A noted collection of about 750,000 live honeybees, developed 18 years ago by internationally known honeybee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. will soon return to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.

All 50 hives of the strain, a specially selected high- and low-pollen-hoarding genetic stock spanning 32 generations, will relocate to Davis and "will pave the way for future genetic research here," announced Walter Leal, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology.

"This stock is the most studied, most valued honeybee research stock ever," said Page, who was formerly with UC Davis and is now at Arizona State University. To date, studies by some 30 scientists have generated more than 50 published papers, focusing on behavioral traits, learning behaviors, sensory response and insulin signaling paths. Much of the research occurred when Page and bee geneticist M. Kim Fondrk were based at the Laidlaw facility from 1989 to 2004.

The bees are expected to be right at home here in Davis: "The hot summers in Arizona are hard on the bees," Page said.

"All the colonies have queens that were instrumentally inseminated, and come from completely controlled matings traced back to their origins at UC Davis," Page added. "We know they've never been contaminated by any Africanized bees, for example."

The bees are currently pollinating a Dixon almond orchard, but when the almond season ends, they will be moved to the Laidlaw facility.

Page, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is considered a pioneer in the field of evolutionary genetics and the social behavior of honeybees. He was a faculty member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology for 15 years, chairing the department from 1999 to 2004. He retired as an emeritus professor in 2004 to accept his current position as the founding director and foundation professor of the ASU School of Life Sciences.

"We are glad to have part of Rob's stellar honeybee research program in Davis," Leal said. Page's honeybee research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, with close ties to UC Davis. The Almond Board of California and other commodity boards also support the research.

In the 1990s, Page led a team of collaborators in mapping a single gene responsible for the honeybee's complementary sex-determination system. He and his research team later offered further insights into the regulation of honeybee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior, and discovered a link between social behavior and maternal traits.

With the impending hire of a pollination biologist and the recruitment of a newly endowed Häagen-Dazs Postdoctoral Fellow, Leal said he expects the department will soon reclaim the status of the nation's premier pollination biology program. "Harry Laidlaw would be very proud to know that the Honey Bee Research Facility will soon be operating at full capacity," Leal added, "with world-class research on native and European honeybees."

The Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility just received a $100,000 contribution from Häagen-Dazs to address the bee population decline. The funds will aid research into sustainable pollination and a devastating phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, and will support a postdoctoral researcher.

The Laidlaw facility team currently includes Eric Mussen, Cooperative Extension apiculturist; Susan Cobey, bee breeder and geneticist; and Robbin Thorp, a professor emeritus who studies native pollinators, including bumblebees. Conservation biologist Claire Kremen of UC Berkeley works with the Laidlaw researchers.