A noted collection of about 750,000 live honeybees, developed 18 years ago by 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 be moved to Davis and "will pave the way for future genetic research here," said Walter Leal, chair of the Department of Entomology.

Page, formerly with UC Davis and now at Arizona State University, described the collection as "the most studied, most valued honeybee research stock ever."

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. We know they've never been contaminated by any Africanized bees, for example."

The bees are now at work in a Dixon almond orchard; after that, 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 become the founding director and foundation professor of the ASU School of Life Sciences.

In the 1990s, he led a team that mapped a single gene responsible for the honeybee's complementary sex-determination system. Page and fellow researchers later offered insights into the regulation of honeybee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior, and discovered a link between social behavior and maternal traits.

Kathy Keatley Garvey is a communications specialist with the Department of Entomology.