These Bees Are Carpenters

These bees are carpenters.

These bees are art.

Professor Jeffrey Granett, who retired from the UC Davis Department of Entomology in January 2007, now spends must of his time working on his art.  

He created a hanging piece for "The Bees at The Bee" art show, to be held from 3 to 8 p.m., Saturday, May 8 at the Sacramento Bee's open courtyard, 2100 Q St. The art show, organized by Sacramento artist Laurelin Gilmore, is a benefit for the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.

It's open to the public, it's free, and it's the place to "bee" on May 8.

Artists, invited from a 12-county area to participate in the show, will donate a portion of their sales to the Laidlaw facility for honey bee research.

And what did our retired entomologist submit for the show? Think carpenter bee. Think "tattooed" carpenter bee. His work is titled "Carpenter Bee With Tattoo."

Granett, who taught arthropod pest management at UC Davis and researched agricultural entomology, says he has no professional experiences with carpenter bees “but I enjoyed seeing them turning my backyard fence to sawdust.”

“The insect-art is a carpenter bee, probably male but I'm not sure,” Granett said. “It has tattoos on its femurs and tibias and should be hung as if it were hovering over a flower.  It is cut from a linocut printed on Somerset paper with ink washes for the coloring.  Although I tried to make the insect somewhat realistic morphologically, it clearly has some anthropomorphic characteristics for the viewer to figure out.”

Granett, who received his bachelor of science degree in agricultural research from Rutgers University and his master’s degree and doctorate in entomology from Michigan State University, remains an entomologist at heart, but his interests now include docenting at the Crocker Art Museum and "learning from my grandson."

And creating multi-media art, "Carpenter Bee with a Tattoo."