Like a moth to a flame...

Except this moth headed not for a flame, but to a porch light. Our porch light.

And what a find.

It was a sea-green mottled moth that looked a lot like lichen. 

Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, and Bohart Museum of Entomology associate Greg Kareofelas of Davis identified it as a late-winter noctuid, one that simulates lichen.  Feralia februalis.

"It's expected this time of the year," noted Kareofelas.

It's a food plant specialist that feeds on oaks.

A Pacific Northwest website on moths indicates that it flies in oak forests in western Oregon in the early spring: "This species is narrowly endemic to the West Coast.  In Oregon, it is common in oak woodlands and mixed hardwood forests with oaks at low elevations west of the Cascades.  This species is considered to be management sensitive, depending on oaks as a larval food plant."

In the Pacific Northwest, "Feralia februalis is limited to western Oregon in our region," the website says. "Its range extends north to the Columbia River but it has yet to be found in adjacent Washington."

Its global range? "The range extends south through California where it occurs in the western part of the state to the Mexican border. It is also present in the northern Sierra Nevada."

One more thing: "It is nocturnal and comes readily to lights."

Yes and yes! 

It's mid-February and early morning in Vallejo, Calif.

Westringia is blooming along a walking path near the Glen Cove Marina.

Suddenly out of no where, there's a flash of yellow and black. A black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, buzzes by our camera and heads for the Westringia.

Good choice. The Westringia, a genus in the mint family and endemic to Australia, is a late-winter blooming plant that provides nectar and pollen when just about nothing else around does. It's tough.  It can take it, whether it's the California drought, heavy rains, hot sun, or cold temperatures. And here, near the Carquinez Bridge, it forms a healthy hedge of white flowers and light gray-green leaves. And it's blooming profusely, beckoning bees.

Bombus melanopygus is the kind of bee that lingers not. One minute you see it, the next minute, it's gone. It knows what it needs, where to get it, and how long to stay to elude those predatory wasps.

Intelligence?

That brings to mind the recently published research from Queen Mary University of London that indicates that bumble bees not only possess complex navigational skills, rudimentary culture, and emotions, but they can even use tools. Tools!

It's fairly well known that bumble bees can learn to pull a string to get a sugary reward by watching other bees perform the task. Now Olli Loukola, a behavioral ecologist at Queen Mary University of London, says that in the UK study, bumble bees pushed around a small, yellow ball to a specific target to get a sugary reward.

Of course, bees in the wild, including those buzzing around the Westringia in Vallejo, don't pull strings or push balls, but they do shove aside the flower petals to get at that sugary reward--nectar.

The bumble bee brain is about the size of a sesame seed, but if you say it has a "bee brain," that would not do it justice.

Check out the video and news story on the Science journal website.

Molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

If you want to know more about circadian timing and why "circadian timing is everything"--from human beings to fruit flies--don't miss the Science Café session on Wednesday night, March 8 at Davis.

Molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu, vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will speak on "Circadian Timing Is Everything: From a Good Night's Sleep to Minimizing Insecticide Use" at the Science Café session at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 8 in the G St. Wunderbar, 28 G St., Davis.

Professor Jared Shaw of the UC Davis Division of Math and Physical Science is hosting the informal session. Free and open to all interested persons, it is sponsored by the Capital Science Communicators and the UC Davis Department of Chemistry. Science Café events take place in casual settings and aim to feature an engaging conversation with a scientist about a particular topic.

Chiu, an associate professor who specializes in molecular genetics of animal behavior, joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty in June 2010. She received her doctorate in molecular genetics from the Department of Biology at New York University.

"All living things on our planet, from bacteria to humans, organize their daily activities around the perpetuating 24-hour day-night cycles, the result of earth rotating on its own axis and orbiting around the sun," Chiu says. "In order for organisms to anticipate predictable variations in their environment that naturally occurs over the 24-hour cycle and coordinate their physiology and behavior to perform at their best, they rely on an internal biological clock. At the science cafe presentation, I will discuss how this internal clock, termed the circadian clock, affects many important aspects of our lives, including the timing of when we feel tired and want to go to bed, the time-of-day our immune systems are most susceptible to pathogen attack, and even when medicines should be taken to give you 'the most bang for your buck.'" In addition, I will discuss the consequences of when the circadian clock is 'broken' or 'off-kilter' because of diseases, work-schedule, jetlag, and light pollution."

Back in 2011, Chiu and colleagues from Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, published their work on the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, describing how they identified a new mechanism that slows down or speeds up the internal clock of fruit flies. That research, published in the journal Cell, has important implications: it could lead to discoveries on alleviating human sleep disorders.

By mutating one amino acid in a single protein, “we changed the speed of the internal clock and flies now ‘think' it is 16 hours a day instead of 24 hours a day,” Chiu explained in a 2011 interview.  “Our goal, of course, is not to trick flies into thinking the day is shorter or longer, but to dissect this complex phospho-circuit (phosphorylation sites) that controls clock speed in metazoans.”

“Living organisms—plants, animals and even bacteria—have an internal clock or timer that helps them to determine the time of day," she said in that 2011 interview. "This internal clock is vital to their survival since it allows them to synchronize their activity to the natural environment, so that they can perform necessary tasks at biologically advantageous times of day.”

“A functional clock is required to generate proper circadian rhythms of physiology and behavior including the sleep-wake cycle, daily hormonal variations and mating rhythms,” Chiu said.  “Based on genetics, molecular biology and biochemical experiments performed in many different model organisms, we know that the speed of the internal clock is controlled by a core set of circadian proteins."

So if you aren't getting that good night's sleep and you're wondering about that internal clock, be sure to head over to the G St. Wunderbar on March 8. You'll learn the connection between circadian timings and minimizing insecticide use, too.

Lexi Haddon Mendes, 11, who has been keeping bees for five years, ponders a question at the Solano County 4-H Presentation Day. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Eleven-year-old Lexi Haddon Mendes of the Vaca Valley 4-H Club, Vacaville, who has been keeping bees for five years, can tell you.

"Who Lives in the Hive?" was the title of her project at the recent Solano County 4-H Presentation Day, held in the Tremont Elementary School, Dixon.

Lexi enjoys keeping bees and learning more about them.  “My uncle, Gary Haddon, is the project leader and I've been keeping bees on his property for five years,” she said.

Evaluators Myah Waldvogel of the Pleasants Valley 4-H Club, Vacaville and Linda Layton of the Sherwood Forest 4-H Club, Vallejo, listened closely and asked questions.

Who lives in the hive? "In a honey bee colony, there are three castes or three kinds of bees,” Lexi told them. She listed the residents as the queen, the workers, and the drones. “The queen's job is to lay eggs, eggs and more eggs," she told them. "The workers are females and do almost all the work in the hive.  The drones are all male bees."

A male bee's only job is to mate with the queen, Lexi said. And after mating with the queen, the drone dies. "In early fall, all the drones that have not mated are kicked out of the hive. This preserves precious food resources so the colony can   survive through the winter.”

Lexi displayed photos of the queen, drone and worker bees. The queen, she said, can lay 1500 to 2000 eggs per day in the summer. The workers form the largest population in the hive and are in charge of food storage, cleaning, foraging and protection of the hive, as well as tending the queen, caring for the brood, regulating the temperature of the hive, and wax production.

Worker bees can live for five to eight weeks in the summer, Lexi said, and can “live longer during the winter when there's less work to be done."

Both Waldvogel and Layton said they found her presentation informative and fascinating. "We need more people to keep bees," Layton added.

The end result? Lexi received a gold award, the highest of the three awards given (gold, blue and red).

The Solano County 4-H Presentation Day is an opportunity for youths to showcase their projects and hone their presentation skills, said Solano County 4-H Program representative Valerie Williams. Dozens of 4-H'ers from Solano's 11 clubs offered presentations that covered everything from photography, horticulture and scrapbooking to rabbits, cavies, poultry and beef.

Lexi, entered in the 11-14 age group, was the youngest of the beekeepers delivering talks at the Solano County 4-H Presentation Day. Two teenage beekeepers also won gold: Ryan Anenson, 15, of the Tremont 4-H Club, Dixon,  who gave an educational display/talk on “Queen Bee” in the 14-19 age group, and Francis Agabayani, 14, of the Vaca Valley 4-H Club, who gave an illustrated talk on “To Bee or Not to Bee” in the 14-19 age group.

Lexi, Ryan and Francis are among the 38 gold winners from the Solano County 4-H Presentation Day eligible to participate in the Central Area Presentation Day, to be held April 1 at the Waterloo School, Stockton.

The Solano County 4-H Youth Development Program, part of the UC Cooperative Extension Program, follows the motto, “Making the Best Better.” 4-H, which stands for head, heart, health and hands, is open to youths ages 5 to 19. "In age-appropriate projects, they learn skills through hands-on learning in projects ranging from arts and crafts, computers and leadership to dog care, poultry, rabbits and woodworking," Williams said. "They develop skills they would otherwise not attain at home or in public or private schools.” For more information, she may be reached at vawilliams@ucanr.edu.