Family Science

Beekeeping for a nervous person

2007-05-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

I wouldn’t say that I’ve had a lifelong interest in honeybees, really no more so than the average person. I think everyone, to some degree, has a fascination with honeybees and they are, perhaps, the best known of all social insects. But the idea of me as a beekeeper seems to have hit suddenly and from out of nowhere. “Yes, I thought one day, I will get some honeybees!” As it turned out I was unable to do anything about this sudden interest at the time and a couple years passed before I actually obtained my first hive. It happened one day that I was invited to a party at the local university's beelab, where I was introduced to an enthusiastic thirty-something beekeeper named Josh Summers. Somehow, this man who lacking the normal credentials, i.e. college degree, managed to land a job at a university’s bee research facility and even made himself quite indispensable. After speaking with him for a half an hour, the reason he was hired became clear. He had an incredible comfort level with bees, knew a great deal about their biology and could communicate his knowledge to the public with enthusiasm. Unfortunately honeybees, like spiders and snakes, have been unreasonably maligned in the public eye. To the average person, any flying, stinging insect is a “bee” and attempting to explain the difference to an uninterested person is only a waste of time. A positive public face like Josh’s, is something the honey bee industry sorely needs.
As it turned out, I ended up visiting Josh at his house and in no time he had built a Top Bar Hive (to be explained later) for me and “shook” a package of bees into it. The time one starts a bee hive is important. Spring is when you begin, and early spring at that. This is to ensure that the bees have plenty of time to build up their work force. They need plenty of workers to go out, collect nectar and make honey so the hive can get through the winter. Unfortunately I was starting very late; June 21. This was long past the ideal time to start a hive. However, as Josh explained, honeybees don’t read the books written about them. He said that if I fed the bees regularly with syrup made from cane sugar, there was a good chance they could survive the dearth, (nectar drought) of summer and the cold of winter.
At this point I would like to confess my extreme nervousness around any stinging insect. In the beginning I couldn’t get over my anxiety of working around my little hive and even took to covering myself from head to toe in order to change their sugar syrup every other day! Instead of becoming more comfortable as time wore on, my anxiety level actually increased! Then one day while in a rush, and when I hadn’t bothered to put on a protective veil, it happened. I got stung right in the neck. At first I thought “Oh no, I’ve been stung and quickly walked away. I had only retreated a few yards when I thought “Is this it? This is what I have been so scared of?” It really was nothing. The painful memory of being stung by a nest of angry hornets was the memory I’d been carrying with me all these years, not the pain of a honeybee sting. A honey bee sting, though not pleasant, was certainly nothing to get excited about. That individual honeybee in giving up her life, released me from the fear that had kept me from enjoying the bees and further developing my interest in beekeeping. I have since found that I am not alone. Many people I’ve spoken with have expressed the same internal conflict. They have an interest in beekeeping but are hobbled by an embarrassing fear of being stung. My advice to them is, “Get a hive, get stung once or twice and then enjoy the rest of your life!”

parasites

2007-04-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

The program I am currently developing for the month of May is all about parasites. Well, actually just three parasites since I have only 30 minutes in which to present the program.
This topic is going to be the most challenging one I've attempted yet. Designing a program on parasites that is accessible for an audience ranging from 6 year olds to senior adults is no easy task. But after reading the book Parasite rex, I was so intrigued by the subject that I felt compelled to create an auditorium program in order to share it. To my amazement I discovered that parasites outnumber free-living creatures four to one! As a person with a background in biology, how is it that I've never heard this outstanding statistic? With those kinds of numbers we should certainly make the effort to know something about them.
Anyway, I plan to cover Trypanosoma brucei, the protozoan responsible for sleeping sickness, followed by Toxoplasmosis, a disease that cycles between cats and rats (people too).
The last parasite I will be discussing is one a little easier to appreciate; the parasitic muddauber wasp. (Easier to appreciate since it attacks spiders and not us).

Here is a little work-up I'm doing on Trypanosoma brucei, the cause of Sleeping Sickness:

Sleeping Sickness affects about 60 million people and is spread by the bite of the tsetse fly. The hallmarks of sleeping sickness are dangerous high fevers, painfully swollen lymph nodes and lethargy. The progression of the disease eventually leads to coma and death. Turns out there is a cycle or back and forth battle raging between the body's immune system and a quickly reproducing protozoan named Trypanosoma brucei. When the body first realizes that Trypanosoma has invaded, it takes a while for the immune system to recognize the protein coat that sheathes the protozoan and to create effective antibodies that can latch on to this coat and destroy it. From the very beginning the Trypanasomes have the upper hand, as it takes the immune system some time to prepare an army capable of recognizing these invaders. During the initial, somewhat slow immune system build-up, Trypanosomes quickly replicate themselves. As the body finally marshalls enough antibodies to latch onto this now recognizable protein coat, the immune sytem can easily destroy them. But just as these last few Trypanosomes are cornered and look to be going the way of General Custer, the resourceful little protozoans suddenly change their appearance by creating a new protein coat with a design the body has never encountered. Although surrounded by an army of antibodies, they appear to be invisible. The immune system does not recognize this new coat and is temporarily blinded to it. So while the body is taking time to learn this new coat and respond to it the Trypanosomes, once again, reproduce madly flooding the body with deadly sickness. As before, the immune system now begins to manufacture appropriate and sufficient antibodies against this latest "designer" coat bringing the protozoans to their knees. However, as you've probably guessed, a few Trypanosomes pull the old coat-switch routine again. How long can this go on? Longer than most people can withstand. No desperate immune system "troop surge" can hope to make much headway against an enemy with over 900 protein coats in it's closet. Actually Trypanosoma brucei has over nine hundred genes that code for as many coats. If this DNA coding was all located on a single gene it might be an easy matter for researchers to bioengineer a virus that could infect the trypanosome, targeting that one gene in order to destroy or alter it. But with nine hundred genes... it's not likely. Without medical treatment, the overwhelmed and overstimulated immune system begins to attack it's own body.

There is quite a bit more information I'm presenting here than what I can share with a general audience at the museum, but I thought some of you might find it interesting. The main source of my information is derived from reading Parasite rex, and some from various internet sources.
Stay tuned for the next blog report on Toxoplasmosis! ;)

First Thoughts

2007-04-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

I am hoping that in the future this blog, although personal, can be used as reinforcement to classes conducted at the museum. My immediate ideas are to post additional information about subjects covered in the Family Science Investigations classes. A common request in program evaluations is "Can you make the classes longer." I wish that was possible, but at least for now one hour is all that is available. It may be that this blog could make up for this by providing more information rather than more class time.
As "blogging" is a new medium for me, I imagine that content may tend toward the rambling, and unconnected. As I figure things out though, some thread of continuity should emerge.
I welcome any ideas.
I also expect to post personal philosophies, interests and experiences that may be unrelated to museum work. Hopefully there is a way to organize these into distinct categories on this site. The good news: It is another learning experience! Right? That's what it's all about.
take care
Bob