- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden is the first on the list of the UC Davis Staff Assembly's "2022-23 Aggie Explorations" tours.
UC Davis staff are invited to register and participate on the Tuesday, Sept. 20 tour of the half-acre bee garden, known as the UC Davis Bee Haven. It is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the UC Davis campus. The event takes place from noon to 1 p.m. and is open only to staff.
UC Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the Department of Entomology and Nematology serves the faculty director of the garden, and Christine Casey is the academic program management officer.
The garden was planted in the fall of 2019 under the direction of interim department chair Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Häagen-Dazs was the primary donor. (See timeline and history of the garden.)
"The Honey Bee Haven will be a pollinator paradise," Kimsey related in December 2008. "It will provide a much needed, year-round food source for our bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. We anticipate it also will be a gathering place to inform and educate the public about bees. We are grateful to Haagen-Dazs for its continued efforts to ensure bee health."
The garden, Kimsey said, would include a seasonal variety of blooming plants that will provide a year-round food source for honey bees. It would be a living laboratory supporting research into the nutritional needs and natural feeding behaviors of honey bees and other insect pollinators. She added that visitors would be able to glean ideas on how to establish their own bee-friendly gardens and help to improve the nutrition of bees in their own backyards.
UC Davis Staff Assembly has scheduled five campus tours as part of its "A Taste of UC Davis," commemorating the UC Davis ranking as the nation's leading school in agriculture. The tours are open to staff only.
In addition to the UC Davis Bee Haven, venues include (see updates here):
- UC Davis Brewing Lab
Thursday, Oct. 27, Noon to 1 p.m. - The Pantry
Thursday, Nov. 17, Noon to 1 p.m. - UC Davis Student Farm
Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, Noon to 1 p.m. - Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science
Wednesday, Feb. 22, Noon to 1 p.m. - UC Davis Meat Laboratory
Date pending - UC Davis Coffee Center
Date pending - UC Noel-Nordfelt Animal Science Goat Dairy and Creamery
Date pending
"We are currently recruiting participants for our Breakfast with the Chancellor series!" noted Scott Loewen-Towner, UC Davis Staff Asssembly coordinator, conference and event services. The Breakfast with the Chancellor program is a unique opportunity for staff to meet with the Chancellor and fellow campus leaders to discuss topics that impact staff. Through this program, we invite staff to share ideas on how to improve processes, increase revenue, implement solutions to challenges experienced by staff, and more. Learn more and submit your interest form to attend Breakfast with the Chancellor."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Several UC Davis scientists, including Professor Lynn Kimsey, and Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, weighed in on "The Plight of the Pollinators," in an informative article by Ula Chrobak in the March edition of UC Davis Magazine, edited by Jocelyn Anderson.
Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, specializes in Hymenoptera. One of her activities: she hosts the annual Robbin Thorp Memorial Bumble Bee Contest contest to determine who can find the first bumble bee of the year in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento.
Niño, the statewide Extension apiculturist, serves as the director of the California Master Beekeepers' Program, and faculty director of the UC Davis Bee Haven.
Also featured were Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who has monitored the butterfly population of Central California since 1972; and avian veterinarian and hummingbird expert Lisa Tell, a UC Davis professor of veterinary medicine and author of a newly published children's poetry book, "If Hummingbirds Could Hum," that relates how to attract hummers.
Some resources mentioned:
- What to plant to attract bees and other pollinators: See the UC Davis Bee Haven website, directed by Niño and managed by Chris Casey. The Haven, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, is open year around, from dawn to dusk.
- What to plant to attract butterflies: See Art Shapiro's website, Art's Butterfly World
- Sign up for bee classes with the California Master Beekeepers' Program, launched and directed by Elina Lastro Niño
- See pollinators and other insects at the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology, home of a global collection of 8 million insect specimens. (The Bohart, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, is temporarily closed due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions)
Photographs for the UC Davis Magazine article are the work of Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and an avid pollinator photographer.
UC Davis Magazine, which has been covering the campus community since 1983, is printed in March and September. A yearly subscription is $12.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMPB) offers training for an "apprentice assistant," described as “the perfect science-based introduction to everything you need to keep safe, healthy bees.”
Apprentice assistant is the first level of the trainer programs offered by CAMPB, launched and directed by Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Other levels are apprentice, journey and master.
“We had 68 applicants in 2021 for the apprentice assistant class,” said Wendy Mather, program director of CAMPB. “Applications for 2022 will open Nov. 30, 2021.”
Applicants will fill out a form, review the Apprentice Assistant Study Guide and take an online written test, scoring at least 80 percent; complete an online beekeeping course (30 minutes); and learn about bee health at https://bee-health.extension.org/biology-of-individual-honey-bees/. They also must pass a practical test (20 minutes) at one of the CAMPB locations--Davis, San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles--and score at least 80 percent on the safety class.
The written test involves identifying beekeeping tools and equipment, such as the smoker and hive tool. The practical test involves:
- Describing the parts of the hive
- Lighting and using a smoker
- Recognizing the stages of brood (workers, drone and queen cells)
- Recognizing the different castes of bees
- Finding or describing the queen
- Differentiating between brood, pollen, nectar, and honey
- Recognizing propolis and describing its function
- Describing the layout of a brood nest (“the perfect frame”, placement of honey, pollen and brood)
The cost to enroll in the class is $50. At the onset, students will receive links to three live, online study halls, facilitated by CAMBP staff, to meet other new beekeepers and ask questions in preparation for the tests, which will be administered in person or virtually via Zoom (depending on COVID-19 restrictions.)
The class officially starts in March, Mather said, with final exams scheduled for September. Students must score at least 80 percent to become an official apprentice assistant. They then will have access to the CAMBP member network; webinars and CAMPB member news. And if they wish, they can apply for the next level, apprentice.
"One cool factor about apprentice assistant is if you decide that beekeeping isn't for you, you still get a certificate stating you've passed the 'theory' portion of the course if you choose only to write the online exam and satisfy your curiosity about humanity's only sweet treat purveying insect," Mather said. "It's not mandatory to get into a hive."
CAMBP requires 10 hours of volunteer service and 12 hours of continuing education each year so members can maintain and expand their beekeeping knowledge and skills. Some apprentice assistants, for example, may decide to hold an office in a beekeeping club; teach 4-H'ers how to keep bees; or assist commercial beekeepers in their operations.
More information is available on the apprentice assistant website or contact camasterbee@gmail.com.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Niño, known internationally for her expertise on honey bee queen biology, chemical ecology, and genomics, joined the faculty in September of 2014 and maintains laboratories and offices in Briggs Hall and at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.
Niño serves as the director of the California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP), which she launched in 2016. The California Master Beekeeper Program is a continuous train-the-trainer effort. CAMBP's vision is to train beekeepers to effectively communicate the importance of honey bees and other pollinators within their communities, serve as mentors for other beekeepers, and become the informational conduit between the beekeeping communities throughout the state and UCCE staff.
Niño is also the faculty director of the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the department's half-acre educational bee garden located next to the Laidlaw facility, which serves as the outdoor classroom for the Pollinator Education Program, lovingly known as PEP.
“My research interests are fluid and designed to address immediate needs of various agriculture stakeholder groups,” she writes on her website. “Projects encompass both basic and applied approaches to understanding and improving honey bee health and particularly honey bee queen health. Ongoing research projects include understanding queen mating and reproductive processes, discovery and evaluation of novel biopesticides for efficacy against varroa mites, and evaluating orchard management practices with a goal of improving honey bee health. Some of our more fun projects revolve around precision beekeeping and investigate the use of cutting edge technologies to make beekeeping more efficient and sustainable.”
Niño says she “greatly enjoys working with the community and especially with children. To ensure that our future researchers, agriculture leaders and innovators and future voters understand the importance of honey bees and other pollinators to our agroecosystems.”
“Our Pollinator Education Program at the Häagen Dazs Honey Bee Haven garden has been working with the Farms of Amador County to serve third grade students and we are planning on expanding our efforts in the near future and as the pandemic hopefully resolves.”
Niño received her bachelor's degree in animal science from Cornell University in 2003; her master's degree in entomology at North Carolina State University in 2006; and her doctorate at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in 2012. She served as a postdoctoral fellow, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA), as a member of the PSU Center for Pollinator Research.
Niño has a varied entomology background. While working on her bachelor's degree at Cornell, she was involved in studies on darkling beetle control in poultry houses, pan-trapped horse flies, and surveyed mosquitoes in New York state. While working toward her master's degree at North Carolina State University, she studied dung beetle nutrient cycling and its effect on grass growth, effects of methoprene (insect grown regular) on dung beetles in field and laboratory settings, and assisted in a workshop on forensic entomology.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Registration for the comprehensive, asynchronous course, "Honey Bees and Beekeeping for Veterinarians," is now underway at http://www.wifss.ucdavis.edu/beevets/. The course is intended for veterinarians, veterinary technicians, apiculture educators, apiary inspectors and beekeepers in California and Oregon. course, "Honey Bees and Beekeeping for Veterinarians," is now underway at http://www.wifss.ucdavis.edu/beevets/. The course is intended for veterinarians, veterinary technicians, apiculture educators, apiary inspectors and beekeepers in California and Oregon. Participants are encouraged to register today; the course will be available only until June 30, 2020.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) addresses antibiotic resistance and antimicrobial use in the feed or water of food-producing animals. The VFD implementation aims to ensure the judicious use of antimicrobials, and to minimize the impact of their use in colonies.
This means that beekeepers now need to establish a veterinarian-client-patient relationship to obtain the antibiotics they need to manage foulbrood and other microbial diseases.
Topics covered in this online course will include prudent use of antibiotics, the Veterinary Feed Directive, bee biology, and beekeeping techniques and tools. "By bringing veterinarians together with apiculturists through education, we can maintain strong, healthy colonies for specialty crop pollination and safe honey production for consumers," a spokesperson said.
The training is being offered by the laboratory of Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources; the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and OSU.
Course authors and developers are the Western Institute for Food and Security (WIFSS), UC Davis; Elina Niño and Bernardo Niño; Jonathan Dear, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and Ramesh Saglii, OSU's Honey Bee Laboratory.
Upon completion of the course, the participants will be able to:
- Describe the importance of honey bees
- Explain the veterinarian's role in commercial beekeeping
- Recognize distinguished characteristics of honey bees
- Recognize specialized beekeeping equipment, including personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Recognize the components of a hive inspection
- Describe honey bee immunity against pathogens, pests and diseases
- Describe common pests and diseases that may impact honey bees
- Describe how the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) governs the use of antimicrobial drugs in apiculture
Honey bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of the American diet. They pollinate such specialty crops as apples, melons, cranberries, pumpkins, squash, broccoli, and almonds. However, annual honey bee colony losses are high due to a variety of environmental and biological causes, including bacterial diseases. Historically, beekeepers have self-prescribed antibiotics to control these diseases.
Funding for the development of the “Honey Bees and Beekeeping for Veterinarians” course was made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Specialty Crop Multi-State Program through an agreement between the California Department of Food and Agriculture and The Regents of the University of California, Davis (agreement number 17-0727-001-SF).