{"id":15424,"date":"2019-07-10T10:21:08","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T10:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/?p=15424"},"modified":"2025-02-18T11:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T19:22:10","slug":"bees-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2019\/07\/10\/bees-sustainability","title":{"rendered":"Bees represent UW Bothell sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Amy
Amy Lambert, center, teaching pollinator class on campus. Marc Studer photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Douglas Esser
\n足彩app哪个是正规的 green darner dragonfly is the official insect of the state of Washington. If the University of Washington Bothell had an insect it would be the bee. Bees embody the university\u2019s commitment to environmental sustainability in academics and practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campus flower beds and gardens buzz with insects. 足彩app哪个是正规的s study them in classes. Researchers count and survey them. Bees also are a community-based learning opportunity with partner 21 Acres, a Woodinville center for sustainable agriculture. UW Bothell is intimately connected with bees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bumblee
A bumblebee flying around the flowers in a patch of lavender on campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are just trying to involve as many people with bees as possible so that we can raise awareness about what’s going on with the bees, why their populations are decreasing and how we can do little things to support them,\u201d said Alexa Russo, the campus sustainability<\/a> coordinator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of every three bites of food that people eat depends on pollination, Russo said. As a keystone species on which ecosystems depend, bees are necessary for human survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How cool is that!\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many students are scientifically introduced to bees by Amy Lambert, a lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, whose courses include Pollinator Diversity and Conservation. Lambert teaches the course spring and summer quarters to classes that range from 15 to 30 students. Most are majoring in an environmental science or biology or looking to fulfill a natural world credit requirement. Classes meet on Fridays, and students spend hours in every class outdoors, sticking their noses into flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the first class of summer quarter, Lambert led students through the plantings along the Promenade north of the campus library. She pointed out blooming foxglove, daisy and fireweed flowers and described how bees are crucial to reproduction. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the pollen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lambert tore into a purple foxglove blossom and pointed out dots that look like runway landing lights to a bee\u2019s ultraviolet vision. A daisy is not a single flower but hundreds of small flowers clustered in the yellow center \u2014 tiny flowers for the tiny pollinators, she said. \u201cHow cool is that!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bee<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pollinator photos by Alexa Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bombus among us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lambert taught her students how to look. First, stop and take a few seconds to behold a stand of flowers, she said. 足彩app哪个是正规的n focus on anything that moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsually we pass by and don\u2019t look,\u201d Lambert said. \u201cHere is a Bombus (bumblebee) right here. Notice how it\u2019s foraging. Get in the habit of seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She taught the students how to conduct a transect \u2014 a survey of a 3-foot swath along a measured distance \u2014 calling out and recording the pollinators: \u201cWasp!\u201d \u201cBombus!\u201d \u201cHoneybee!\u201d And when some students came up empty, she told them, \u201cNo data is data, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her years of teaching about pollinators, Lambert said the most common reaction from students is, \u201cWow! I had no idea.\u201d 足彩app哪个是正规的y learn so much about something that\u2019s been under their noses for a long time, Lambert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then you see it and learn about it. You\u2019re just amazed by the complexity of the environment, complexity of relationships between insects and plants,\u201d Lambert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From relationships to advocacy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Through hands-on observational activity, students learn to appreciate bees and other pollinators such as flies and butterflies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately that\u2019s what I\u2019m after \u2014 for them to develop this relationship with the observation of pollinators, so that whenever there\u2019s an opportunity for them to advocate for native pollinators, they know what they\u2019re talking about,\u201d Lambert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lambert has seen students from her courses become advocates. One of them is Russo (Environmental Studies \u201917), now a leader in campus sustainability. Nan Affleck Hardt (Culture, Literature & the Arts \u201816) is the apiary manager at 21 Acres. Olivia Shangrow (Biology \u201917), is a biologist with the Bothell business Rent Mason Bees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bee<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Bee<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pollinator photos by Alexa Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh say, can you CCUWBee?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Started in 2012, the CCUWBee initiative<\/a>, a collaboration of Cascadia College and the University of Washington Bothell, became more formal in the past two years through Russo\u2019s office. It\u2019s an opportunity for Lambert\u2019s students to continue monitoring pollinators on campus. 足彩app哪个是正规的re are two projects. One is a survey of the abundance of pollinators, and the other is an archive of bee photos. 足彩app哪个是正规的 archive is being prepared for the campus library and will be similar to its wetlands collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re building this database in anticipation that the data could be used as climate changes or the landscape changes in some form. It could be used as a reference in a baseline for future studies,\u201d Lambert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two students who took part in last year\u2019s surveying, Jordan Fette and Kristen Attebery, displayed their research in the spring Undergraduate Research Symposium<\/a> on the UW campus in Seattle. Among their findings for the 2018 survey: 55% were bumblebees, 22% other native bee species and 23% honeybees, which are not native to North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of Lambert\u2019s students typically volunteer to work with CCUWBee. A couple more work on the initiative with Russo through the Office of Community Based Learning (CBLR). Some students each quarter also use the CBLR office to volunteer with 21 Acres. 足彩app哪个是正规的 whole class visits the Woodinville farm to see its honeybee apiary and the native bees on a hedgerow of native plants. For more hands-on experience, the CBLR volunteers may work with the beekeeper or help with maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the bees are<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的s may also choose independent research through Lambert with Rent Mason Bees, which brings bee boxes to campus in the spring. Mason bees are gentle, nonhoney producing solitary pollinators that lay their eggs in tube-like holes, which they cap with a masonry type plug. 足彩app哪个是正规的s may rent the bees for their own studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bees also are on the minds of students involved in the UW Restoration Ecology Network. Lambert teaches an Introduction to Restoration Ecology course that incorporates an understanding of pollinators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel incredibly lucky to work on a campus on the suburban-rural edge, and one that at this point is not very urbanized. We don\u2019t keep honeybees on campus. What we do have is an incredible diversity of bees, especially bumblebees in a very small area,\u201d Lambert said. \u201cI\u2019m all about conservation of native bees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No stings attached<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No students in her courses have been stung, Lambert said. One student this summer, Rylee Appelgate, said she overcame a fear of bees on the first day. Ever since she had been stung as a young child \u201canything that was buzzing or black and yellow near me was dangerous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Amy<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Appelgate learned that most bees stick to their business. It was more likely she was stung by a wasp. As a Biology major graduating in the fall, Appelgate said the pollinator class fit her interests in conservation and resource management. \u201cI hope to learn strategies that can be applied beyond bees,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asma Tadmori (Biology, summer \u201919) learned about the impact of bee decline. \u201cAs humans we should do something to help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cerina Mick (Media & Communications fall \u201919) liked taking a science class outside her field. She was surprised to learn there are many native bees but only one species of the domesticated honeybee. Alfred Albear (Biology fall \u201919), who plans to attend medical school, was interested in bee stings \u2014 toxins and how they affect the immune systems in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grounds for bees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

足彩app哪个是正规的se are hard times for many bees. Some populations are in decline due to loss of habitat, pesticide poisoning and the spread of diseases and parasites. In its management practices, the campus avoids poisons, fosters native plants and practices low-maintenance landscaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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