Marla Spivak: Bee Researcher Leaves Legacy

 

 

Marla Spivak is a globally esteemed entomologist at the University of Minnesota who specializes in bee research. Her love of bees started when she was 18 years old, living in Prescott, Arizona. After reading a book about bees and beekeeping, she became fascinated with bees and eventually went to work for a large-scale beekeeper through an experiential learning program. Her first taste of research was when she was 21, at a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) bee research laboratory in Tucson.

After that experience, Spivak lived and worked with beekeepers in South America. She was a research technician at the University of Kansas, where she later received a doctorate studying Africanized bees. “That was about the ecology of behaviors of those bees, and how different they were from the honey bees we have here that are more European-derived than [they are] from Africa,” Spivak says.

After she finished her doctoral degree, Spivak returned to the Tucson bee facility and started to delve into questions surrounding bee health. Since then, her research has centered on social immunity and the behaviors that bees exhibit in order to prevent disease transmission in their colonies.

She also supports foundational information about bee behavior to implement in practical work, such as breeding to improve bee health. “My research can be very basic, like under-the-hood research, to try to understand mechanisms of social immunity. I can also apply that research in a practical sense to help beekeepers,” Spivak says.

Today, she leads the Bee Lab at the University of Minnesota, which focuses on research for aspects of bee health including breeding, management, and basic behavior. Her research led to the creation of the Bee Squad, an outreach arm of the lab that educates Minnesotans about honey bees and native bees, and assisted with the development of a bee research facility on the university’s Saint Paul campus.

“People give me a lot of attention, and it’s really not about me. I’m a conduit for the bees,” she says.

As an outspoken advocate for bees and their health, Spivak’s most well-known research is about developing disease-resistant bee strains to protect entire colonies. One of her main studies is about propolis, which are antimicrobial resins that honey bees collect from plants and use as a protective layer for the colony.  “[The bees] use it as a cement or a caulk — architecture around the walls of the nest — and it sanitizes and helps their immune systems. It’s good preventative health care,” Spivak says.

Another form of social immunity she studies is called hygienic behavior, a genetic trait where honey bees can detect sick or parasitized larvae and pupae and remove them from the nest. “They sacrifice for the good of the colony to prevent disease transmission,” she says. “The questions I ask are, ‘How do they do that? Do they sniff it out? Do they feel it? Do they see it? How are they figuring out that it’s sick?’”

After more than three decades at the University of Minnesota as a researcher and professor, Spivak is retiring on December 31.

Her many accolades include a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010, a University of Minnesota award for Distinguished Campus-Based Faculty, and a Distinguished Service Award from the Minnesota AgriGrowth Council.

Recently, the university raised $5 million to endow Spivak’s position and continue her research after she retires. “There will always be a honey bee professor on the Saint Paul campus,” Spivak says proudly.

She has no particular retirement plans, saying, “My plan is to not plan. I’m not sure I’m able to do that, but we’ll just see what comes next. I’ve never had a problem finding some new thing to get into, so we’ll see what it is.”

Marla Spivak hopes readers will show care toward bees, as critical supporters of human nutrition and health. She says this care can be as simple as planting a garden with a diverse array of bee-friendly flowers and trees. Learn more: beelab.umn.edu