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Bee Swarm at Briggs
Eagle-eyed Carol Nickles saw it first.
The graduate student coordinator for the UC Davis Department of Entomology spotted the bee swarm from a third-floor window of Briggs Hall.
There it was, swaying on a tree branch, about 25 feet above the ground.
A bee swarm, shaped like a bowling pin, but about 2.5 or 3 feet long.
What exactly is a bee swarm? The late Harry Hyde Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003), noted bee geneticist-breeder at UC Davis, defined it as "a cluster of worker bees with or without drones and a queen, that has left the hive." The bees often cluster on a tree limb while the "scouts" search for a suitable home.
This particular swarm may be offspring from the bee observation hive located in 122 Briggs Hall for the past several months. Every April the folks at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, located west of campus, set up a bee observation hive for UC Davis Picnic Day. Thousands of social folks check out these little social insects. This is a social network more fascinating than Facebook, Twitter, My Space and Linked In combined.
You can watch the colony at work behind glassed walls. You can see the queen laying eggs, the nursemaids caring for the pending offspring, the royal attendants feeding and grooming the queen bee, and the architects and construction workers building the comb. Other bees are processing pollen into bee bread and converting nectar into honey. Meanwhile, workers are returning from their foraging trips and performing their trademark "waggle dances," letting their sisters know where they've been, where to go and how to get there.
As new offspring emerge (21 days for an egg to become an adult), the hive becomes overcrowded and congested. The end result: bee swarms, a natural part of their life cycle and one of nature's wonders.
The bee swarm at Briggs will probably move by tomorrow morning, says UC Davis bee breeder-geneticist Michael "Kim" Fondrk.
"By noon," he estimates, "they'll be gone."
Bee Swarm
Bee Tree
Just Bee-Cause
Sometimes you don't think about the declining bee population when you see a pollen-dusted honey bee rolling around in a poppy blossom, but colony collapse disorder (CCD) is still with us.
Pollinator protection is a must.
That's why we were glad to see the U. S. House of Representatives yesterday pass HR 2997, the "Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act" for fiscal year 2010.
The vote was 266-160, and now the bill is off to the U.S. Senate for approval.
Tom Van Arsdall, director of public affairs for the Pollinator Partnership, sent us Cong. Alcee L. Hastings' amendments to the bill. Hastings represents Florida's 23rd District in the House.
"Hastings Amendments Bee-Come Part of Ag Appropriations Bill--Provisions Increase Funds for Pollinator Protection," Van Arsdale wrote in his e-mail subject line, with a teaser message that said "bee-low and attached."
Basically, Hastings' amendments increase funding for research into pollinator decline and CCD.
"Congress must continue to secure the necessary funding to proactively address pollinator decline," Hastings said in a press release issued by his office. "The fact of the matter is that pollinators are responsible for vast portions of our food supply and exported crops, which makes their decline an urgent matter of economic and food security. Without an adequate supply of natural pollinators, many crops would require hand pollination, which would dramatically raise crop prices."
Yes, one-third of the American diet is pollinated by honey bees. In California alone, more than 100 crops depend on bee pollination services.
The tanked economy has us all scrambling to make ends meet, but it's scary to think what the loss of bees would do to our food supply.
Bee-cause that would be disastrous.
Honey Bee
Up Close
These 'Leaves' Are Made for Walking
Two newly moulted insects in the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, look just like leaves.
But these “leaves” are made for walking.
These are camouflaged insects (Phyllium giganteum), commonly known as "walking leaves." They're green, wide, and flat.
“They’re hard to detect among the leaves,” said senior museum scientist Steve Heydon. “It’s surprising how long it takes visitors to find them.”
The insects, natives of Malaysia, dine on bramble, oak, eucalyptus, raspberry, rose, and red/yellow salmon berry.
They mimic leaves in the wind by swaying as they walk, Heydon said. Females can reach a length of 5 inches.
“We got them as nymphs,” Heydon said. “They grow very slowly, probably the slowest of all the insects we’ve ever had at the museum. It took nine months for them to moult and become adults, and they each did it within a day of each other.”
The insects, splotched with red, look like green autumn leaves turning color. “With insect camouflage, there’s never a perfect leaf,” Heydon said. “You see simulated damage.”
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and UC Davis entomology professor, said she’s always craved walking leaves for the museum. “They are so incredibly bizarre-looking,” she said. “It’s amazing how this insect develops new skin when its abdomen is as flat as paper.”
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, founded in 1946 by the late Richard M. Bohart, former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is dedicated to teaching, research and service. The insect museum houses more than seven million specimens, the seventh largest insect collection in North America.
The museum also includes live insects such as Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, and black widow spiders.
But for now, the walking leaves are the big attraction.
At the Bohart, you can actually "turn over a new leaf"--and it will be an insect.
Camouflaged
Walking Leaf
A Salute to California Agriculture
Do you recognize the native bee that graces the cover of the current edition of California Agriculture, a peer-reviewed journal published by the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources?
Yes, it's a carpenter bee. The spectacular photograph by Rollin Coville captures this native pollinator nectaring a mint flower in an urban
You've probably seen this insect in your own garden. It's about the size of a bumble bee with a decimel level that rivals rush-hour traffic.
The carpenter bee is just one of the native bees featured in the July-September edition.
UC Berkeley entomologist Gordon Frankie, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, wrote the lead article with several co-authors, including professor emeritus Robbin Thorp of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
The journal article spotlights bee-pollinator research conducted over a three-year period in seven cities from northern to s
And now, more good news...
The national award-winning California Agriculture journal, edited by executive editor Janet White and managing editor Janet Byron, just reached a major milestone. Their newly launched Web site, two years in the making, offers the full text of nearly 6000 articles published over the past 63 years. Free access. Searchable, too. You’ll want to bookmark the link.
The military has its 21-gun salute. California Agriculture ought to have a 21-field salute.
No, make that a 63-field salute.
One for every year...
California Agriculture
Marvelous Mirids
So, you spot a bug crawling up and down a plant in your garden.
What is it?
Plant bug.
Plant bug? No kidding.
The common name for certain members of the Miridae family is--you guessed it--"plant bug." Entomologist Lynn Kimsey, who directs the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus, quickly identified this little bugger.
"It's a Hemiptera," Kimsey said. Hemiptera, the fifth largest order of insects, all have a tubular beak for piercing and sucking. They're among the seven million insects in the Bohart Museum.
"Members of the family Miridae are the commonest Hemiptera in most areas of California," write entomologists Jerry Powell and Charles Hogue of UC Berkeley in their book, California Insects. "Many species attain high population densities, and most are specific to certain plants."
They describe the critters as "small, soft-bodied, elongate or oval bugs with prominent eyes and long, thin antennae and legs."
Most mirids, they say, suck plant juices (with their long beak) but some prey on other soft-bodied insects.
In case you're wondering, California has recorded more than 150 species of miriads.
So far.
The others, as they say, "await discovery."
In their book, Powell and Hogue list some of the species of plant bugs: ornate plant bug (Closterocoris ornatus), black grass bugs (Irbisia) and tarnishesd plant bugs (Lygus).
You can't go wrong, however, by calling it a "plant bug."
Pretty in pink
Going Up
Going Down
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