195 - Maddie Carpenter - What is the North American honey bee? (in English)

[00:00:00] Andony Melathopoulos: Many of our listeners know honeybees are not native to north America, but they've been here for a long time since the 16 hundreds. And when, posing the question of what is the north American honeybee it's convoluted question because it's the product of an obscure and sometimes forgotten history of importation and also switches and trends in terms of the popularity of different subspecies of honey bees that were imported to help us wrap our head around the question of what the north American honeybee is and where it came from. I invited Maddie carpenter onto the show. Now, Maddie is a graduate student. She's pursuing a master's of science in entomology at Purdue university in the Brock Harper honeybee extension program.

[00:00:38] Her focus is on the importation history of honey bees and how. Patterns inform present day genetic diversity in differentiation among managed and feral stocks of honeybees. So without further ado Maddie carpenter this week on pollination talking about the north American honeybee.

[00:00:59] Okay welcome to pollination.

[00:01:01] Maddie Carpenter: Thank you so much for having me

[00:01:02] Andony Melathopoulos: today. Now, most people I'm sure who are listening, know that honeybees were imported into north America and to set our stage for talking about your. And the impartation history of honeybees. Can you tell us about the native range of the honeybee Amos Muller FRA in the old world?

[00:01:18] Maddie Carpenter: Sure. The Western honeybee is native to the Constance of Europe, Asia, and Africa, where there are currently about 29 recognized sub-species and these subspecies are differentiated by behavioral genetic and morphological differences. Over the last 400 years, nine of those subspecies have been important to the United States.

[00:01:42] Andony Melathopoulos: Okay. So only a third of the subspecies ever made it to north America.

[00:01:46] Maddie Carpenter: That's correct. And most of them were from Europe.

[00:01:50] Andony Melathopoulos: Now you're interested in getting a better, better handle on the early importation of honeybees to the mainland, us, those nine subspecies and how they got here. Can you tell us about the methods you use to reconstruct this history?

[00:02:01] Cause I imagine it's in dribs and drabs here and there.

[00:02:08] Maddie Carpenter: For the very, very early importation records. There were a number of previously published books that were of immense use to me. Notably Eva cranes, history of beekeeping Tammy Hornsby's in America. And yeah, and those kinds of formed the basis of the very early importation, because back then there were not these nice records that we have to do.

[00:02:29] In particular, when I was looking later in the 18 hundreds there were lots of beekeeping magazines because it was all the rage and bees are such a charismatic species that everyone enjoys reading and writing about them and sharing their knowledge about them. So when we get into the 18 hundreds, we have a publication of journals like the American bead journal or cleanings and bee culture that are now publicly available online for people to.

[00:02:55] So when I got to that later time period, I was able to basically just troll through all of these journals, just basically going line by line, article by article to see, to just looking for that magical word, importation new importation. And then people discussing that as well.

[00:03:13] Andony Melathopoulos: Just to go back.

[00:03:14] So this ER, in this early history though, no journals, publications, or mental. And so you had to rely on historic. We had those great historiographies. I think Tammy Hornsby's in America should really get Tammy on the show to talk about that book, because it's really wonderful, but Eva Crane's work Eva.

[00:03:35] It a lot of dug into a lot of nooks and crannies. So through there we learned something about when bees came in. Did we, can you tell us a little bit about those those first honeybees that came. Where w where did they come at? How many importations are we talking about? How are they imported and were the, what those subspecies were that came to north America, just in this early phase, in the 16 hundreds?

[00:03:59] Maddie Carpenter: Yes. So in the very first recorded importation of honeybees was in 1622. When calling us in Jamestown, Virginia brought over they. The Virginia company in England sent, they called us Jamestown beehives. It just says the record itself just says beehives, but that does indicate that they had bees as well.

[00:04:23] And these bees are being transported over the Atlantic ocean on a sailing ship. So they had, I think like a eight, eight week journey from England. The very first sub species that was brought over. APHIS Melissa, or the British black B. And these were the honeybees that the early English colonists would have been familiar with.

[00:04:45] And these, because they're the native subspecies of England and also most of Northern Europe,

[00:04:51] Andony Melathopoulos: do we have any sense of so these bees were imported. Yeah, with sailing ships. Do we have any idea thing I've always been curious about? And I was wonderful figures in the paper that we're talking about, that you published on this work.

[00:05:05] Do you have any sense about how far into the mainland these bees may have gone

[00:05:12] Maddie Carpenter: during the first hundred years?

[00:05:14] Andony Melathopoulos: Yeah. Before the big, what we're going to get into in a second, the. No old rush of bringing bees over north America. Do we have any sense how far into the mainland they spread it or any records of how far those populations went?

[00:05:28] Maddie Carpenter: Yeah. So there were two main methods of honeybee dispersal during this early time period. And these were natural swarming, which occurs very slowly in natural climates at about the rate of, I think, eight kilometers. The other much faster method was for just people for calling us to be bringing beehives with them as they traveled and boot deeper into the north American continent.

[00:05:52] Before the importation golden years starting about the 1860s the British blackmail had gotten about as far as the Rockies through swarming and transportation, but also during that time period, The speed of transportation, especially of ships had increased dramatically. So there are also a number of people who were sending ships for sending bees from the east coast across, and then sending those hives across the Panama isthmus of Panama and to California.

[00:06:25] Andony Melathopoulos: So we started to see importations happen on the west coast.

[00:06:29] Maddie Carpenter: Yes. And about the 1850.

[00:06:31] Andony Melathopoulos: Okay. And this is the period that I'm really fascinated because this must be where things get wild pretty quick. Is this acceleration of importations that happens in the latter 19th century. Can you tell us about these importations and the implication for the spread of APHIS for in the United.

[00:06:49] And the introduction of new populations, these new subspecies that start to show up here. Cause it sounds like for a good hundred or so years, it's really Apess Melissa, this British black bee that dominates the popular.

[00:07:03] Maddie Carpenter: It was actually about 250 years of just this one single subspecies.

[00:07:09] Okay. And then in it, actually this craze started in Europe where it became fashionable among country gentlemen to beekeep. And at that point, the British empire is rapidly expand. More or more transportation was happening in Europe. European beekeepers were coming into contact with these different honeybee subspecies in Europe and also around the Mediterranean.

[00:07:33] So during that time, there was a great interest in improving the existing honeybee stock. The British black bee in particular is known for being aggressive. And so when European beekeepers, especially German ones caught on to the Italian honeybee, which is gentler and generally has higher honey production.

[00:07:53] It was like love at first sight. And also it helped that Italian honeybees are this beautiful golden color, the British black bees named because its abdomen is pretty dark. But European beekeepers were just entranced by the fact that the Italian honeybee was this nice color. Anyway. So after the craze caught on Europe, it came to the United States and there was a there was a concerted effort.

[00:08:17] During the late 1850s to bring Italian honeybees to United States. And they finally succeeded in 1859 bringing the first, I think, 10 over to New York city. So importations of the Italian honeybee kind of ground to hold after that because of the American civil war. But picked right back up again.

[00:08:38] And in 1866 where you see this explosion of interest in both Italian honeybees and their continued importation from Europe after the like initial craze, it formed like the nucleus of Italian honeybee breeding stock in the United States. So very soon afterwards you have an explosion.

[00:08:59] B breeders specifically dedicated to propagating Italian honeybees by the 18 by the 1880s, they could be found basically across the continent. There were from California to Vermont.

[00:09:11] Andony Melathopoulos: So a kind of wholesale displacement of the bees that sort of made up that early population of those first 250 years.

[00:09:20] People lost their appetite for a British black bees,

[00:09:23] Maddie Carpenter: yes. There, the, a lot of the, there was like a big push to re queen hives with Italian queen to remove. These black beads from your yard or to, especially to encourage your neighbors to do so as well, so that there so that you would keep your Italian stocks pure.

[00:09:43] And so today most of the stocks in the United States are derived from these Italian importations. But if you want that legacy from that British black, you have to go into like feral colonies. There. Isn't a there isn't like a propagated source for black beasts.

[00:10:00] Andony Melathopoulos: And the other thing I do recall is that there, in addition to Italian bees, there are other, you said nine subspecies and we talked about too.

[00:10:10] There was another, S seven that sort of that got through the goalposts. And I understand it's really through this time, except for, we'll talk about the 20th century in a minute. It will tell us about some of the other crazy things that made their way into north America.

[00:10:27] Maddie Carpenter: All right.

[00:10:28] So yeah the Italian was the one that really took off. So after that success that beekeepers were like, okay, we have something that's really good here. We're going to keep bringing over more. So it becomes even better. So there was this obsession with building the best bees.

[00:10:44] Which has not

[00:10:44] Andony Melathopoulos: died to this day. I will add. Yes,

[00:10:48] Maddie Carpenter: it is. It is the nature of humanity to keep improving and all that. So the. After that they were like, all right, we're just going to start bringing honeybees over. And they did. So the next subspecies that came over was deepest Melissa LaMarche, the Egyptian honeybee which Reverend Langstroth actually brought over in 1866.

[00:11:10] And these honeybees were collected from from around the Nile in Egypt. And I think you brought up. Langstroth initially brought over to and they were not popular. They they had a reputation as being aggressive and prone to swarming. So Langstroth really tried to shill.

[00:11:31] Egyptian honeybees as best they, as best he could. But they did not catch on that. He got slammed in American B journal for bringing these bees over with beekeepers are like, oh, they stuck me too much. They were, they swarmed, they were aggressive. They kept repeating themselves. So he only tried importing them twice.

[00:11:49] And

[00:11:49] Andony Melathopoulos: then the founders of movable frame hive design had, has come up since.

[00:11:55] Maddie Carpenter: He really did. But at that point, because he'd already invented the movable frame, everyone was like, it's okay. It's okay. We still like you don't worry. And then the the second, actually the sorry, the third and fourth subspecies introduced actually came over at the same time and they came, they actually came through Canada.

[00:12:13] So these were Oh, wait, no, sorry. I misspoke. The third one is another popular sub species. There is another there's subspecies that retains popularity today. Papist Muller for a car Nico or the corneal and honeybee. Initially brought over in 1877. There were just three Queens in the initial importation and they.

[00:12:36] And he's honeybees work collected from a modern day Croatia. Their range is in, along that area in the mountains and yeah they were not, they were considered, th they were like, They weren't as great as the Italian they were. Okay. But then in the eighties and the 1880s, I should say their population, their popularity really caught on.

[00:12:59] And they B they were imported much more frequently, especially after the relative flop of the fourth and fifth subspecies introduced the if a similar for Melissa Supriya or the Cyprian honey. And , or the Syrian honeybee. These two came over at the same time because of an expedition that was conducted by da Jones of Canada and Frank Benton of the United States.

[00:13:27] Oh, the

[00:13:28] Andony Melathopoulos: inventor of the smoker and Jones, I guess still there's a legacy. So these are names that you will see on beekeeping supply box, but the Benton cage, was the queen. He's the inventor of the smoker, right?

[00:13:43] Maddie Carpenter: I don't think that he did the smoker,

[00:13:45] Andony Melathopoulos: the cage though. He wasn't either queen cage person.

[00:13:48] I think he was the queen cage person anyway okay. So they brought over, keep going, sorry to interrupt. So they brought over,

[00:13:55] Maddie Carpenter: So they went on an expedition together to across the Mediterranean, to look specifically, to look into different honeybee, subspecies that they could bring over to north America.

[00:14:06] And. While they were there, they stopped on the island of Cyprus and were enamored of the native Cyprian honeybee, which they found to be incredibly productive and Hardy. And so Ben Benton stayed on the island of Cyprus for two years, exclusively to breed Cyprian, honeybees to send back to north America really.

[00:14:29] And and then he actually was instrumental in bringing over more corneal and honeybees as well because after his poor health forced him to retire from Cyprus, he moved to Germany. And from there sent over a lot of corneal and honeybees later in the 18 hundreds.

[00:14:45] Andony Melathopoulos: It's fascinating that a lot of these this new round of importation in the 19th century largely comes from the Mediterranean.

[00:14:52] It's a kind of interesting, I'm sure there will probably hear that we have some more Northern bees that get introduced later, but no it's a striking, it's striking that all these collections are happening around the Mediterranean area and some of them seem not to go well.

[00:15:10] Maddie Carpenter: Yes. The, actually the other subspecies that was brought over at the same time, the Syrian honeybee that did not go well.

[00:15:16] So basically. Da Jones left Frank been in Cyprus to continue with breeding operations. And then he himself went to the middle east specifically around the areas of like modern Israel. And he found where he he encountered the Syrian honeybee, which is a small. Dark honey Bita is also known for its product or was at the time was renowned for its productivity and hardiness.

[00:15:44] And so he da Jones just liked the, he liked what he heard from other Europeans living in the area and basically without observing them for very long. He just decided to grab a couple dozen colonies and bring them to camp. And so he brought and so he brought the Syrian honeybees and the initial Cyprian importations to his home and beaten Canada.

[00:16:09] And the Cyprian, honey bees caught on they had some, they had cold hardiness. And when you cross them with Italian honeybees, they like the cross was a very productive and Hardy, Syrian honeybees. Had the same problem as the Egyptian honeybees and that they were known for being very aggressive and for swarming readily.

[00:16:27] So those, the one importation that he made in 1880, wasn't the last one. They, that series honey piece did not catch on. He got, again, whatever an importation or newly introduced subspecies did not catch on with the beekeepers they would write to gleanings of the culture and American Pedro, and they.

[00:16:48] They would let everyone know

[00:16:51] Andony Melathopoulos: God the perils of being importation. Okay. So when the one subspecies I'm waiting for, or the Caucasians, which no, I still to the state, the ones that I think about as, a contemporary queen breeder will say they have, or Italians Kearney Olins and Caucasians.

[00:17:11] When did they come?

[00:17:13] Maddie Carpenter: So the first importation are there. So there were a couple importations in dribs and drabs before a big one. So beekeepers were introduced to APIs moniker called Casco or the Caucasian honeybee native to the areas around the black sea and the 1800 they're late 18 hundreds through German beekeepers.

[00:17:33] So the first recorded importation was to New York in 1883. And then again in 1890, so New York beekeepers were experimenting with them. But then our friend Frank Benton went to visit an apiary run by two Germans in Colorado in the 19 hundreds. And they had car or sorry.

[00:17:54] They had Caucasian honeybees. And when Ben saw them, saw how they were working in the Rockies he wasn't. So he immediately sent for two Caucasian Queens, which arrived in his APR in Washington, DC in 1902. And actually what followed for the next 10 years or so was this massive enterprise that Ben undertook in funded by the federal government actually where he was bringing over or he was importing Caucasian Queens pretty consistently for.

[00:18:27] 1900 to 1910, and both breeding them to, or breeding them pure to keep the supply of Caucasian honeybees and also crossing them experimentally with Italian and especially Cyprian and Parnell and honeybees again, in that continuing that quest to make the best honeybee and actually the the.

[00:18:49] Provisioning of Caucasian honeybees to beekeepers was subsidized by the federal government at this time. The, so the purchase of Caucasian Queens was discounted and actually beekeeper or bee breeders. Got a little upset about this because this like the propagation of honeybee Queens had been the sole Providence of individuals.

[00:19:12] Benny decades at this point. And they were a little upset that the government was stepping in and doing their job for them because they had been doing it for generations. They clearly knew much more about about their science then than the government.

[00:19:28] Andony Melathopoulos: This is the progressive era.

[00:19:29] And there is this kind of, attempt to, modernize state agencies start to take. No, I think of this in forestry, but there's a kind of like a attempt to really jumpstart and modernize the economy through the three agencies. And this must be, it's impacted beekeeping, but I do recall that a decade later, this all comes to an abrupt halt.

[00:19:52] There's a there's a, is that I believe there's, isn't there a law or something that makes it very difficult or impossible to. Any more bees after this point,

[00:20:04] Maddie Carpenter: the honeybee importation active 1922.

[00:20:07] Andony Melathopoulos: Tell us a little bit about what the circumstances, why did this, you know, it, this era of of people going out, bringing Queens, they just arrive in an apiary, come to halt

[00:20:19] Maddie Carpenter: the there they're two factors at work.

[00:20:21] The first was that importations generally slowed down during. The 1910s because of world war one. And also there was a disease that swept the British Isles and parts of Europe called isle of white disease, which really w I do not believe that there is a specific disease or pathogen has been attributed to it.

[00:20:45] But it really did a number on colonies across Europe. And so there were fears that I'll avoid disease would make its way to the United States. And because of that beekeepers petitioned the federal government to stop open the, this era of open importations. So 1922, the honeybee importation act was passed that prevented the importation of live honeybees and products.

[00:21:09] And I think in the 1950s, it was expanded again to include germplasm

[00:21:13] Andony Melathopoulos: as well. But so we've got a kind of a population now in north America, that's built out of these waves of importation and I guess there's yet one more wave of introductions that happens later in the 20th century. Can you describe the populations that were introduced at this time, a last big introduction?

[00:21:35] Maddie Carpenter: Yeah. So this is the introduction of the last subspecies. The or the African hybrid honeybee or the Africanized honeybee. In the 1950s there was a push to improve honeybees for tropical climates. Most of the honeybees that had been introduced to south America. From Northern Europe and the shift from Northern Europe to Brazil was pretty unpleasant for these honeybees.

[00:22:03] And they often did not have, they were not very productive and they didn't have a long life expectancy. So in order to improve upon that beekeepers introduced a honeybee from Africa and across them with the native Spanish honeybees and the black bees. Ultimately these crosses escaped and began swarming up through south America and up through central America reaching the United States in 1990,

[00:22:33] since then African hybrid honeybees have spread to 10 Southern states. And most of the, mostly along the Southern border and these honeybees of course are infamous for being extremely useful. We're swarming rapidly and for generally being considered a pest species.

[00:22:54] Andony Melathopoulos: Okay. That brings us up to date.

[00:22:55] I think we've got the kind of basis of what, of the th the genetic diversity of AICPA's Melissa north America. Let's take a quick break. And I want to now shift over to the work that you're doing. And some of the kind of challenges in reconstructing, this history that that we face.

[00:23:15] Okay. We're back. So we were talking at the break and you mentioned that, in the myriad of all these 19th century importations, there's one that you've that I forgot to ask you about. Why don't you tell us about this. This critter, was brought in and its success,

[00:23:30] Maddie Carpenter: Success, or probably lack thereof.

[00:23:32] This is or the tele and honeybee of Northern Africa. It was brought over in 1891. Basically as far as I can tell, I think like less than 10 Queens. Ultimately imported because this was another aggressive, fast forming honeybee. And it was not popular, did not catch on and as always the people to blame heard all about it in the beekeeping journals.

[00:23:59] Andony Melathopoulos: And the other thing that we we were talking about the break is that there has been, in the first time in almost the, 70 to a hundred years, there's been a renewed attempt in the United States now. Understanding how to bring germplasm and safely. There has been at least USDA and Washington state university have been active in bringing some new germplasm to north America.

[00:24:23] So we have, after being shut off for quite a long time, there's some new germplasm coming in. And can you give us the brief, the contours of that?

[00:24:33] Maddie Carpenter: The general renewed interest in introducing germplasm has been spurred by the introduction of grow a distracter or the road might over the last few decades because of that.

[00:24:44] Thereafter the, after Verot were initially introduced, of course, we saw a massive die off of both managed and feral colonies in the United States. And the economic damage that Varroa brings every single year is always a serious concern. And. Main co a leading cause of overwintering death because of that, there has been a concerted effort to breed or to import stocks that are resistant or tolerant of aroma.

[00:25:14] So in the late 1990s, early two thousands the USDA started importing a. Strain of honeybees from Russia, the quote unquote Russian honeybees that had been living with a Varroa for many decades prior to its introduction to the United States and were generally considered tolerant. So these importations happened again in the late nineties to perform.

[00:25:42] So the nucleus for the breeding stock that now this

[00:25:46] Andony Melathopoulos: population is, I understand, is it, oh, sorry to cut you off. But this population is not in its endemic range. It's the Russian far east B that was brought over from the west. Do we know anything about the genetic basis of the subspecies basis of this population?

[00:26:04] I imagine it came from the Ukraine or something originally. Do we know maybe.

[00:26:10] Maddie Carpenter: I believe that the initial population was a hybrid of dark honeybees and Italian honeybees as well. I'm not too sure about the specifics of it though,

[00:26:22] Andony Melathopoulos: right?

[00:26:23] Maddie Carpenter: No problem. And then. Since 2008 Washington state university has also been introducing germplasm from CardioLAN Caucasian and Italian honey bees and their native range in an effort to improve genetic diversity of those stocks in the United.

[00:26:40] Andony Melathopoulos: Fantastic. Thanks for bringing us up to speed with that. And I guess what I, this all raises this question and I'm I'm always interested in the history of these. Like you mentioned reading, when you read through some of these older histories of beekeeping, it's fascinating. This is there's a rich historical story to tell about honeybee importations, but also I imagine it has implications for understanding, what.

[00:27:05] Been breeding in United States. What's the basis of that population. And I guess there have been attempts to try and recreate this history. Both through history. Geography is as you pointed out, but also using molecular tools. And I want to just have you talk a little bit about some of the limitations of these previous approaches and what are some of the unresolved questions and being able to piece this history of the importation of honeybees?

[00:27:33] Maddie Carpenter: The, just to clarify the shortcoming of the previous molecular studies, the historical studies are

[00:27:37] Andony Melathopoulos: both. Let's go let's go for all.

[00:27:40] Maddie Carpenter: Okay. So the shortcomings of the historical approach are fairly common to this sort of this sort of research. We're dealing with records that are many hundreds of years old.

[00:27:51] Many of them are incomplete or occurred in places. That sort of like predated record keeping additionally especially all of these sources are coming from a, or were published by white male Europeans. So there is a considerable gap in sources. And also I witnessed accounts of importation over time.

[00:28:12] Additionally in terms of geography most of the writers were located on the Eastern or Western seaboard. So when I was looking for importation or importations or movements of honeybees into the central of the country or out west again, because a lot of this was coming from.

[00:28:32] At the time they many had not established like newspapers or other print material that we, that I could use to reconstruct that. Additionally when you look at the molecular ways that we've tried to characterize the present population of honeybees in United States a lot of them have used mitochondrial DNA as a way to assign ancestry to honeybees and.

[00:28:56] This is this is a great tool because you get maternal and testy, but you don't get

[00:29:02] Andony Melathopoulos: paternal ancestry because the mitochondria comes from the mother. And so you don't know anything about the other end of of the contribution? That's correct.

[00:29:13] Maddie Carpenter: And mitochondrial DNA only tells you the some species.

[00:29:18] That the mother came from. But the thing with honeybees, the United States is that we have these nine different subspecies that have been made mostly for most of their history, freely breeding with each other for hundreds of years. So our population is a mix of all of these, of all nine. But if you look at the mitochondria will only tell you the one that the mother.

[00:29:42] Andony Melathopoulos: That's great because you may have multiple, cause I imagine this, that at some level, those early British black beat genetics may exist. But if you only use mitochondrial, if you're only rearing Queens off of Italians, you may miss that. There's still some of this germ, some of these genes from that initial population floating around, you'd never be able to detect.

[00:30:08] Exactly. Okay. All right.

[00:30:12] Maddie Carpenter: So that's where my work steps in the mitochondrial genome is just a small part of the entire honeybees, so basically what I've been doing is 23 and me service for honeybees, or we take heat. We look at the whole thing and there have been previous whole genome studies and United States.

[00:30:32] More recently as the cost of sequencing genomes has gone down which we've seen in humans. Because now we can get our whole genome sequence for $1,000 for parts of it. So similarly the cost of sequencing for other animals has gone down as well. And the great thing about whole genome studies.

[00:30:54] And specifically in terms of determining ancestries that we can get those fractions, we can't, we do know now that the populations that have been sequenced so far, we have that large contribution from Italian and carnival and honeybees. But as you mentioned earlier, we also have that remnant of black bees that we wouldn't be able to detect with mitochondria.

[00:31:15] Andony Melathopoulos: Oh, fascinating. You're going to be for your. You're a graduate research. You're going to be looking at the existing population broadly in the continent looking for some of these lost ancestries.

[00:31:29] Maddie Carpenter: Yes. In part I have, I've been looking at feral colonies in the Northeast and in the Midwest.

[00:31:36] Most sequencing efforts to date have been located in the Southern United States or the west coast. When we just look at certain, so the great thing about population genomics is that you need a population. And so basically the more the merrier, the any what we have presently is definitely an under estimation of.

[00:31:59] The diversity of honeybees in the United States. So the more populations that we have sequenced, the better understanding we can get of how honeybees have changed over time, especially because of human management.

[00:32:13] Andony Melathopoulos: Hi, it's fascinating. I just am curious. This is a really interesting project that you're embarking on.

[00:32:17] How did you get interested in this in these topics in the first place?

[00:32:21] Maddie Carpenter: Initially I didn't think that I was going to do. The history kind of thing. But I have always been fascinated by history, by archival materials. So when the chance came up to so actually it just spun out of a project, Dr.

[00:32:35] Harper suggested to me, maybe before you look into what's here, you should look into what has been here in the past. And so after I w after I found all these publicly available. Journals and newspapers, it the project just took on a life of its own. I really fell into it really loved reading all of these old accounts and it's basically just like piecing together a puzzle.

[00:32:57] It was totally fascinating to me. And I'm so glad that I'm

[00:33:00] Andony Melathopoulos: continuing, it's amazing and I really would incur well, we'll link the paper in the show notes. It has some wonderful graphics. All this history is, in a compiled into these easy to take away images of introduction. It's really wonderful piece of work.

[00:33:16] Thank you. Okay. Let's take a quick break and we're going to come back. We have three questions that we ask our guests. I'm curious what is interdisciplinary, and like you will answer. All right. We're back. So pollinator book recommendation. Do you have a, what are you recommending to our listeners?

[00:33:33] Maddie Carpenter: Definitely bees in America. How honeybee shaped a nation by Tammy horn book was incredibly instrumental in just launching this paper for me, especially the early sources and the way that she integrates. Not only just like the facts of honeybees, the United States, but also the societal and cultural aspect of honeybees as well was as fast as.

[00:33:54] It's a

[00:33:54] Andony Melathopoulos: fantastic book. Tammy is such a talented writer as well, many of her many people know Tammy now because she's an apiary inspector and she's really good at that element, but she is a very talented historian. And I really appreciate the, the deep digging that's done in that book.

[00:34:09] There's a lot of history that's really overlooked and not, not considered that she's able to bring out in a narrative style that I just, I love. It's great. I think you're the first person to recommend it strangely.

[00:34:22] Maddie Carpenter: I'm the right person to recommended given the word.

[00:34:25] Andony Melathopoulos: It's a reminder, as well as Tammy. If you're listening out there where we are, we want you on the show. Okay. The second question that we have is do you have a go-to tool for this really unique kind of work that you do

[00:34:37] Maddie Carpenter: honestly? Google, there are so many free resources that are online, especially because.

[00:34:45] Especially because of university work. I mentioned that all of the early additions of American beat journaling, pleadings, and B culture, in addition to a lot of the other smaller beekeeping journals are available free online. A lot of like several universities have scanned them and you can read them for free, which is awesome.

[00:35:05] And also the library of Congress has a digitized collection of newspapers from across the United States. Incredibly useful in putting together the Western part of my importation history. And these newspapers are from across you can search all 50 states, you can search by date, you can search by keyword.

[00:35:24] So that was a godsend. So there are so many free resources that are available online. If you just, if you look around for them That has that, that has been

[00:35:35] Andony Melathopoulos: one of the greatest selves. I imagine, as you went through this historiography and trying to recreate it and using these online resources, you must've come across some quirky stories.

[00:35:44] There must be some very odd accounts of the importation out there. Oh my

[00:35:51] Maddie Carpenter: gosh. The importation history of star or the Asian giant honeybee. Isn't. That's a story.

[00:36:00] Andony Melathopoulos: AICPA story was, it was never brought tier, was it? Oh, no,

[00:36:03] it

[00:36:04] Maddie Carpenter: wasn't. But there were like four or five attempts to do and each time, like something went catastrophic wrong and thank goodness for that.

[00:36:11] I'm glad that April star sod is not

[00:36:13] Andony Melathopoulos: come here. Wow. Okay. Alright. That's for another show in another thesis project. And the final question is do you have a favorite pollinator species? Is it .

[00:36:26] Maddie Carpenter: I, wasn't going to say that I was, I specifically saw that question. I was like, I cannot say honeybee.

[00:36:31] Everyone is going to tell everyone's going to say that it's, I should say honeybee, but I think my favorite is the iwi or the Scarlet honey creeper from Hawaii. Yeah they're beautiful birds. They're just like bright red and. Are descended from finches, I think, but they, over time because of the island, they have this beautiful like per week.

[00:36:51] And they pollinate the native plants in Hawaii.

[00:36:54] Andony Melathopoulos: So it's like a hummingbird.

[00:36:58] Maddie Carpenter: Yes, actually, I guess that's

[00:36:59] Andony Melathopoulos: the best way to put it. I'll be tired. I'm going to look this thing up after we're done here. And we will have in the show notes, we'll have a linked to this critter. So anyways, thank you so much.

[00:37:08] Good luck with your thesis work. It's fascinating work, and I really encourage everybody to follow up on the show notes and take a look at this paper.

[00:37:16] Maddie Carpenter: I thank you so much for having me.