Podcast Archives - PolliNation Podcast

Hannah Levenson is a North Carolina native with a diverse research background ranging from working on reef degradation in The Bahamas to the impacts of pesticide applications on honey bee hives in South Dakota. Now she is a graduate student in Entomology with a co-major in Biology at North Carolina State University working under Dr. David Tarpy. She is currently conducting a state-wide survey on native bee populations across North Carolina, which will be the most detailed dataset in the state to date. One area of particular focus within this research is looking at impacts of conservation efforts on native bee populations over time as well as various pollinator interactions. Hannah’s project addresses a large knowledge gap on native bee populations and will aid in making future conservation decisions. After graduation she plans to continue a career in bee research and become more involved in international work.

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Links Mentioned:

NC State Apiculture

Video outlining Hannah’s research

Protecting NC Pollinators

Hannah’s Book Recommendation: The Bees in Your Backyard (Princeton University Press, 2015)

Go to tool: Discover Life Guide to Bee Genera, Buglife

Favorite Pollinator: Triepeolus, Holcopasites

Contribute to our 100th episode:

Want to leave a question for our expert panel on the 100^th episode?

Call in with your questions: 541 737 3139

Or email: info@oregonbeeproject.org

State your name and where you are from before asking your question.

Dr. Mia Park is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Biological Sciences Department at North Dakota State University, Fargo.

Dr. Park’s research asks, “Who are our wild pollinators? How are they impacted by anthropogenic disturbance? How can we manage landscapes in a manner that supports their abundance and health?”.

Current projects focus on benefits of pollinator planting in both urban and rural settings for pollinator health. Previously, Dr. Park taught in the Integrated Studies Program at University of North Dakota. She received her PhD in Entomology and MS in Natural Resources at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Dr. Park is passionate about insect conservation and has worked with non-profit organizations around the world.

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Links Mentioned:

Urban Woods Prairie Initiative (Audubon Dakota)

Dr. Park’s Book Recommendation: Honey Democracy (2010, T. D. Seeley)

Go to tool: Bumble Bee Watch

Favorite Pollinator: Bombus ternarius (Orange-Belted Bumble Bee)

Note: Link to a study that explains where the orange comes from in one specific PNW bumble bee

Contribute to our 100th episode:

Want to leave a question for our expert panel on the 100^th episode?

Call in with your questions: 541 737 3139

Or email: info@oregonbeeproject.org

State your name and where you are from before asking your question.

Although we estimate there are 500 species of bees in Oregon, there has never been a concerted survey of the state’s bees. Without even a checklist of species, it is very difficult to know whether the health of Oregon bees is improving or declining. The Oregon Bee Atlas represents the first steps towards confronting the gulf in our knowledge about the bees of Oregon.

The success of the Oregon Bee Atlas, like Oregon Flora, rests on the shoulders of committed volunteers. The Oregon Bee Atlas’ four year mission (2018-2021) is to train volunteers to explore Oregon Counties, to seek out new native bee records for the state, to boldly go where no amateur melittologist has gone before! These new specimen records will be added to newly digitized historic records from the Oregon State Arthropod Collection to build the first comprehensive account of the native bee fauna of Oregon.

Joining us to talk about the Atlas is Lincoln Best, the Atlas’ Lead Taxonomist. Lincoln was also featured on episode 50 last year.

“It’s easy to document common species; it’s really difficult to assess the extreme biodiversity that exists here.”
– Lincoln Best.

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Links Mentioned:

Oregon Bee Atlas Website

Oregon Bee Atlas Youtube channel

Follow Linc on social media (Twitter/Instagram/Facebook:) @beesofcanada

Contribute to our 100th episode:

Want to leave a question for our expert panel on the 100^th episode?

Call in with your questions: 541 737 3139

Or email: info@oregonbeeproject.org

State your name and where you are from before asking your question.

Aaron Anderson on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

In this episode, Aaron Anderson, a Ph.D. student in the OSU Department of Horticulture, talks about his research on gardening with native plants. Under the direction of Dr. Gail Langellotto, Aaron is researching native plants that support ecosystem services; that gardeners find attractive, and that they would want.

Currently, Aaron is running a large field trial at OSU’s North Willamette Research Center studying 23 native Willamette Valley wildflower species. Aaron monitors the floral bloom, performs timed pollinator observations, and samples the insect community on each plot. Additionally, he is currently asking gardeners to rank the aesthetics of these flowers via an online survey. From this research, Aaron plans on developing pollinator-friendly planting lists of PNW native wildflowers that are also attractive to home gardeners.

Listen in to learn what native plants are best for your garden, both for increasing the health of local pollinators and adding beauty to your garden.

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“There have been very few studies that have been done on the relative attractiveness of different plants to pollinators, especially in a garden-type setting.” – Aaron Anderson

Show Notes:

What makes a study like Aaron’s necessary, even with the abundance of free information online
Why there is no “superplant” for pollinator gardens
Why Aaron chose to study native plants in garden spaces for increasing the health of pollinators
How Aaron crafted his study, and what steered his decisions
Why the results of two similar studies on the most attractive plants to pollinators came out so different
Why native plants are so crucial in attracting honeybees
Which plants were found to be the top five for attracting pollinators to your garden
How Aaron sees less aesthetically desirable plants adding to the beauty of your garden
How the market is shifting from purely aesthetic decisions for gardens towards more functional ideas
What’s next for Aaron and his research
How you can tell a honeybee apart from other bees

“The nice thing about a lot of these annuals is that if you don’t like how they like after or right before they go to seed, you can really easily just pull them out.” – Aaron Anderson

Links Mentioned:

Find out more about the OSU Garden Ecology Lab (with lots of the graphs that Aaron talks about)
Listmania: the strengths and weaknesses of lists of garden plants to help pollinators. (Garbuzov, Mihail, and Francis LW Ratnieks BioScience 64.11 (2014): 1019-1026.)
Aaron’s favorite pollinator resources:
- Book: “The Bees In Your Backyard” by Joseph S. Wilson and Olivia J. Messinger Carril
- Tool: Leaf Blower Bee-Vac
- Pollinator: long-horned bees of the Tribe Eucerini
Check out the past episode with flagship farm Iwasaki Bros, 84 Kathleen Baughman – Nurseries and Pollinators

Dr. Elina L Niño on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

Dr. Elina L Niño’s research interests are broad and range from understanding reproductive processes involved in queen bee mating to developing and evaluating new control methods to combat Varroa mites. More recent research efforts have focused on understanding benefits of supplemental forage crops within agricultural systems. In her extension role, Niño is overseeing the recently UC ANR funded Master Beekeeper Program at UC Davis. Her program offers many beekeeping courses and upcoming efforts will focus on the development of the Pollinator Education Program for kids and youth.

Listen in to learn how growers can improve their pollinator effectiveness, the benefits of certain overwintering solutions, and the key to great queens.

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“I know there’s a lot of talk about letting natural selection do it’s thing, but we have to think about what we’re doing. When we put the bee colony into a hive, it’s no longer considered to be, in my mind, natural. So I think they definitely need some help.” – Dr. Elina L Niño

Show Notes:

Why almond growers were particularly nervous about this years pollination
The different overwintering options and how different farmers and beekeepers have adapted
How growers are getting forage into their orchards
Why growers should consider adding mustard to their orchard and let it go to seed
What makes Northern California such a great place to make a queen
Why these high quality queens can perform poorly
How beekeepers, growers, and regulators came together to protect bees, and what they created to do it
The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at UC Davis, and why it was created

“There’s no doubt in my mind that there is a way to do breeding in a proper way, without putting the agriculture at risk.” – Dr. Elina L Niño

Links Mentioned:

Learn more about the E L Niño Bee Lab at UC Davis
Find out more about the Project ApisM Seeds for Bees Program
Honey Bee Best Management Practices for California Almonds
Check out this year’s International Pollinator Conference at UC Davis, 17-20 July
Elina’s favorite pollinator resources:
Check out this previous episode of the PolliNation podcast, 87 Steve Peterson – How To Make Mason Bees Thrive?
Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven – UC Davis

Jim Cane on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

Dr. Cane is a Research Entomologist with the USDA’s Pollinating Insect-Biology, Management, Systematics Research in Logan, UT. Dr. Cane has been interested in comparative studies of solitary bees for 30 years, beginning with the evolutionary origins and use of lipid exocrine secretions to attract mates, repel predators, supplement larval diets, waterproof, and disinfect their nests. Work with these bees naturally led to study of their pollination services in both wildland and agricultural settings. A bee species’ pollination value reflects its sustainable abundance, wherein habitat carrying capacity is capped by nesting opportunities and foraging success. Dr. Cane has applied his long-term interest in conservation to help measure, understand, and mitigate human factors that can shift nesting and foraging opportunities for bee communities such as climate change, urban sprawl, habitat fragmentation, and rangeland rehabilitation.

Listen in to learn about the two key pollinators of alfalfa seed: the alfalfa leafcutter bee and alkali bee.

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“There is no crop has more flowers per acre than alfalfa – way into the millions per acre – and less pollen and nectar per flower.” – Jim Cane

Show Notes:

Why alfalfa is such a prominent feed stock
What makes alfalfa a specialized crop for pollinators
Why honey bees are not ideal pollinators for alfalfa
How farmers learned to make use of alfalfa leaf-cutting bees
Why alkali bees are the eighth wonder of the world
Whether or not other species of bees can be managed like the alkali bee
The challenges of managing alkali bees
Qualities to look for in a hand lens for bee observation

“An alkali bee, in her entire lifetime– all of her foraging, all of her flower visitation, she sets about 25 cents worth of seed, about a quarter pound or a third of a pound of alfalfa seed.” – Jim Cane

Links Mentioned:

Pierre Lau on PolliNation

Pierre Lau is a Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University, where he has devoted his time and effort to studying honey bee nutritional ecology. He started building his academic resume at the University of California, San Diego and California State Polytechnic University, Fullerton with honey bee behavioral and native bee pollination studies. As an emerging scientist in the field of honey bee nutritional ecology, Pierre has studied honey bee salt preferences in water, the types of plants honey bees collect pollen from in urban environments, and colony-level macronutrient preferences.

Listen in to learn all about pollen: how to collect and identify it, how it can be used in forensics, and the tools that researchers have developed to source it from particular plants.

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“The fun thing about pollen and why palynology is a thing is that every species of plant will produce a unique pollen grain to that species. We can play CSI and forensics here: when you look at the pollen that honey bees collect, you can trace it back to the plant that they were actually visiting.” – Pierre Lau

Show Notes:

The different kinds of pollen and it’s structure
How the FBI uses pollen to find criminals
How to collect pollen
Why the process of identifying pollen can be dangerous
How Lau is helping Texas beekeepers track the source of their honey
How Nuclear Magnetic Resonance can be used to discover the chemical fingerprint of honey originating in a particular region
Why honey is one of the top 10 most adulterated products in the United States

“A lot of times when I would sample pollen pellets and beekeepers have a guess about what their bees are collecting, they would be very surprised about what the results actually show. That’s because I think that we are very focused on what we can see: the flowering plants on the floor or shrubs. But a lot of times, the bees will actually go up into trees for their pollen.” – Pierre Lau

Links Mentioned:

Pierre’s favorite pollinator resources:
- Book: The Biology of the Honey Bee (Mark L. Winston, 1987)
- Tool: Choice tests
- Pollinator: Sweat bees (Family Halictidae)

Dr. Casey Delphia on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

Dr. Casey Delphia is a Research Scientist at Montana State University and Associate Curator of Apoidea in the Montana Entomology Collection (MTEC) where she conducts research on managed solitary bees and wild native bees in agricultural and wildland ecosystems. Projects include evaluating the use of wildflower strips for supporting bees and pollination services on farmlands and, most recently, documenting the wild bees of Montana. Towards building a comprehensive bee species list for the state, Casey co-authored the Bumble Bees of Montana as well as two recent checklists. In her spare time, Casey enjoys collecting bees in the desert southwest, the tropics of Belize, and the many interesting habitats found throughout Montana.

Listen in to learn about Dr. Delphia’s bee atlas projects, why Montana is a “black hole” of bee data, and where to find the coolest native bees of Montana.

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“It’s really great to be working on bees in Montana and it’s also not so great. It’s great because there are so many things to discover and it’s also not so great because there are so many things to discover.” – Dr. Casey Delphia

Show Notes:

Where to find the coolest native bees of Montana
What Dr. Delphia is hoping to accomplish in her recent bumblebee atlas project
Why Montana is a “black hole” of bee data
The challenges of bumblebee identification
Dr. Delphia’s upcoming project documenting the native bees of Montana
How Dr. Delphia collects specimens for her research
Dr. Delphia’s go-to tools for the field and the lab

“When somebody starts working with bumblebees and then they tell me it’s easy, then I realize they’re really not paying attention and they don’t know what they’re doing. The more you learn, the more you question what you know.” – Dr. Casey Delphia

Links Mentioned:

Casey’s favorite pollinator resources:
- Books:
  - The Bees in Your Backyard (Wilson and Messinger Carril, 2015)
  - Bees of the World (Michener)
- Tools:
  - Rose Entomology Aerial Net
  - Microscope (Leica MZ6 with continuous zoom and ring light)
- Pollinators:
  - Centris
  - Family Megacilidae
- Connect with Dr. Casey Delphia through Montana State University

Kim Flottum on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

This week we talk with Kim Flottum. Kim has not only thought long and hard about communicating with people of bees, as editor of Bee Culture and BEEKeeping magazines, but he has a tremendous sense of the history of this endeavor, being situated in the historic A. I. Root Company in Medina, OH. Kim is also invested in the future of teaching people about bees with initiatives such as the KIM&JIM Show webinars with Jim Tew and Beekeeping Today podcasts with Jeff Ott.

Learn how Kim Flottum is taking beekeeping education into the future, and how he is following in legendary beekeeping educator Amos Root’s footsteps.

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“We have gone from pencil-writing answers to letters, to the electronic age, and it has opened the door to anybody and everybody who wants to talk about anything.” – Kim Flottum

Show Notes:

What Bee Culture is and where it came from
How a novice bee enthusiast eventually authored an encyclopedia of bee and bee-related information
How Kim and A. I. Root Company are getting information to budding keepers in the digital age
What “The KIM&JIM Show” is and what it provides beekeepers around the world
How Kim sees his educational resources expanding to become more interactive
Why Kim carried the educational spirit of A. I. Root Company on to podcasts
How Amos Root inadvertently came to know the Wright Brothers and where their friendship led him

“We wanted to put information into the hands of people so they would succeed their first year and their second year, and by their third year, they would be growing.” – Kim Flottum

Links Mentioned:

Learn more about Bee Culture magazine
Find out more about The Kim and Jim Show
Check out the Beekeeping Today podcast
Learn more about Kim’s book, The Backyard Beekeeper (Flottum, 3rd Edition 2014)
Kim’s favorite pollinator resources:
- Favorite book: The collective knowledge of 150 years of beekeeping
- Favorite pollinator: Monarch Butterflies

Rebecca Perry and Grace Cope on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

This week we are joined by Rebecca Perry and Grace Cope from Dr. Adam Dale’s Landscape Entomology program at the University of Florida. Rebecca is a graduate student whose masters project focused on conserving monarch butterflies on golf course wetlands, and Grace is an undergraduate research intern. Both have been working on research investigating the benefits of flowering patches to native pollinators and beneficial insects on courses with relatively high and low levels of management.

Listen in to learn how golf courses can better serve pollinators and their habitats through curating their plants, flowers, and maintenance schedule.

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“Golf courses are these really unique islands of vegetation within these urban lands.” – Rebecca Perry

Show Notes:

Why golf courses are so important when thinking about invertebrate biodiversity
How Rebecca and Grace created and studied their pollinator habitats within golf courses
What the study showed and how it affected the pollinator population around these habitats
How different types of golf courses with different styles of maintenance work with these specialized habitats
How the different habitats affected the predator populations
What Rebecca is studying in the relationship between fertilized turf, milkweed, and monarch health

“When you are going to establish diversity in terms of wildflowers, understanding the maintenance level of your golf course could determine whether or not it’s most beneficial, or how to write it into your maintenance plans.” – Grace Cope

Links Mentioned:

Find out more of the University of Florida’s Landscape Entomology
Rebecca and Grace’s favorite pollinator resources:
- Rebecca’s favorite tool: Pitfall traps (using a Falcon Tube)
- Grace’s favorite tool: Pan traps (link to a great service that provides painted traps)
- Grace’s favorite pollinator: Agopostemon splendens
- Rebecca’s favorite pollinator: Monarch butterly
Check out our previous episodes on golf courses and pollinator habitats:
- 19 David Phipps – Golf Courses as Pollinator Habitat
- 65 Robert Coffin and Josh Loy – Teeing off with Monarch Butterflies

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Links Mentioned:

Contribute to our 100th episode:

You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

And be sure to leave us a Rating and Review!

Links Mentioned:

Contribute to our 100th episode:

You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

And be sure to leave us a Rating and Review!

Links Mentioned:

Contribute to our 100th episode:

You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

And be sure to leave us a Rating and Review!

Show Notes:

Links Mentioned:

You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

And be sure to leave us a Rating and Review!

Show Notes:

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You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

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You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

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You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

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You can Subscribe and Listen to PolliNation on Apple Podcasts.

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