April 26, 2011 See more photos

When forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey leaves the UC Davis Department of Entomology for his bimonthly trips to Alcatraz Island, it's not to sightsee.

He's not there to tour the “The Rock” or contemplate the lives of the notorious criminals once housed in the former federal penitentiary--inmates like Al “Scarface” Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Robert “The Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud or Arthur “Doc” Barker.

He's there to do research on the nuisance flies that plaque staff and tourists.

Meet Robert Kimsey, “The Fly Man of Alcatraz,” a name given him by a former guard at the penitentiary during the 2007 Alcatraz Reunion..

The professor-researcher has traveled to the island about 50 times since July 2007. When he stays overnight, he sleeps in the same cell once occupied by “The Birdman of Alcatraz”-- Cell 42 in D block.

“Stroud spent 17 years on The Rock, six years in segregation in D Block and 11 years in the infirmary where he was treated for Bright's Disease,” Kimsey said.

Cell 42, basically an all-steel box with steel bars on the windows, offers a dazzling view of San Francisco.

“One day when I was working on research until 4:30 a.m., I laid down in the cell, extremely tired,” Kimsey said. “I looked through the steel bars and saw the lights of San Francisco. I thought about how I'd feel if I had to spend a large chunk of my life in this cell.  I'd certainly be very angry with myself.”

Kimsey became involved in the fly project in July 2007 when he received a call about the annoying flies from entomologist Bruce Badzik, integrated pest management coordinator with the National Park Service, Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Complaints rose to a feverish pitch in late August, September and October. The flies seemed to land on people as if they were rotten meat.  Kimsey witnessed the incessant “shoo-fly” behavior on the docks and encountered it on a personal basis.

Kimsey identified the troubling fly as a “kelp fly” (Fucillia thinobia) or “cormorant fly” in the family Anthomyiidae. “But it's not a kelp fly as such,” said Kimsey, who plans to publish his research in an entomological journal. “It has nothing to do with kelp. It lives in purge-soaked soil under dead cormorants found in rookeries all around the island. It does not exist in any other place.”

“Alcatraz,” he said, “is the perfect place to study this fly, with three species of cormorants utilizing the island, and this is the only breeding spot for Brandt's and the pelagic cormorant in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Since federal law prohibits people from entering the rookeries--inhabited by cormorants, gulls, night herons, egrets and pigeon guillemots--Kimsey could not examine the rookeries until the nesting birds vacated the area.

Fucillia thinobia creates problems for four to six weeks as the cormorants start to leave the island, the entomologists said. In the late summer or early fall, usually in September and October, the flies vacate the rookeries on the west side of the island, and move to various parts, including the dock on the east side.

“With Bob's dedication and professionalism, he has been able to create this enthusiastic desire by island staff to know more about the biology of this fly,” Badzik said. “This is an impressive thing to do on an island with a rich cultural history.”

“This fly has no public health significance,” Kimsey said. “They rest on human beings as they rest on any other surface—on the ground, buildings and on humans. Like flying insects found on islands, they remain near the ground and tend to flit from place to place rather than fly high in an air column.

His research involved quizzing park rangers, former prisoners and guards at the 2007 Alcatraz Reunion, held Aug. 12.  “Do you recall flies ever being a problem on Alcatraz during your association with the island?” he asked.

“Of 15 persons interviewed, all but one stated that they had no recollection of flies ever having been a problem anywhere on the island in the period prior to 1963,” he said. (The island was a federal penitentiary from 1934 to 1963). The sole person describing any kind of a fly as a problem recalled small non-metallic, gray-colored flies in the kitchen.

Back then the island had no extensive rookeries as it has today, Kimsey said. 

The noted UC Davis fly expert said the kelp or cormorant flies differ from blowflies (family Calliphoridae). “The typical blowfly is twice as large, stout and with a shiny green body or a dark blue abdomen,” he said. “The smaller cormorant flies are slender and a dull grey-brown in color.”

Kimsey and Badzik, partners in the fly problem, know The Rock well. They have scrutinized every building, the entire shoreline, the cliffs and tunnels, the rookeries, trash cans, public restrooms, sewage facilities and “certainly every potential source of flies commonly associated with humans.”

The entomologists survey places off limits to the public, such as the Citadel, “part of the old Civil War fort beneath the main cell block where they used to put prisoners.”

The result: none of the sites contributes to the production of flies except the rookeries.

“We discovered that the shoreline of Alcatraz offers no habitat for the genus Fucillia,” Kimsey said.  “F. thinobia does not breed in the piles of decomposing kelp and other flotsam, commonly known as beach wrack.”

So far, Kimsey and Badzik have identified 17 species of flies on the island. Before their research, no one knew how many or what species of flies existed on Alcatraz. However, only one—the cormorant fly—bothers staff and visitors.

Kimsey continues to place baited fly traps on the island and checks them repeatedly. He reared a colony of kelp flies in his UC Davis lab until a fungus killed them.

No stranger to Alcatraz, Kimsey remembers taking his Boy Scout troops there for overnight trips in the 1990s. He now guides members of the UC Davis Entomology Club and graduate students there. They help with the research and learn about the insects. (One graduate student created a “Fly Man of Alcatraz” T-shirt with bars and his likeness—a T-shirt available for sale at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis campus.)

The UC Davis students also receive lessons on the history of the island from Bruce Badzik. For example, Alcatraz was the site of the first lighthouse and first U.S. built fort on the West Coast before it became a federal prison. Today the National Park Service offers year-around tours, except on major holidays.

“Alcatraz is truly a wonderful place to go,” Kimsey said. “It combines history with living history. The 1920s, 30s and 40s--and the criminals and gangsters of that era—those were interesting times in American history.  There was this idea in the criminal justice system that one can correct criminal behavior by isolating them from other people--forcing them to be introspective by sitting in their cell and thinking about the wrongs they committed.  The name, penitentiary, has its origins with Puritans or Quakers. They felt that when you commit a wrong and do penance, you can be reformed.”

John Dekker, shown in 2008 when he attended a Vacaville Art League Gallery show on Alcatraz by photographer Dudley Owens. Dekker is one of the many former inmates Kimsey has met since 2007.

“Federal prisoners were sent to Alcatraz not necessarily because of the nature of their crime but of their deportment or behavior toward others in jails elsewhere,” Kimsey said. “If they fought constantly, tried to kill the guards, or tried to escape, Alcatraz was the place to send them. They were not necessarily the worst of the worst, but the most difficult.”

Kimsey, who has attended several Alcatraz Reunions, reuniting former inmates, guards and others who lived on the island when it was a federal penitentiary, is now friends with many of them. Of the former inmates he's met: “To a person, each one had no desire to be involved in recidivism after staying on the island.”

For some, it involved a revelation. “They ‘saw the light' as they sat on the island contemplating the errors of their ways,” Kimsey said. “They fell back into the religion that they had embraced as a child. For others, it was an epiphany—a sudden realization--of why they should be good and the consequences of being bad. They didn't want to be bad any more.”

Robert Luke in 2011

"It was a  pleasure to meet Bob on my first return  to Alcatraz on Aug. 8, 2010 for the annual reunion," said former inmate Robert Luke, now 83, who did time from 1954 to 1959. "It was a very interesting return after being out for 51 years. I was convicted of bank robbery with an automatic weapon and was sent to Alcatraz for attempted escape from Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas." Luke, who now lives in Northern California, is a National Park Service volunteer on "The Rock."

Meanwhile, the flies aren't the problem they were in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (the year Kimsey was awarded a National Park Service grant).

“In 2010, the cormorants didn't come back and neither did the flies,” Kimsey said. “Gulls came back but not flies. It doesn't appear they will be a major problem in 2011.”

It could be because of the reduced food supply for the cormorants, the forensic entomologist said.  “The sardines and herring off shore may have diminished, perhaps because of a shift in currents.”

<“This has been one of the most interesting entomological projects that I have worked on in my career,” Badzik said. “Through our research, we are discovering an enormous amount of information on this fly and how it is influenced by the cormorants on the island. None of the other dozen or more species of birds on the island have any relationship—at least as we know right now—to this fly.”

(Editor's Note: Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will speak on “The Flies of Alcatraz” at a meeting of the Northern California Entomology Society on Thursday, May 5 in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. His talk begins at 1: 15 p.m.)

Links:
Reservations to tour the island
About Alcatraz, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area
The Penitentiary

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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894

April 19, 2011 See news story on Robert Kimsey

UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, known as "The Fly Man of Alcatraz" for his work researching flies on the San Francisco Bay island that once housed some of the nation's most notorious criminals, will discuss his current research at the next meeting of the Northern California Entomology Society.

The meeting takes place from 9:15 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday, May 5 in the conference room of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.

Registration for club members and guests begins at 9:15 a.m. Membership is open to all interested persons.

Kimsey, an adjunct professor of entomology at UC Davis, works with the National Parks Service on research projects. He will speak on "The Flies of Alcatraz."

He is one of five speakers who will address the group from 9:45 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The agenda:

9:15 a.m.: Registration and coffee for club members and guests
 
9:45 a.m.: “Non-target Effects of Mosquito Control,” aquatic entomologist-community ecologist Sharon Lawler, professor UC Davis Department of Entomology

10:30 a.m. “Trichogramma (Stingless Wasps) for Control of the Light Brown Apple Moth,” entomologist William Roltsch, senior environmental research scientist, Biocontrol Program, California Department of Food and Agriculture, Sacramento

11:15 a.m.: “Pakistani Asian Citrus Psyllid Parasitoids,” entomologist Mark Hoddle, Extension specialist in biological control, and director for the Center for Invasive Species Research, UC Riverside Department of Entomology

Noon: (Lunch menu below)

1:15 p.m.:  “Flies of Alcatraz,” forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, adjunct professor, UC Davis Department of entomology
 
2 p.m.:“Ecosystems of Hedgerows: Pollination and Pest Control, UC Farm Advisor Rachael Long, pest management specialist, Yolo and Solano counties.

The Northern California Entomology Society is comprised of university faculty, researchers, pest abatement professionals, students and other interested persons. Newly elected president of the society is Leann Horning, an ag technician with the CDFA Biocontrol Program since 1990.

The society meets three times a year: the first Thursday in February, usually in Sacramento; the first Thursday in May, at UC Davis; and the first Thursday in November in the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District conference room, Concord. Membership dues are $10 year.

Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty serves as the secretary-treasurer.

For further information, contact Mussen at ecmussen@ucdavis.edu or call (530) 752-0472

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Directions to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility:

From the east: Take Interstate 80 to Highway 113 north, the Woodland exit. Go over the freeway overpass and then take the immediate next exit, Hutchison, on your right. On Hutchison, turn left (or west, toward the airport) and continue for about 1.3 miles. Turn left onto Hopkins Road and then take an immediate left onto Bee Biology Road.  The first building on the right is Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. Parking is free in front of the building or between the olive trees on both sides of the road.

From the west: Take I-80 through Dixon to Pedrick Road. Exit onto Pedrick and turn left at the stop sign, and proceed over the I-80 overpass. Proceed north on Pedrick a few miles. Turn right on Hutchinson and then right on Hopkins Road and left on Bee Biology Road.  The first building on the right is Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. Parking is free in front of the building or between the olive trees on both sides of the road.

Lunch menu Eric Mussen, secretary-treasurer of the Northern California Entomology Society, is taking lunch choice reservations. You may order a sandwich below ($15) by May 1 or bring your own. Contact him at ecmussen@ucdavis.edu; phone (530) 752-0472; or fax, (530) 752-1537. He will place the orders, which will be payable to him at the meeting. Safeway Select Favorite Sandwiches The Pub – Roast beef, blue cheese, caramelized onions, honey mustard and mayonnaise on artisan split crust bread. Great Western – Smoked turkey, pepper jack and chipotle dressing on artisan split crust bread. California Dreamin' – Pan-roasted turkey breast, avocado, ranch spread, bacon, green leaf lettuce and tomato on rustic Italian bread. Smoke Stack – Smoked turkey breast, black forest ham, smoked fontina, tomato, green leaf lettuce and spicy mustard on artisan split crust bread. Primo Italiano – Black forest ham, Genoa salami, provolone, pepperoncini, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato on artisan split crust bread. Chicago South Sider – Roast beef, horseradish cheddar cheese, horseradish sauce, lettuce and tomato on rustic Italian bread. Classic – Choice of Primo Taglio brand meats (grilled chicken, smoked turkey, pan roasted turkey, ham, roast beef, salami, chicken salad or tuna salad), primo Taglio brand cheeses (American, cheddar, Swiss, havarti, provolone), and condiments (lettuce, tomato, red onion, caramelized onion, green bell pepper, pepperoncini, dill pickle, bacon, and avocado) on your choice of bread: artisan split crust (original, cheddar, pesto), rustic Italian, country white or wheat, ciabatta, or focaccia (square, crusted roll). Salad Box Lunch, Noah's Bagels Chinese Chicken Salad – Roasted chicken, rice noodles, spring mix, Asian veggies, peanuts, chow mein noodles with sesame dressing and baked bagel croutons, specialty bread, and cookie. Caesar Salad – Romaine lettuce, creamy Caesar dressing, baked bagel croutons, specialty bread and cookie. City Salad – Spring mix, sweet roasted walnuts, gorgonzola cheese, raspberry vinaigrette, baked bagel croutons, specialty bread and cookie.

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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894

March 11, 2011

Frank Zalom, shown here by an almond tree, is the 2011 recipient of the presitigious C. W.Woodworth Award. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

DAVIS- Integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom, professor of entomology and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is the 2011 recipient of the prestigious C. W. Woodworth Award from the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America (PBSA).

Zalom will receive the award on Monday, March 28 during the branch's 95th annual meeting, to be held in Waikoloa, Hawaii. Brian Holden of Monte Sereno, Calif., great-grandson of Woodworth and a 1981 graduate of UC Davis in electrical engineering, will present the plaque and a check for $1000.

As the recipient of the Woodworth Award, Zalom will present a 45-minute plenary address at the opening session of the meeting.

Pacific branch president Roger Vargas of the U.S. Pacific Basic Agricultural Research Center, Hilo, Hawaii, described the award as the “most prestigious” given by the branch. “It is presented in recognition of outstanding work in the scientific discipline of entomology,” Vargas said.

The award memorializes Woodworth (1865-1940), a trailblazing entomologist credited for (1) being the first entomology faculty member at the University of California--and thought to be the first academic in the western United States who was an entomologist and (2) founding the UC Berkeley and UC Davis departments of entomology.  

Chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the 2010 recipient of the Woodworth prize, nominated Zalom for the award. Leal described Zalom as “one of the world's most prolific and respected IPM researchers, but  his influence in development of IPM policies and practices stretches globally.”

In addition to his professorial duties, Zalom is an extension agronomist, and an entomologist in the Agricultural Experiment Station.

Zalom  focuses his research on California specialty crops, including tree crops (almonds, olives, prunes, peaches), small fruits (grapes, strawberries, caneberries), and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes), as well as international IPM programs.

In his three decades with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, Zalom has published almost 300 refereed papers and book chapters, and 340 technical and extension articles.  The articles span a wide range of topics related to IPM, including introduction and management of newer, soft insecticides, development of economic thresholds and sampling methods, management of invasive species, biological control, insect population dynamics, pesticide runoff mitigation, and determination of host feeding and oviposition preferences of pests.

The Zalom lab has responded to six important pest invasions in the last decade, with research projects on glassy-winged sharpshooter, olive fruit fly, a new biotype of greenhouse whitefly, invasive saltcedar, light brown apple moth, and the spotted wing Drosophila.

Zalom serves as experiment station co-chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) National IPM Committee and is a member of APLU's Science and Technology Committee.  He directed the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years (1988-2001).

Zalom is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America,  American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Sciences. The Entomological Foundation presented him with its “Award for Excellence in IPM” at the ESA's meeting last December in San Diego.

Zalom is the eighth scientist from the UC Davis Department of Entomology to receive the award. Other recipients:  William Harry Lange, 1978; Harry Laidlaw Jr. 1981; Robert Washino, 1987; Thomas Leigh, 1991; Harry Kaya, 1999; Charles Summers, 2009; and Walter Leal, 2010.

The Pacific Branch of ESA encompasses 11 U.S. states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming); several U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; and  parts of Canada and Mexico.

More information:
Charles W. Woodworth
List of previous recipients of C. W. Woodworth Award
History of UC Davis Department of Entomology

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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894

DAVIS--When honey bee expert Norman Gary “suits up,” don't expect a standard-issued bee suit.

It's not an “ordinary” bee suit. And what he does is not “ordinary.”

Norman Gary, a retired University of California, Davis entomology professor, wears his bees—thousands of them.

And that suits him just fine. To him, bees are not only a science (study of apiculture), but an adventure.

Gary, 76, who retired in 1994 from UC Davis after a 32-year academic career, will appear Thursday, Sept. 16 on a History Channel show wearing 75,000 bees. The show, part of Stan Lee's “Super Humans,” is scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m., Pacific Time (Channel 64 for local Comcast viewers).

Host-presenter Daniel Browning Smith has billed him as “the human bee hive” and will explore bee behavior and the science behind the bees.

A crew from England filmed Gary in mid-May at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, at Rick Schubert's Bee Happy Apiaries in Vacaville-Winters and then in a UC Davis open field where the 75,000 bees clustered his entire body.

“That's about 20 pounds, depending upon how much honey or sugar syrup they have consumed,” Gary said. “A hungry bee weighs approximately 90 mg and within a minute of active ingestion she can increase her weight to 150 mgs!” 

Norman Gary knows bees. And he knows their behavior.

As a beekeeper, he's kept bees for 62 years and as a researcher, he's studied them for more than three decades. He's published more 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and four book chapters.

But he is also a bee wrangler. He trains bees to perform action scenes in movies, television shows and commercials. His credits over the last 35 years include 18 films, including “Fried Green Tomatoes”; more than 70 television shows, including the Johnny Carson and Jay Leno shows; six commercials, and hundreds of live Thriller Bee Shows in the Western states.

Gary estimates he has performed the bee cluster stunt at least 500 times over the past 35 years. He remembers 54 performances at the California State Fair alone.

The History Channel episode may be his last professionally staged bee-cluster stunt, he said. However, he will continue to serve as a bee consultant to video producers and has just written a beginning beekeeping book, “The Honey Bee Hobbyist,” to be published in early December by Bow Tie Press.

“Bees are trainable, if you ask them to perform behaviors that are in their natural behavioral repertoire,” Gary said.

For the shoot, Gary borrowed New World Carniolan bees from Schubert, whose bee stock originated with bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of the Laidlaw facility. “Bees are not inclined to sting if they are well fed—happy and content—and are ‘under the influence' of powerful synthetic queen bee odors—pheromones—which tend to pacify them,” Gary said.


Bees are attracted to pheromones and cluster on drops of pheromones he places on himself. While at UC Davis, he formulated a pheromone solution that is very effective in controlling bee behavior.

“Bees wrangled by this procedure have no inclination to sting,” he said. “Stinging behavior occurs naturally near the hive in defense of the entire colony not for the individual bee, because it dies within hours after stinging. Using this approach I have has as many as a million bees clustered on six people simultaneously “

Gary once trained bees to fly into his mouth to collect food from a small sponge saturated with his patented artificial nectar. He holds the Guinness World record (109 bees inside his closed mouth for 10 seconds) for the stunt. 

“Most people fear bees,” Gary acknowledged. “They think bees ‘want' to sting them. Wrong! They sting only when the nest or colony is attacked or disturbed or when they are trapped in a physical situation where they are crushed.”

Sometimes, with the heavy weight of the bees on his body, he'll receive one or two stings per cluster stunt. Sometimes none.

Gary, who began hobby beekeeping at age 15 in Florida, went on to earn a doctorate in apiculture at Cornell University in 1959. During his career, he has worn many hats, including hobby beekeeper, commercial beekeeper, deputy apiary inspector in New York, honey bee research scientist and entomology professor, adult beekeeping education teacher, and author.

Known internationally for his bee research, Gary was the first to document reproductive behavior of honey bees on film and the first to discover queen bee sex attractant pheromones. He invented a magnetic retrieval capture/recapture system for studying the foraging activities of bees, documenting the distribution and flight range in the field. His other studies revolved around honey bee pollination of agricultural crops, stinging and defensive behavior, and the effects of pesticides on foraging activities, among dozens of others.

Today his life centers around music and bees. He has played music professionally for more than 50 years and for nine years has led a Dixieland band, appropriately known as the Beez Kneez Jazz Band, recording two CDs. He has performed more than 30 years in the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, the world's largest jazz festival.

His instruments include the “B-flat clarinet,” which he plays when he's covered with bees.

“I'm still very active in bees and music,” Gary said. “It's a good life.”