Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.
Honey Bee Research Facility

The Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis. Click on photo to reach new Web site. (Photos by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

New Web Site for Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility Launched
(July 31, 2009)

Sausalito Team Wins Häagen-Dazs-UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Design Competition DAVIS—It’s a honey of a garden, the judges unanimously agreed. A Sausalito-based team created a series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook” and “Pollinator Patch” to win the international bee-friendly garden design competition, a gift to the University of California, Davis, from the Häagen-Dazs® brand. The design, the work of landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki, will be brought to life this summer on a half-acre site at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road on the UC Davis campus. -more-

Overview   

Rebulding the UC Davis Bee Biology Program
Help Save the Honey Bees: Donate to the UC Davis Honey Bee Research Fund
Haagen-Dazs Launches Web Site to Help the Honey Bees
Ways to Donate to the Bee Biology Program

This is the largest and most comprehensive state-supported apiculture facility and staff in North America, offering unique opportunities to both student and researcher. The program's greatest strength lies in the diversity of the staff, and in the maintainence of a delicate balance between theoretical and practical, laboratory and field, and short-term versus long-term projects. Visitors are welcomed by our sign (above).

Nature of the Facility and Program

The UC Davis campus has had an active bee research program for 76 years. It is one of the oldest in the country. This campus has been designated administratively as the center of research, teaching, graduate training, and extension activities in the area of apiculture and bee biology for the entire UC system, which includes nine campuses distributed throughout California.

The Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility is located approximately two miles west of the central campus area near the University Airport and within an agricultural satellite area where there are other similar specialized research facilities.

This unique research and teaching facility is essential because honey bees are so important for pollinating most of California's agricultural crops. Honey bees are as vital to many crops as water, fertilizer, and sunlight. For example, almonds cannot be grown at all without bee pollination. Healthy bees in abundant populations require a research staff to solve continuing problems concerning nutrition, breeding, pathology, parasitology, toxicology, behavior, cultural techniques, and general management practices under field conditions. In addition to the pollination of agricultural crops, California has the world's largest and most progressive bee breeding industry, marketing queen and packaged bees (by the ton!), which are used to stock new hives each spring in many northern states and Canadian provinces.

Description of Facility

This 8,200 square-foot facility contains eight laboratories, a large multipurpose room, observation hives, and a well-equipped shop where research materials can be constructed, a honey bee food processing room, graduate student rooms, several special purpose rooms, and the necessary storage space and fumigation facilities to support equipment for maintaining up to 500 hives used in the research and teaching programs.

The facility is located in the Sacramento Valley, where conditions in the field are ideal for bee research. A great advantage is the excellent, dependable weather combined with a long season (approximately eight months of the year) during which bees are actively foraging. Within two hours driving time from the facility there are deserts, coastline, high mountains, and wilderness areas, all of which contain a great variety of native and cultivated nectar and pollen plants that also support abundant populations of non-Apis bee species. Within this overall area there is a very active beekeeping industry, with literally thousands of hives that are available for research purposes.

Apicultural Teaching Program

• Apiculture (Entomology 119)
• Seminar in Bee Biology (Entomology 296)

Apiculture Extension Program

A full-time Extension Apiculturist, Dr. Eric C. Mussen, serves as an information officer and facilitates communication between the University and commercial beekeepers, hobby beekeepers, state and federal institutions, and the general public.

Apicultural Literature Resources

The most extensive collection of scientific and popular honey bee literature in the western United States is housed in the UCD campus library (Shields Library). Approximately 50 apicultural periodicals are received currently. At the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility there is a computer catalogue containing more than 16,000 references to the significant bee research publications (world-wide) published since 1950. Also, there is a cataloged collection of approximately 4,000 reprints and translations of key publications.

Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility Faculty and Staff

Bee Pollination Biologist, Insect Molecular Biologist (faculty positions) pending

Dr. Eric C. Mussen
Cooperative Extension Specialist in Apiculture

Dr. Neal Williams, Assistant Professor
Pollination Ecology (Pollination biologist and native pollinator specialist)
See news story

Susan Cobey ~ CV ~ Specialized Classes to Promote Stock Improvement
Manager of Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility
Bee breeder and geneticist, researcher, beekeeper, and instructor

Michael "Kim" Fondrk
Bee breeder-geneticist, and beekeeper

Eric Larsen
Research scientist

Elizabeth Frost
Junior specialist

Dr. Robbin W. Thorp (Emeritus professor, maintains office in Laidlaw facility)
Specializing in pollination ecology and wild bee species

Dr. Norman E. Gary (Emeritus)
Specializing in honey bee behavior, especially foraging, communication, stinging, reproductive behaviors.

Dr. Christine Y.S. Peng (Emeritus)
Specializing in Honey bee nutrition, digestion, and reproductive physiology

Dr. Robert E. Page, Jr. (Emeritus)
Specializing in evolutionary and behavioral genetics of the honey bee

Dr. Claire Kremen (Affiliate), conservation biologist at UC Berkeley
Specializing in native bee pollinators

Honey Bee Publications (Edited by Eric Mussen)

UC Apiary Newsletters ~ How to Subscribe

Bee Briefs

Western Apicultural Society (President Eric Mussen)

The Western Apicultural Society is a non-profit, educational, beekeeping organization founded in 1978 for the benefit and enjoyment of all beekeepers in western North America. Access Web site for more information.

Extension Web site: bee health