Eric Mussen at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Eric Mussen (retired June 30, 2014 but continues to be active)
Extension Apiculturist Dr. Eric Mussen conducts a varied program focused mainly on his role as liaison between the academic world of apiculture and real world beekeeping and crop pollination. Eric often provides presentations at national, state, and county beekeepers' meetings. He prepares and delivers information to growers at meetings organized by UC Farm Advisors and other agricultural organizations, and by state and federal agencies, and he writes a bi-monthly newsletter on bee-related topics, which is posted on his Departmental Web page. Recently, specific researchers have solicited Eric's involvement on their projects, and he has studied the effects of contact and feeding exposure of honey bees to a mating disruption pheromone of the light brown apple moth. Currently, Eric is collecting flight data, dead and live foragers, and pollen samples for a national study on colony health as it relates to specific cropping practices while the colonies are in commercial pollination.
Eric Mussen writes "from the UC Apiaries" and "Bee Briefs"
He was featured in a two-part series in the American Bee Journal. See news story.
Contact:
Eric Mussen
Extension Apiculturist
Email: ecmussen@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-0472
New Exension Apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño
Honey bee scientist Elina Lastro Niño of Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park, known for her expertise on honey bee queen biology, chemical ecology, and genomics, is the newly hired Extension apiculturist at UC Davis. She will join the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty in September, replacing Eric Mussen, who retired June 30 after 38 years in the position.
Niño currently works with Professor Christina Grozinger, director of the PSU Center for Pollinator Research. Niño holds a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA). -more-