A Solitary Life: Our Native Bees
Dr. Robbin Thorp
May 6, 2011
Amid the uproar over global warming and mysterious disappearances of honeybee colonies, concern over the plight of native bees has been confined to scientists laboring in obscurity.
There is an astonishing diversity of native bees across the USA. About 4,000 species have been identified and catalogued, ranging in length from less than one eighth of an inch to more than one inch. They vary in color from dark brown or black to metallic green or blue, and may have stripes of red, white, orange, or yellow.
Many common names reflect the way they build nests: plasterer bees, leafcutter bees, mason bees, wool carder bees, digger bees, and carpenter bees.
Others are named after particular traits, such as cuckoo bees that lay eggs in the nests of other bee species (like the cuckoo bird), sweat bees that like to drink salty perspiration, or bumble bees, who got their name from the loud humming noise they make while flying.
Since most don’t fit the stereotyped image of a bee (black-and-yellow-striped, living in a hive, and apt to sting) they are easily overlooked. Out of sight, out of mind they gently get on with foraging, and in doing so provide the vital ecosystem service of pollination.
Robbin Thorp of the University of California, Davis, a noted bumble bee authority and an emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis has watched local native be populations steadily decreas over the last decades. In fact, 2006 was the last time he saw a Franklin's Bumble bee.
Bumblebees alone are responsible for pollinating 15 percent of the agriculture in the U.S., worth $3 billion. The decline, disappearance and possible demise of Franklin’s bumble bee, is closely linked to the widespread decline of native pollinators in North America, Thorp explains, and should concern all facets of society. “The loss of a native pollinator could strike a devastating blow to the ecosystem, economy and food supply.”
Native bees may be a hundred times more efficient as pollinators than are honey-bees. During the lecture, Thorp will look at the life cylce's, habitat and behavior of native bees and how important they are to our local environment.
Doors open at 7pm with complimentary, locally grown goodies from Foothill Farmer's Market growers. Presentation starts at 7:30pm. Ticket info
About Dr. Robbin Thorp
Dr. Robbin W. Thorp is Professor Emeritus of Entomology at the University of California, Davis. He retired in 1994 after 30 years of teaching, research, and mentoring graduate students. He continues to conduct research on pollination biology and ecology, systematics, biodiversity and conservation of bees. He has special interests in native bees of the vernal pool ecosystem.
Robbin has long-term projects on the status of western bumble bees, on the diversity of bees on Santa Cruz Island, Calif., and on native pollen specialist bees in vernal pool ecosystems. He provides identification services for collaborators studying native bees as crop pollinators, habitat restoration for pollinators on farms, and urban gardens as bee habitat.
For more information on life history and pollination by these bees, see: www.vernalpools.org/Thorp/.
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