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The Buzz About Bees
It's good to see so much interest in bees.
When folks think of bees, they usually think "honey bees." However, our European or western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is one of a total of seven species of honey bees found throughout the world.
Worldwide, there are some 20,000 described species of bees.
University of California scientists Robbin Thorp, Gordon Frankie and Ellen Zagory will be discussing a few of them in their "Buzz About Bees" program on Saturday, June 5 at the Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen, Calif.
Thorp is a native pollinator specialist and emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis who continues to do research. Frankie is a professor and research entomologist at the UC Berkeley Division of Insect Biology. Zagory is director of horticulture, UC Davis Arboretum.
The registration deadline for this session, a science discussion about the "plight of Sonoma County's pollnators," closed May 28 but Thorp and Frankie continue to call attention to the plight of the pollinators. They talk about bumble bees, cuckoo bees, blue orchard bees, sweat bees and the like. Some bees are defined by what they do: leafcutters, masons and miners.
And Zagory is an expert on plants, especially ornamental plants. One has only to walk through the UC Davis Arboretum--or ask her to identify a plant--to confirm that!
We hope the "buzz about bees" continues to draw widespread interest.
Honey Bee on Lavender
Yellow-Faced Bumble Bee
Carpenter Bee
Put on a Happy Face
Those yellow-faced bumble bees know how to put on a happy face.
The males and females frequent our bee friendly garden to sip the sweet nectar of lavender, catmint and rock purslane. The females collect both nectar and pollen for their brood.
I think we have a nest of them beneath the catmint.
Plant it, and they will come.
The yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii), as its name implies, has a yellow face, a mostly black thorax and abdomen, and a yellow band near the tip of its abdomen.
The ones below are males, according to native pollinator specialist and noted bumble bee expert Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis. Although officially "retired" (not!), he continues to do research on bumble bees and other pollinators.
Thorp also monitors the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis for bee species.
It's a treat to see the bumble bees there.
It's a treat to see them anywhere.
You gotta love those bumble bees.
Bumble Bee and Honey Bee
Sip of Nectar
From the Back
Put on a Happy Face
Pollen-Packin' Carpenter Bee
Carpenter bees pack pollen, too.
A carpenter bee (Xylocopa tabaniformis orpifex) visiting our gaura last weekend was packing bright yellow pollen, a sharp contrast against her black body.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, said that "the large triangular pollen grains of this and other Onagraceae are held together in strings by viscin threads. You can see this on the anther above the bee’s head. This makes it a challenge for some bees to neatly pack this pollen, but helps pollen to get draped on the plant stigma."
The UC Davis Department of Entomology website includes information on three species of carpenter bees commonly found in California.
Packing Pollen
Upside Down
A Taste of Honey
When the Antioch Charter Academy, a middle school in Contra Costa County, toured the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis on Tuesday, May 4, they learned all about honey bees and native bees.
Tour coordinator Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology set up three activity stations, visited by groups of 13.
Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen, member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty, talked to them about bee biology, bee communication and colony collapse disorder; Yang and native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, discussed bee diversity, bee monitoring, bee identification and foraging behavior; and to top it off, bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey and Elizabeth Frost displayed bee equipment, discussed the breeding program and then opened several hives.
The students singled out the three castes: queen bee, drones and worker bees. They admired the many different colors of pollen. They gingerly picked up drones (male bees have no stingers).
Then at the urging of Cobey and Frost, the teenagers dipped their fingers into the honey.
Straight from the hive.
Their verdict: "Wow, this is good!"
A taste of honey, a picture of contentment, and a greater admiration for the work of honey bees.
Apiary Tour
Many Colors of Pollen
A Taste of Honey
Drone
The Good, the Bad and the Bugly
That's one of the topics at the next meeting of the Northern California Entomology Society, to be held from 9:15 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday, May 6 in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.
It promises to be lively.
And bugly.
Matter of fact, the meetings are almost always lively. Entomologists have a keen sense of humor.
Take, for instance, "The Good, the Bad, the Bugly: Controlling Pests in Home Gardens." Baldo Villegas of the California Department of Food and Agriculture will be presenting that talk at 11:15.
Two UC Davis entomologists, James R. Carey (photo above) and Robbin Thorp (photo below), will speak--Carey on the medfly and Thorp on native pollinators.
Carey, a professor of entomology who specializes in insect biodemography and invasion biology, will present his talk on “Insect Invasion Biology: Overview of the General Principles and Case Study of the Medfly in California” at 9:45 a.m.
Thorp, an emeritus professor of entomology who continues his research at his Laidlaw facility office, will discuss "Native Bees as Pollinators” at 10:30 a.m.
Other speakers are
--Ralph Fonseca of the Contra Costa County Department of Agriculture, will speak at 1:15 p.m. on “Personal Protective Equipment, Including UC Exemptions.”
--Humberto Izquierdo of the Napa County Department of Agriculture, will give a talk on “European Grapevine Moth Update” at 2 p.m.
A catered lunch will be served at noon. Or, attendees can bring their own lunch. There's still time to attend and/or order lunch if you contact the society's secretary-treasurer, Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty at ecmussen@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-0472.
The Northern California Entomology Society seeks new members; you don't have to be an entomologist to join. The group 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.
The president is agricultural biologist Matthew Slattengren of the Contra Costa County Department of Agriculture.
And oh, yes, membership dues are only $10 a year.
That's the "good" part of the "The Good, The Bad and the Bugly."
Robbin Thorp
The Medfly
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