It tickles! Joel Fuerte of Woodland and Roxanne Bell of Davis react to a rose-haired tarantula named Peaches at a recent TODS event. Joel is the son of UC Davis employee Gabby Fuerte, and Roxanne is the daughter of UC Davis employee Jenna Bell. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The annual event is a national celebration at which employers host their employees' children at their workplace.

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, will greet visitors from 1 to 5 p.m., while the bee haven, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, will be open from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

At the Bohart, TODS participants will explore the displays and hold live insects. The Bohart is the home of nearly 8 million insect specimens, plus a gift shop and a live "petting zoo" of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects (walking sticks) and tarantulas.

At the haven, a half-acre bee demonstration garden installed in the fall of 2009, docents will guide informal tours. TODS participants can engage in bee watching (bee observation hive),  bee identification and a "catch-and-release" bee activity.

The UC Davis TODS program is designed for children ages 6-12. "TODS not only exposes girls and boys to what a parent or mentor does during their workday, but shows children the value of their education and provides an opportunity to share how they envision their future and begin steps toward their goals in a hands-on and interactive environment," according to the TODS website. "Kids will have the opportunity to see how our UC Davis community functions, instructs, learns and grows."

This event is for staff, faculty, students and their youth guests." More information on what will be open is available on the TODS website.

The garden, planted in the fall of 2009, is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus. Director of the haven is Extension apiculturist Elina L. Niño.

"In addition to our popular catch-and-release bee activity, we'll be holding a plant and solitary bee house sale," said academic program manager Christine Casey.  (See the plant list.)

"There will also be an exhibit of bee photographs by our volunteer photographer Allan Jones," Casey announced. Jones, a Davis resident, frequently photographs bees in the haven and in the UC Davis Arboretum.

Visitors can also see recommendations about what to plant for bees this fall, including information from the ongoing research trials.

The garden was founded and "came to life" during the term of interim department chair, Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, who coordinated the entire project.  A Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--designed the garden as the winners of the international competition.

A six-foot long mosaic and ceramic sculpture of a worker bee, the work of self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick, anchors the garden.  The UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, founded and directed by the duo of entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and Billick, coordinated the art in the garden through their classes. 

The garden is open to the public--no admission--from dawn to dusk.

The Littlest Beekeeper. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

She is staffing one of five interactive learning stations assembled in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, to teach third-graders from Amador County the importance of bees and other pollinators.

Brutscher discusses the residents of the hive: the queen, worker bees (females) and drones (males). The third-graders, sitting, standing or kneeling in the garden, listen to her wide-eyed.

“Who knows what the job of a drone is?” Brutscher asks. 

A hand shoots up. “The drones protect the queen!” a boy declares.

Not quite.

“The drone's only purpose is to mate with the queen,” Brutscher tells him. “The worker bees or females guard the hive.”

The students learn that the honey bee colony is a matriarchal society. The females do all the work, performing specific tasks with job titles such as nurse maids, nannies, royal attendants, builders, architects, foragers, dancers, honey tenders, pollen packers, propolis or "glue" specialists, air conditioning and heating technicians, guards, and undertakers. The queen can lay up to 2000 eggs a day during peak season.

The third graders then suit up, donning assorted beekeeper protective gear. They pose gleefully in oversized suits while adults on the tour--teachers, parents and mentors--photograph them.

Overall, it was a honey of a day at the haven, a half-acre public garden installed in 2009 on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus. Divided into small groups, the students excitedly buzzed from one learning activity to another, not unlike bees buzzing from one flower to another.

Statewide Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty and director of the California Master Beekeeper Program, explained  pollination and how honey bees differ from such generalists as bumble bees and such specialists as squash bees. She invited the students to build their own bee, using pipe cleaners of various lengths to mimic how they are able to pollinate flowers. The youngsters also tasted apples, blueberries and almonds. Honey bees, she told them, pollinate one third of the food we eat.

Charley Nye, beekeeper and manager of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, zeroed in on the products of the hive. “When we see bees flying around, what are they doing there?” he asked.

“They're out gathering nectar and pollen,” responded one youngster.

A honey bee forages on a honeycomb. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The students and adults liked the meadowfoam the best. “It tastes like cotton candy!” one girl said, slowly savoring the flavor she found reminiscent of a county fair.  Most considered the almond honey "a little bitter and acidic," Nye said, but a few favored it because "it's not so sweet."

Wendy Mather, California Master Beekeeper Program manager, showed the youngsters a bee vacuum device and how to catch and release bees. “They gently collected, viewed and released the bee specimens,”  Mather related. The other half of her group crafted seed cookies, decorated pots, and planted seeds for pollinators. They also viewed the bee and syrphid (hover) fly specimens loaned by pollination ecologist Neal Williams, UC Davis professor of entomology.  The hover fly, sometimes called a flower fly, is a major pollinator.

Another station focused on solitary bees: leafcutter bees and blue orchard bees. The students painted nest boxes and learned how the native bees differ from honey bees. Honey bees are not natives of America; European colonists brought them to Jamestown, Virginia,  in 1622. Honey bees did not arrive in California until 1853, the year a beekeeper installed colonies near San Jose.

Marcel Ramos, lab assistant in the Elina Niño lab, opened a hive inside a netted enclosure and showed the students the queen bee, workers and drones and pulled out frames of honey.

The event received financial support from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Programmatic Initiative Grant, the Scott and Liberty Munson Family, and matching funds from Microsoft.

“This program was developed to ensure that our young scientists and future voters are aware of the importance of pollinators to our food production and ecosystems," Niño said. "We are also very excited to partner with programs across the university to recruit and support UC Davis students in becoming interns and mentors for the program. This program has already generated so much excitement with the kids and we want to provide this opportunity to as many schools as possible.”

Ron Antone, chair of the Farms of Amador and an Amador County Master Gardener, coordinated the Amador County visit, which drew third-graders from four schools: 67 from Plymouth and Sutter Creek elementary and "about the same number" from Pioneer and Pine Grove elementary.  “The tour was coordinated and funded by Farms of Amador,” he said. “We are also associated with the Amador County Farmers Market Association."

“The program presented by Elina and the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven team was an incredible experience for all involved: students, parents, teachers and mentors from Farms of Amador and Amador County Master Gardeners," Antone said.  “I could not have imagined a more successful trip."

Neither could the students. It was all that it was cracked up to "bee"--and much more.

Resources:

• Elina Lastro Niño website
• California Master Beekeeper Program
• E.L. Niño Bee Lab, Facebook
• Amador County Master Gardeners
• Farms of Amador
• Amador County Farmers Market Association

The California Center for Urban Horticulture and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology are co-sponsoring a workshop,"Bee-ing a Better Bee Gardener," focusing on pollinators in the garden, on Saturday, Sept. 23 on the UC Davis campus.

The event takes place from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Room 2 of Kleiber Hall. It is a fundraiser for the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre garden next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus.

Following the program at Kleiber Hall, participants will visit the haven and are invited to purchase plants at a pollinator plant sale.

Organizers said that "you should plan to attend only if you are a Master Gardener, 'keen' gardener, or have an introductory background knowledge to one of the following: entomology, botany, horticulture, or plant/insect morphology or taxonomy."

The agenda includes:

7 a.m. Check In: Pick up materials and enjoy coffee and a light breakfast

7:50 Welcome
        Dave Fujino, director, California Center for Urban Horticulture

8 a.m.: Research Overview of the UC Davis Bee and Pollination Program
        Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, Department of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis

8:45: The Role of Floral Traits and Microbial Inhabitants on Pollinator Attraction
         Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis 

9:30-9:45 Break

9:45: Effects of Neonicotinoids on Pollinators
        Maj Rundlof, Department of Biology, Lund University

10:45: Great Garden Plants for Pollinators
       Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture, UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, UC Davis

11:45-12:30 Lunch

12:30: UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Research Update
        Christine Casey, haven manager,  Department of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis

1:30-3: Open House at Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven Garden
       Questions and answers with Christine Casey
       Pollinator identification presentation
       Special pollinator plant sale with difficult-to-find varieties

For registration and directions, see the CCUH page. The registration fee of $50 includes a continental breakfast and lunch. For more information, contact program manager Eileen Hollett at eahollett@ucdavis.edu or (530)-752 6642.