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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Scientists
work to protect vulnerable bees<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="mailto:dperlman@sfchronicle.com">David Perlman, Chronicle
Science Editor</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=date><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Monday,
March 10, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL&o=0&type=printable"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C882CC.1023CCA0" vspace=1
alt="Kim Fondrk, a honey bee researcher now working with UC Da..."></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL&o=1&type=printable"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="_x0000_i1026"
src="cid:image002.gif@01C882CC.1023CCA0" vspace=1
alt="A marked queen bee from Arizona is surrounded by her work..."></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL&o=2&type=printable"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="_x0000_i1027"
src="cid:image003.gif@01C882CC.1023CCA0" vspace=1
alt="Wood smoke is pumped on beehives in a Dixon almond orchar..."></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL&o=3&type=printable"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="_x0000_i1028"
src="cid:image004.gif@01C882CC.1023CCA0" vspace=1
alt="A special breed of honey bee from Arizona gathers pollen ..."></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span
id=articlebody>(03-10) 04:00 PDT <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:City>-</span></font></b></strong>
-- <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>It's
almond blossom time in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
orchards are bursting into bloom and the almond trees, their canopies ablaze in
white and pink, are all abuzz with millions upon millions of honey bees avidly
gathering pollen and nectar for their hives.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Here at
UC's honey bee research center, scientists are seeking to breed new strains of
the immensely valuable insects called Apis mellifera carnica, while others are
probing the recently sequenced bee genome to understand the most important
qualities conferred upon each tribe by its unique genetic heritage.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
researchers are bent on improving the ability of the bees to pollinate the
flowering fruit trees and vegetables that account for more than $35 billion a
year in crop value for California, and right now they hope to understand and
perhaps halt the spread of the disease called Colony Collapse Disorder that has
devastated the hives of many professional beekeepers in California and across
the country.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Kim
Fondrk, stubble-bearded and clothed in his white "bee suit" with its
screened veil like a fencer's mask, is a veteran apiculturist who has emplaced
54 wooden box-shaped hives housing more than a million lively honey bees on the
edge of an almond orchard in nearby Dixon.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The sight
of a million bees flitting, flying and buzzing around as they head off to
nearby trees and then swarm back to their hives loaded with pollen and nectar
is more than a little disconcerting to the casual observer.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But
Fondrk isn't bothered. With a tin can of burning wood fiber, he pumps a small
bellows to smoke a hive lightly - it calms the bees a bit, he says. Then with
bare hands he opens a hive box and pulls out a wood-rimmed frame that holds
hundreds of regularly spaced cells like a real honeycomb. The frame is covered
with bees - by the hundreds, perhaps thousands.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The bees
are busy indeed, their legs depositing pollen or nectar into each tiny cell,
their heads ramming the stuff into the cells, and their bodies clustering so
closely that they form a single mass of tightly packed wings and dark gray
bodies, all moving in concert around the visibly larger queen, whom Fondrk has
identified with a white painted dot on her body.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Genetics
of hoarding<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
females in the colony do all the work - gathering pollen and nectar, feeding
and cosseting the queen, nurturing the larvae and keeping the hive orderly. The
lowly males have only one job: To inseminate the queen and keep her pregnant so
she can lay 1,000 eggs a day. Inseminate - then die, that's the pitiful life of
all the males. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"But
we're trying to get at the genetics of pollen hoarding behavior," Fondrk
says. "It's very basic research."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The bees
collect pollen on their legs from the blossoms, and while some of it gets
dispersed to pollinate other trees, a lot stays on their legs to be stored in
the hive and provide protein for the colony. Some bees hoard a lot of pollen,
some don't.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"When
the weather's fine there's plenty of pollen for everyone, but when the pickings
get slim in winter, the bees need their hoarded protein," Fondrk explains.
"So pollen hoarding is an important ingrained ability for bees, and we
want to understand the genetic basis of that hoarding behavior."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fondrk's
collection of honey bee colonies was established at the Harry Laidlaw Jr. Honey
Bee Research Facility at UC Davis 18 years ago by Robert E. Page Jr., a
professor of entomology, who moved all his bees to Arizona State University in
Tempe four years ago when he became founding director of the School of Life
Sciences there.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But <st1:State
w:st="on">Arizona</st1:State> was no fit place for Page's honey bees to thrive
because the climate was too hot, he said, so Fondrk brought them back to <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:City>, where the climate
is benign and the bees can busily pollinate all kinds of other crops once the
almond trees have stopped blooming. Almonds are a major <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State> crop that brings in an estimated
$2 billion a year, and it depends on pollination by healthy honey bees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Breeding
stronger bees<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Page
keeps in touch, and Fondrk periodically ships him queen bees from their
carefully bred strain of pollen hoarders. In a phone conversation, Page said
bees that don't hoard pollen "live hand to mouth" and the larvae in
their hives suffer serious protein deficiency in winter when food is scarce. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But after
34 generations of selective breeding, Page said, it's clear that the pollen
hoarding strain of the bees appear better able to withstand the onslaught of
Colony Collapse Disorder, and he and Fondrk are now regularly shipping queens
from the strain to beekeepers around the country.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>At the
Laidlaw facility, Susan Cobey, a bee geneticist, tends a cluster of hives filled
with a bee subspecies named Apis mellifera carnica. A queen, whose only job is
laying eggs, normally mates only once in her life - in midair with up to 17
males known as drones, who inseminate once and die.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Cobey
propagates her bee strain using a technique called instrumental insemination
that involves using tiny tubes to remove semen from the crushed bodies of
several drones at a time and then inserting the semen by syringe into a queen
already anesthetized by carbon dioxide.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I'm
breeding my bees to be good, hardy and productive," Cobey says. "I
want them to be temperamentally gentle, to resist pathogens like mites, and to
be able to winter over in good health. A strong, healthy bee is my goal - it's
what beekeepers need."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Cobey's
bees haven't been hit by the dreaded collapse disorder, and neither she nor any
other scientist knows what causes the disease, which can sometimes wipe out
entire colonies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>'Simply
overwhelmed'<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Eric
Mussen, the nationally known extension apiculturalist in the UC Davis entomology
department, says "bees all over the country are simply being overwhelmed
by the disorder, and until we know better, we can't finger any one cause."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Stresses
that may weaken bees when their hives are shipped long distances for their jobs
as pollinators may well be involved, Mussen says. Attacks by mites, viruses of
many kinds and pesticide spraying all pose other stresses, and malnutrition
suffered by bees where workers fail to hoard enough pollen may be the most
important factor, he says.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Right
now, with the almond orchards in full bloom and the pollinating bees hard at
work, the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:City>
scientists keep trying to breed them for better health and understand the role
their genes play in both disease resistance and productivity. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-style:italic'>E-mail David Perlman at <a
href="mailto:dperlman@sfchronicle.com">dperlman@sfchronicle.com</a>.</span></font></i>
<o:p></o:p></p>
</span>
<p id=url><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/10/BA0TVDEVF.DTL<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p id=pageno><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
article appeared on page <strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">B - 1</font></b></strong>
of the San Francisco Chronicle<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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