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| Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
It’s called a “Bee Informed” reception and it will benefit the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis.
The event, open to the public, is set 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 29 in the Historic Ballroom of the Citizen Hotel, 926 J St., Sacramento. The educational celebration it will focus on bees and honey through speeches, displays, drinks and food. A donation of $10 for the UC Davis honey bee garden will be asked at the door.
With the recent rise of colony collapse disorder, increased honey bee awareness is vital for the preservation of local honey farms, said event coordinator Elaine Baker, pastry chef at the Citizen Hotel/Grange Restaurant.
“We’ll have honey-based cocktails available at a cash bar, a tea and coffee station, and I’m creating a selection of mini desserts, each featuring a different honey.”
“Honey is one of my favorite ingredients to use in desserts because of its beautifully nuanced flavors and gorgeous colors,” said Baker, who blogs about food at http://www.elainebakerspastryplayground.com/. “It’s just magical.”
Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen, member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty, will deliver the keynote speech on colony collapse disorder, a mysterious phenomenon characterized by adult bees abandoning the hive.
“Beekeepers in California are cautiously optimistic that their colonies are going to survive the winter in better shape that they have in the past few years,” he said. ”Instead of having to feed their colonies all summer, they were glad to see that many colonies actually benefitted from last year’s nearly seasonal rainfall and produced some honey.”
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| UC Davis student Bryce Sullivan, who works at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Reseach Facility, with a frame of honey ready to be extracted. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
Mussen said it’s too early to predict where the stress relief of better season forage will result in “a lessening of CCD, but better-fed bees can handle much more adversity than poorly fed bees.”
Also speaking will be third-generation beekeeper Stephen Covey of Covey Family Apiary, San Francisco Bay Area. His topic will be urban beekeeping.
Those attending the celebration can “see what the buzz is all about” and learn more about honey bees and honey and purchase products at specially set up tables. The event will include a bee observation hive and honey tastings. Participants will include Sacramento Area Beekeepers Association, Sacramento Beekeeping Co., UC Davis, Z Specialty Foods, Lienert’s Quality Honey, area beekeepers Kate Morton and Pete Laudi, and All Things Wild, specializing in native California plants.
The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is a half-acre bee friendly garden planted last fall to provide the Laidlaw bees and other pollinators with a year-around food source. Other key goals are to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees, to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own, and to serve as a research site.
“This garden is a living laboratory to educate, inspire and engage people of all ages in the serious work of helping to save honey bees,” said Dori Sera Bailey, director of Haagen-Dazs Consumer Communications. “We hope the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven not only offers bees and other pollinators a place to thrive, but that it contributes to finding answers that enable us to be better stewards of these tiny pollinators.”
The Grange Restaurant, known as a farm-to-table, seasonally-driven restaurant featuring New American cuisine with Mediterranean influences, is located inside the hotel complex. All desserts for the 150-seat dining room and 198-room hotel are made in-house.
And many of them are made with honey.
(Note: The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is open year around. There is no charge to tour the garden. The garden is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus.
Directions
From the Sacramento Area Take Interstate 80 westbound to Highway 113 north. At the eastern edge of Davis, take Highway 113 northbound (toward Woodland); exit at Hutchison Drive. Turn left to go west (away from the central UC Davis campus) toward the campus airport; turn left onto Hopkins Road and then left on Bee Biology Road.
From the San Francisco Bay Area Take Interstate 80 eastbound to Highway 113 north. At the eastern edge of Davis, take Highway 113 northbound (toward Woodland); exit at Hutchison Drive. Turn left to go west (away from the central UC Davis campus) toward the campus airport; turn left onto Hopkins Road and then left on Bee Biology Road.)
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
