Last year I visited the wild bee lab near me, with its funky little building, amazing macro photography, and native plants galore. I got to interview the famous Sam Droege, who heads up the lab and is an incredible spokesman for native bees and plants.
But then Jay Evans, another bee expert, moved into my “court” – the group of townhouses that share a parking lot – and I started hearing about him and his research.
Jay is fifth from right, next to his research partner in red.
First, this release announced that Agricultural Research Service research entomologist Jay Evans had been appointed a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is apparently a big deal. He’s described as a “a lead scientist in ARS’s Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, recognized for distinguished contributions to the fields of arthropod genomics, social insect biology, pollinator health and insect pathology—particularly studies of honey bee immunity and pathogens.”
Then he won a Sammie – called the “Oscars of federal service” – the People Choice Award, no less! From the announcement: Jay and his research partner “revolutionized bee disease diagnosis and treatment, introducing cutting-edge technologies to detect virus pathogens and developing novel medicines to enhance bee health and prevent colony collapse.”
Honeybees are vital to the world’s food supply, but their populations have been mostly in decline over the past two decades due to various factors, including habitat loss, pesticide use, global warming, the rapid evolution of pathogens and antibiotic resistance. Judy Chen and Jay Evans from the Agricultural Research Service have developed therapies to reverse colony collapse and revolutionized bee disease diagnostic systems by introducing innovative molecular and genomic technologies into the search for treatments…Chen calls herself a “a bee doctor.” Evans said he “treats each colony like it is a human patient.”
Chen and Evans were the first to report the presence of the Nosema parasite in U.S. honeybee populations, the cause of a devastating disease for bee colonies.
Geekier people than I can keep reading to learn more. Or read this 2017 article by Jay about what goes on at the lab.
So naturally I asked Jay for a tour for me and my friend Catherine, who volunteers at the Wild Bee Lab and begged to come along.
The honeybee lab
Jay said yes, and a week later we drive the 10 minutes to the boring federal office building where the bee lab team is housed in part of one floor, where beekeeper suits signal what’s happening down the hall. The team includes up to 40 people at a time, including interns, some of which attend the local STEM magnet high school.
Jay explains things to Catherine Plaisant.
We stopped to see another hallway display – a rotating beehive with actual live bees.
So I looked and listened, mostly to Jay conversing with Catherine, who’s also a research scientist (retired from UMD) and pretty familiar with bees, too. But I did catch a research finding that I actually understand – that over 200 natural compounds had been tested for their effect on honeybee immunity and one finding they’re exploring farther is that mint is sought out by virus-infected bees, who then become more immune to the virus. Curiously, only the infected bees seek out mint, for the thymol it contains.
So here’s where all that award-winning, vital research is taking place – a rather typical-looking lab, like the ones I see on campus all the time.
And seeing Jay’s very own work station reminds me of the term “bench scientist.”
Above, still-mostly-alive bees gradually dying after being infected with a virus. The rate of death associated with treatments with various compounds is then recorded. Jay noticed Catherine and I wincing and we collectively reminded ourselves that even the wild bee lab has to kill the bees that Sam identifies and records. A few die so that others may live.
Hives on Campus
The Honeybee Lab is a small part of the 6,600-acre Agricultural Research Center that starts at the edge of my co-op community. It’s where I once toured a cow-manure-composting facility. It’s where I’ve cycled along roads with names like Poultry Road, Entomology Road and Animal Husbandry Road, and the landscape looks more like rural Iowa than suburban DC.
Among the agricultural fields are 12 apiaries, which are clusters of hives, so there are 300 colonies in all. Their main sources of nectar are black and honey locust, tulip poplar, and basswood, and they get a lot of pollen from maples early. In dry years there may not be enough after the spring flush of tree-flowering, so their diets are supplemented with sugar water after the honey is pulled off. That’s because the vegetation in the area – mainly farm fields – may not support them.
Catherine found this fascinating, and followed up with some Googling, which yielded: “Honey bees typically forage within a 2-5 mile radius of their hive, but the most efficient foraging range is usually within a 1-2 mile radius. While they can fly further, they tend to prioritize closer food sources to conserve energy.”
(L) credit to Stephen Ausmus for USDA. (R) credit ARS.
I am a honey bee snob, so I think they can get along with other species, and they are by definition placed in human-altered settings, not the most pristine spots with endemic plants and bees..but some competition can happen. On the whole, bees and beekeeping are a positive, but you knew I’d say that. Here’s a short essay of mine – “Bees Good” on Found in Translation here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GYkR_MjMSh4hU98bQtmwPZ_2clExxODq/view
Current threats to our bee labs
Sam Droege at his Wild Bee Lab, and examples of his photos, high-resolution and free for anyone to use.
Now let’s circle back to Sam Droege’s Wild (native) Bee Lab with its world-renowned collection of bees and macro photos thereof. Well, I was sickened to learn that DOGE immediately threatened to shut it down, prompting Sam to campaign everywhere he could for its survival, including in a front-page story in the Washington Post. (Gift link. Let me know if it doesn’t work.) From that article I learned that:
- The Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal calls for the defunding of the bee lab and other federally funded wildlife research efforts and has proposed eliminating the wild bee lab as of October 1, 2025.
- Sam was told not to speak out publicly about the proposed closure but “The warning hasn’t deterred him.” Thus, the WashPost article and lots of others, plus many postings to Facebook. (He frequently posts this article about federal workers’ right to speak out.)
- The lab has collected and identified more than 1 million specimens of pollinators.
- The lab has provide data for more than 800 papers over the last 20 years.
My photo of the White House beehive in 2010.
I couldn’t help but remember all the happy hoopla about a White House garden back in 2009, including a beehive nearby. The First Lady was busy promoting the growing of vegetables and the White House heralded its support for honeybees here and here. I found both those links on something I didn’t know exist – an archive of the Obama White House website. So maybe they’ll survive the white-washing of American history now going on, most definitely at the Smithsonian’s African-American Museum, which I covered in this post.
As a former long-time beekeeper and champion of both honeybees and native bees, I am beyond frustrated and angry at the possibility/probability of the closure of the lab. Just like so many other critical government agencies who have been gutted, it makes no sense to shut it down. Just another example of idiocy and short-sighted actions. I worked in public health for 45 years and despair at the destruction of so many critical supports for a healthy American society.
I’m not a professional in beekeeping but I am a champion of honey bees and native bees by my total plantings in my front yard. I’m suare my neighbors think of me as that crazy old lady that works in her yard with all those bees buzzing around her. I care not. I do, however care about what is going to happen to our earth, my bee buddies, my native plantings, and our grandchildren.
Surely there is something that I can do as I circle the drain with my friends, the Bees.
I am so angry and sad every time I learn about a lab or agency that is being defunded. I have an engineering PhD and work in the semiconductor industry. The CHIPs Act funding doubts worry me, but it’s nothing compared to my academic friends facing extreme funding cuts. The consequences of these decisions are going to last for decades (and that assumes a reversal of some kind occurs). We are looking at research ecosystem collapse.
But bees…this article is timely because I just walked in from admiring the bees on my lavender and cone flowers. I purchased The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees a few years ago at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge visitor center. The information blew me away. Bees are fascinating!!! Sometimes when I think of how terrible humans are, I think about parasitic behaviors described in that book. I see the authors have new books which focus specifically on the Eastern or Western United States species. It’s tempting to pick up the Western book.
The concern about honey bees longevity is concerning. And I am sold on the work being done at the Bee Lab. But there is something that few people are aware of. There are beekeepers in our East who are raising bees to be shipped to California to pollinate the almond trees. Millions are shipped, about 1/2 survive the trip. Those that make it do their work with the very heavily watered almond trees and then are shipped back East. Only about 2/3rds of those make it back, the rest die on the trip. Neither the honeybee or almond tree is native. So, if pollination is a concern on the East Coast why isn’t someone a bit vocal about the greatest threat to the bee population, shipping cross country to pollinate a non-native, with millions of bees dying during the process? No virus involved! I saw an interview with an Arizona man whose family has been shipping bees to California for a good many years and he is concerned that his son will not be able to take over their operation for lack of bee longevity during shipping and the concern that as more almond trees are being planted additional bees will not available.
Susan sounds like such a fascinating person with diverse interests—from gardening and community building to hoop dancing and memoir writing! It’s great to see someone combining passion with creativity in so many ways. For anyone wanting to connect with interesting people and exchange stories, I’d recommend checking out platforms like Omegle. Conversations there can be surprisingly insightful and fun!
Reading about Jay Evans and his research, and the impact he’s having is really amazing. It reminds me a little of trying to learn something new – it takes dedication, persistence, and a lot of trial and error. Like playing doodle baseball, sometimes you swing and miss, but each time you learn a little more about the timing. Keep trying, keep learning, and eventually, you hit it out of the park! Thanks for sharing this!