The Buzz

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees
And the flowers and the trees...
The Birds and the Bees (music and lyrics by Herb Newman)

Don't know about "the birds and the flowers and the trees," but the bees were definitely there.

Lots of bees. More than 250,000.  I captured this image on Tuesday, March 17 at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on the UC Davis campus.

The occasion: UC Davis bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, manager of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility was teaching a three-day course on "The Art of Queen Bee Rearing."

Tuesday the beekeepers learned about the principles of queen rearing, set up cell builders, grafted queen cells, made queen cup bars, made queen candy, marked and clipped the queens, and evaluated drone maturing and queen mating status. Those were just a few of the scores of activities.

Wednesday the beekeepers heard a two-hour lecture on "Bee Nutrition and Emergent Diseases" by Extension Apiculturist Eric Mussen, a 32-year member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. The class also grafted queen cells, participated in diagnosis workshops (detection of tracheal mites and nosema) and learned about instrumental insemination.

Tomorrow (Thursday), they'll participate in an area tour of commercial queen producers.

Where's the buzz? Definitely at UC Davis.