Honey Bees and Humans

Catalog description

Among more than 1,000,000 known insect species, honey bees are truly unique. No other insect has been harnessed so effectively to benefit humankind: honey bees provide critical pollination services for agricultural crops, and the wax and honey they produce are valuable commodities. Furthermore, their fascinating social life-style has intrigued individuals from hobby beekeepers to scientists studying complex questions about the evolution of sociality. More recently, documented declines in populations of honey bees and wild bees have stimulated interest in many communities, including policymakers, in improving health outcomes for bees. This course will provide students with a strong understanding of (1) honey bee behavior (particularly their complex and sophisticated social systems), biology, and health, (2) the important contributions honey bees and their pollination services make to maintaining natural ecosystems and increasing productivity of many of our key agricultural crops; and (3) the global history of human interactions with honey bees, including how people from many cultures have managed bees to provide honey, wax, and pollination services (4) the social and political context of addressing bee health issues. The course material will be presented in a series of interactive lectures, videos, and discussions, and also include a field trip to the Pollinator Gardens at the Arboretum at Penn State, a field trip to one of the Penn State apiaries, tracking individual honey bees in an observation hive, and dissections of samples in a laboratory exercise.