UC Davis-trained honey bee scientist Robert E. Page Jr., known as “the leading honey bee geneticist in the world,” has been named the recipient of the Exceptional Emeriti Faculty Award, from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES). 

He will be honored at the CA&ES Award of Distinction dinner and celebration awards ceremony on Thursday, Nov. 3 in the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center Ballroom.

Page, emeritus professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and an emeritus professor and administrator at Arizona State University, “is a pioneering researcher in the field of evolutionary genetics and social behavior of honey bees, and a highly respected and quoted author, teacher and former administrator,” wrote nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

“One of Dr. Page's most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large,” Nadler pointed out. “It was the first genetic map of any social insect. He was the first to demonstrate that a significant amount of observed behavioral variation among honey bee workers is due to genotypic variation. In the 1990s, he and his students and colleagues isolated, characterized and validated the complementary sex determination gene of the honey bee; considered the most important paper yet published about the genetics of Hymenoptera. The journal Cell featured their work on its cover. In subsequent studies, he and his team published further research into the regulation of honey bee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior.”

A native of Bakersfield, Kern County, Rob holds a bachelor's degree in entomology (1976), with a minor in chemistry, from San Jose State University. He received his doctorate in entomology in 1980 from UC Davis, where he studied with his doctoral research mentor, Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.,  “the father of honey bee genetics” for whom the university's bee facility, the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, is named.

Page joined the UC Davis entomology faculty in 1989 and chaired the department from 1999 to 2004 when he transitioned to emeritus and was recruited by Arizona State University (ASU)  to be the founding director of its School of Life Sciences. His career at ASU led to a series of top-level administrative roles: from founding director of the School of Life Sciences (2004-2010) to vice provost and dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2011-2013) and then to University Provost, 2014-2015.

While at UC Davis, Page worked closely with Laidlaw. Together they published many significant research papers and the landmark book, “Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding” (Wicwas Press, 1998), considered the most important resource book for honey bee genetics, breeding, and queen rearing.

For 24 years, from 1989 to 2015, Page maintained a UC Davis honey bee-breeding program, managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk. Their contributions include discovering a link between social behavior and maternal traits in bees. Their work was featured in a cover story in the journal Nature. In all, Nature featured his work on four covers from work mostly done at UC Davis. 

Since his retirement from UC Davis, Page has published 65 research papers, eight major reviews and two scholarly books, many using his UC Davis affiliation. He authored “The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution” (Harvard University Press, 2013) and the “Art of the Bee: Shaping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies” (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Now residing near Davis, Page continues to focus his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. His continuing academic activities bring credit to bee biology and UC Davis, Nadler said. “His large number of publications and citations continue to be an important component of the high national rating of our entomology department.”

To date, Page has published more than 250 research papers and articles, edited or authored five books, and is listed as a “highly-cited author” by the ISI Web of Knowledge, representing the top 1/2 of one percent of publishing scientists.

Page continues to work closely with UC Davis professors and students, offering advice, helping them with grants, and editing manuscripts. A few years ago, he held an international workshop at the Laidlaw facility. He teaches courses (including “The Social Contract: from Rousseau to the Honey Bee,” and “The Song of the Queen: Thrilling Tales of Honey Bee Mating Behavior”) for the UC Davis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI).

“Not surprisingly, Dr. Page humbly considers his most far-reaching and important accomplishment, the success of his mentees, including at least 25 graduate students and postdocs who are now faculty members at leading research institutions around the world,” Nadler wrote. “He also built two modern apicultural labs (in Ohio and Arizona), major legacies that are centers of honey bee research and training. He has trained many hundreds of beekeepers. His public service now extends to working as a Fellow with the California Academy of Sciences.”

Page's colleagues praise his strategic vision, his leadership and his contributions to science. ASU Professor Bert Hoelldobler described him as “the leading honey bee geneticist in the world. A number of now well-known scientists in the U.S. and Europe learned the ropes of sociogenetics in Rob's laboratory.”

“Rob is one of the most gifted scientists, administrators, and teachers I have had the privilege to know in my 42 years in academia,” said James R. Carey, a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology.

Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of Washington State University, former manager of the Laidlaw facility, emphasized Page's importance to the bee breeding and beekeeping industry. She has based her entire career on the Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding. “The beauty of this system is that it is practical and addresses the unique challenges of honey bee stock improvement,” she related. “Queens mate in flight with numerous drones and selection is based upon complex behaviors at the colony level, influenced by the environmental. Hence, traditional animal breeding models do not apply well to honey bees.”

When Page addressed the 2016 meeting of the International Congress of Entomology (ICE), he was introduced as “an engaging, energetic, humorous and highly intellectual speaker; this will be a memorable, entertaining and highly educational lecture by one of the most important entomologists of the 21stt century. His background is in behavior and population genetics, and the focus of his current research is on the evolution of complex social behavior. Using the honey bee as a model, Dr. Page has dissected their complex foraging division of labor at all levels of biological organization, from gene networks to complex social interactions.”

Among Page's many honors:

• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (the Humboldt Prize - the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists)
• Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Elected to the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences (the longest continuing academy in the world)
• Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• Fellow of the Entomological Society of America
• Awardee of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship
• Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
• Fellow, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich, Germany, September 2017-August 2018
• Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
• James Creasman Award of Excellence (ASU Alumni Association)
• Regents Professor, Arizona State University
• UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Professor