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From Ohio State University. Professor Reed Johnson.
Professor Johnson’s interest in bees started when as an undergrad student he started working in a honeybee lab. During the interview, he talked about several of his prior research projects, which are simply fascinating!
To begin with, one of his research areas is the agricultural use of pesticides. A lot of it is about pesticides in almonds since almonds are so important to the pollinators in the US, as a vast majority of the bees go to the almonds and consequently the pesticides used for almond bloom will affect the bee population nationwide. He is also interested in pesticide work in California or related to California-based topics. According to Professor Johnson, this is because California has a publicly accessible database where one can look up every pesticide application in the state going back 25 years. His work has mainly focused on pesticides, which is not unique to the Western world. Honeybees across the world near agricultural land are being exposed to pesticides and consequently, pesticide toxicity to varying extents.
In one of his projects with his former student, he researched the extent of honey produced in Ohio areas. They found bees in urban environments didn’t make as much honey as in rural areas. According to Professor Johnson, although in rural areas, pesticides are used on a larger scale, agricultural users usually have pesticide application training. While, in urban areas, although less pesticide is used, it's usually applied by homeowners who are not trained but hopefully understand the correct method of pesticide application from the information provided on the packaging. So, although it is true, agricultural areas will show more exposure to pesticides, it does not slow down honey production as their study showed. On the extent of the purity of the honey produced, it is hard to say whether it varies based on rural vs. urban settings and was not part of the research scope.
Another interesting project was Professor Johnson’s previous work on corn seed treatment insecticides’ effects on honeybee colonies in Ohio. The research talks about how during the corn seed planting process, the brightly colored insecticide coating on the seeds gets chipped off. Hence, air-driven, modern apparatus is used to eject out the seeds by jets of air which generates dust that is a pure insecticide and is detrimental to the bees. This results in bee kill during the corn seed plantation process. To observe this, they put bee traps in agricultural settings and concluded by observing a moderate bill kill. Although a moderate bee kill, it is true that due to the dust released, bees are being exposed to these insecticides that kill a moderate number of bees. Let us hear about it directly from him:
It was an absolute pleasure interviewing Professor Johnson. His love for bee research came across via his patient enthusiasm and energetic responses. Bees absolutely fascinate him, and he compares bee colonies to alien civilizations as they do a lot of things that we don’t have any idea about.
Professor Johnson, we wish you the very best in discovering more about this alien civilization😊
One word that comes to his mind when he thinks of bees is ‘DANCE’! A completely new word connection we are hearing. Professor Johnson referred to research related to the waggle dance of bees. Bees have an interesting way of communicating with each other by waggling their abdomen. Thank you, professor, for referring to this, it made me start researching this waggle dance and hopefully in the future will post on it!
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