The Secret Language of Bees: Teaching & Learning
Honey bees are constantly “talking”—not just about food, but about danger, competition, and how to respond as a colony. In this engaging lecture, Dr. James Nieh explores the rich and often overlooked signals bees use, from warning vibrations and stop signals to subtle cues that shape collective decisions.
Drawing on decades of research, he reveals how bees learn from one another, how communication shifts under threat, and what these discoveries mean for understanding colony behavior in a changing world. This talk offers fresh insight into the complexity, adaptability, and resilience of the honey bee.
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Professor James C. Nieh was born in Taiwan, and grew up in Southern California. He received his B.A. at Harvard in 1991 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1997. He received the prestigious Harvard Junior Fellowship and in 2000, joined the faculty in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California San Diego where he is a professor in the Department of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution. He held the Heiligenberg Chair of Neuroethology, was chair of his department, was elected Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, and received the Hambleton Award for his bee research and the Springer Nature Distinguished Editor Award. He is an Associate Dean in the School of Biological Sciences, and is the Chair of the City of San Diego Bee City Committee and the UC San Diego Bee Campus Committee.
Dr. Nieh’s interests focus on bee communication, cognition, and health. He studies many types of social bees, including honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees. His lab studies natural and man-made stressors of social bees. A major part of his work focuses on foraging and communication in honey bees and honey bee health. The research on honey bee health focuses on how pesticides alter honey bee behavior and learning, how a common pathogen, Nosema ceranae, infects bees and alters their behavior, how honey bee immunity can be boosted to fight Nosema infection, how the bee gut microbiome may help us find new ways to counter Nosema infection, and how a nutritionally balanced diet can help bees exposed to pesticides.
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This meeting is free and open to the public.
Please note that our meeting is in person and our speaker will be joining us via Zoom. Our presentation will begin at 7:30 but please join us by 7:00 to allow time for visiting with like-minded individuals.
The location is Norfield Congregational Church located at 64 Norfield Rd in Weston, CT. Even though the event is free and open to the public, please register at https://backyardbeekeepers.com.
If you are unable to join us, club members will be able to view this and past monthly meeting recordings in the Members Only portion of the website under BYBA Presentations.
