemicals (both miticides used in the colony and pesticides in the environment), changing climates, loss of forage, poor nutrition and loss of genetic diversity. Overall, I think it is stress, caused by the combination of these factors.”
However, by controlling the genetics of honey bees, researchers can breed stronger, more survivable bees, bees able to withstand such pests as varroa mites, she said.
Honey bees, crucial to the nation's multi-billion agricultural industry, pollinate one-third of the food crops, including fruits, legumes and vegetables, according to the USDA. They account for 80 percent of all insect crop pollination. They produce around 200 million pounds of honey a year in the United States, or about 84 pounds of honey per colony. California's honey production averages $25.2 million a year, just behind national leader North Dakota's $27.2 million.
Bees are especially critical to almond growers.
“Without honey bee pollination, crop yields would not be economically viable,” Cobey said. California, accounting for half of the world production of almonds, requires between 900,000 and 1 million colonies of honey bees to pollinate the state's 420,000 acres of almonds, figures the National Honey Board.
Insects first sparked Cobey's interest during her childhood in Lancaster County, Pa. She remembers bringing insects into her elementary school classroom for show and tell, until she was told to choose something different.
“Insects are like jewelry,” she said. “They come in all shapes, sizes and colors.”
And bees? The social insects fascinate her. “The beehive is so efficient. The queen is the soul of the colony. She sets the tone and the production rate. Every bee has a task.”
After enrolling in a student exchange program in entomology in 1975 at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Cobey received her bachelor's degree in entomology in 1976 from the University of Delaware, Newark. From 1978 to 1980, she worked at UC Davis, where she was influenced by Harry Laidlaw (1907-2003).
Known as the “father of honeybee genetics,” Laidlaw perfected artificial bee insemination technology. “He discovered the valve fold in the queen bee which hinders injection of semen into the lateral oviducts,” Cobey said. “He developed instrumentation to bypass the valve fold enabling the success of bee insemination.”
Utilizing the training, Cobey established the Vaca Valley Apiaries in Vacaville in 1982, developing the highly regarded New World Carniolan (a black race of bees) Breeding Program. In 1990 she pulled up roots—and hives—and settled in Ohio, serving as staff apiarist at the Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory at Ohio State University until accepting the research associate position at the UC Davis facility in May. She joins Eric Mussen, a longtime UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist.
Cobey is part of the overall plan to launch the UC Davis bee biology research program back to international prominence, said Walter Leal, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology. Over the past decade, budget cuts, resignations and retirements took their toll. The department is now recruiting a professor specializing in bee pollination.
Cobey's expertise includes establishing and managing a closed population breeding program for more than 30 years, researching and writing scientific publications, and teaching bee breeders how to inseminate queen bees. She developed techniques and equipment for instrumental insemination, including a ruby-tipped hook, but has no plans for patent rights.
“The world of bee breeding is so small,” she said.
At Ohio State University, she developed an independent research program on post-insemination survival of honey bee queens and the selection of behavioral traits. Selection for hygienic behavior, the ability to detect and remove varroa mites and bee diseases from brood, is one trait of natural resistance. The varroa mite, a native of Asia, dines on bee larvae and occasionally an adult bee.
In her instrumental insemination classes, Cobey teaches students how to extract semen from a drone, and inseminate an anesthetized virgin queen. Magnified images on a computer screen help illustrate the procedure.
Students highly praise her skills and teaching ability. In a thank-you note to Leal, bee breeder Dave Welter of Welter Apiaries of Stuart, Fla., wrote: “Thank you for hosting the Honeybee Instrumental Insemination short course. It was first rate. I am from South Florida where we are trying to develop strategies to deal with the arrival of the African Honey Bee. The skills that I developed in Sue's class will provide me with a valuable resource as I move forward in this endeavor. Sue really did an incredible job teaching this class. Her patience, professionalism and vast experience created an environment highly conducive to learning. I am very pleased with what I learned and the skills I developed.”
Cobey's New World Carniolan bees also draw international acclaim. Wrote Honey Run Apiaries of Delphos, Ohio: “Our breeder queens are obtained directly from Sue Cobey's New World Carniolan Breeding Program. These queens have been selected for productivity, rapid spring buildup, overwintering ability, tracheal mite resistance, hygienic behavior, pollen collection, gentle temperament and high brood viability. We have been impressed with their performance and with their calm, gentle nature they are a pleasure to work.”
“I love my work,” said Cobey, who is partial to blue jeans and t-shirts. “I get to work outside and enjoy the change of seasons, the smells and sounds, and be close to nature. And my bees.”
She admits to having a soft spot for drones. Once the honey-gathering season is over, the worker bees kick the drones out of the hive, as their only function is to mate.
“They're cold and hungry, sitting there on the doorstep and wanting to go back in. They're attacked and they die. Well, it's a matriarchal society.”
Husband Timothy Lawrence, an analyst with UC Davis Extension, shares her interest in bees. A wedding portrait shows them bearded with bees.
Cobey also enjoys working with bee breeders. Beekeeping is a hard life, but it's a lifestyle for many.
“They just fall in love with their bees.”
As does she. “Breeding them so they're strong and healthy and resilient, so they will bounce right back, it's a passion and an increasing challenge.”