Picturesque barn dominates the landscape of the Hastings Natural History Preserve. Homesteader John Scott build the barn in 1863 with rough hewn beams and supports. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

If you've ever visited UC Berkeley's Hastings Natural History Reserve in the upper Carmel Valley, Monterey County, and admired the yellow-faced bumble bees and other native bees foraging on vetch and lupine in the meadows, that's a scene you'll never forget.

But did you know that a UC Berkeley-based entomology team provides workshops there on California's native bees?

This year the team of Professor Gordon Frankie of UC Berkeley, Distinguished Emeritus Professor Robbin Thorp of UC Davis, and UC Berkeley-affiliated trio of Sara Leon Guerrero, Jaime Pawelek, and Rollin Coville, will offer a workshop June 1-5 on "California's Native Bees: Ecology and Identification."

You'll learn about many of California's 1600 species of native bees. Extremely diverse, they "are critical for providing ecosystem services not only in wild habitats but also in agricultural and urban settings," the instructors said.

"This course will provide basic information about native bee biology and ecology with a specific focus on identification to the generic level. Course participants will spend time collecting in the field at the UC Hastings Reserve and at a nearby diverse garden in Carmel Valley. They will also spend time in the lab viewing and keying collected specimens. Evening lectures on a variety of related topics will add to the field experiences. This workshop is an extension of the previously offered weekend bee workshop, with more focus on bee identification."

"Bee collections from the Hastings Reserve date back several decades, so knowledge of important bee-flower relationships are well known for this site. Participants will learn about bees' flower preferences, how to collect bees using several different methods, information on how to create a bee-friendly garden, bee photography techniques, and bee identification using generic keys and microscopes."

Participants also will have the opportunity to purchase the book, California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists, authored by Frankie, Thorp, Coville, and Barbara Ertter.

The workshop is in a rural setting, with a picturesque barn--built in 1863 by homesteader John Scott--dominating the landscape. Accommodations are in dormitory-style rooms with twin or bunk-style beds. There's also space outside for camping.  Meals are provided from dinner on Wednesday through lunch on Sunday. Workshop fee: $695/$720.

For more information and registration, access the Jepson Herbarium, UC Berkeley website or email Jaime Pawelek at jaimep23@berkeley.edu.

In the meantime, access the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab, read about the history of Hastings here or download a PDF.

A tachinid fly, a parasitoid. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The tachinid fly is a parasitoid.

What's a parasitoid? And where can you go to learn about it?

"An insect parasitoid is a species whose immatures live off of an insect host, often eating it from the inside out,"  said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis. "It is part of their life cycle and the host generally dies."

Want to know more about them? You're in luck. The Bohart Museum will host “Parasitoid Palooza II” at its open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 10 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. It's free and open to the public.

Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon, a global expert on jewel wasps, will give a 15-minute presentation on parasitoids and the group that he studies--the jewel wasps (Pteromalidae). His talk is from 2 to 2:15.

Rosemary Malfi, a postdoctoral fellow in the Neal Williams lab in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will present a mini talk from 3 to 3:15 on some of the parasitoids she has worked with while completing her doctorate.  She did extensive work on the interaction between conopid flies and bumblebee hosts.

Another group of parasitoids that will be highlighted at Sunday's open house will be the Strepsiptera, or twisted-wing parasites, an order of insects that the late UC Davis entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) researched for his doctorate in 1938. Both the Bohart Museum and an entire family of Strepsiptera, the Bohartillidae, are named in honor of Professor Bohart.
 
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity.
 
Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and a rose-haired tarantula named “Peaches.” Visitors are invited to hold the insects and photograph them.  The museum's gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
 
The Bohart Museum holds special open houses throughout the academic year. Its regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The museum is closed to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free.

Upcoming open houses are:

• Saturday, Feb. 13: noon to 4 p.m.: Part of Biodiversity Museum Day
• Saturday, April 16, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: UC Davis Picnic Day
• Saturday, July 31, 8 to 11 p.m.: “Celebrate Moths.”

More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.

Proof of life: The male cabbage white butterfly that Art Shapiro caught on Jan 2, 2016, is shown here "reading" the New York Times. (Photo by Adrienne Austin-Shapiro)

Well, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news: Art Shapiro found and collected a cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) on Jan. 2, the day after New Year's Day, in a mustard patch along the railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County. The bad news: it's a 2015 butterfly, not a 2016 one. In other words, it's a fall brood spillover, and the contest is still underway.

Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, sponsors the annual contest as part of his four-decade study of climate and butterfly seasonality.

The contest works like this: The first person finding a cabbage white butterfly within the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo--and verified by Shapiro as the first of 2016--will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

"The cabbage white is typically one of the first butterflies to emerge in late winter," says Shapiro, who launched the contest in 1972. "Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.”

Although the first flight of the cabbage white has been as late as Feb. 22, Shapiro says it is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed. “There have been only two occasions in the 21st century in which it has come out this late: Jan 26, 2006 and Jan 31, 2011.”

Shapiro, who has monitored the butterfly populations of Central California since 1971, has one of the two largest butterfly databases in the world.  He maintains a research website  at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu.

The professor usually wins his own contest because he knows where to look. The  butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields, and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow.

The cabbage white is regarded as a pest of cole crops (cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, radish, horseradish, arugula, canola, mustard, etc.)  "It is generally the commonest butterfly in and around urban and suburban areas, and routinely visits gardens," he says.

As for his catch on New Year's Day, Shapiro opted to look for it in West Sacramento (south side of the railroad embankment) where he had seen two cabbage whites on Dec. 22. "There had been two rapae there on the 22nd and at that time I had forecast a potential fall brood spillover into January, as happened in 1990  and 2013 and possibly 2012--there was a long lag time after the last December 2011 record."

New Year's Day, 2016, was overcast. "By 1:20 I had about given up and there were only brief sunny intervals. Then I noticed the triangular white form of a dorsal-basking rapae among dead annual litter! Once I convinced myself that's what it was--not a piece of paper--I caught it. It never took flight and it may have been too cold to do so."

The live catch is now in his Storer Hall lab. "It's an old male, definitely frazzled, the hindwing undersides faded, unambiguously autumn-phenotype and a 2015, not a 2016 bug. So the record goes in the book--first for 2016--but the contest remains open, as in prior spillover years."

Shapiro does not expect the first cabbage white of 2016 "very soon" due to lack of vegetation and inclement weather.

"The vegetation looks terrible," he explained. "There has been very little germination of Crucifers (mustard family) since November. Most of the non-grass seedlings are yellow star thistle and milk thistle; even Conium (carrot famiy) is scarce. There are areas, mainly under standing litter, where nothing has germinated at all."

Rain is forecast for much of the week and next week. "Although it's a sort-of El Nino pattern (lasting maybe through Saturday) and there is a chance of measurable rain every day next week (except Sunday), amounts will not be huge," Shapiro predicts.

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be brought in alive to the department office, 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis, during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with the full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and your name, address, phone number and/or e-mail. The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If you collect it on a weekend or holiday, keep it in a refrigerator; do not freeze. A few days in the fridge will not harm it.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

Shapiro has been defeated only three times since 1972. And all by his graduate students. Adam Porter defeated him in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s.

Timothy Lawrence

"Pollination and Protecting Pollinators" is a 51-minute documentary by Washington State University (WSU) Cooperative Extension that explores how valuable honey bees are, why they're crucial, and what we need to do to protect them.

County Director Timothy Lawrence of Island County, WSU Extension, served as the co-executive producer of the documentary, as well as the writer and the primary  narrator. 

The Whidbey News-Times, in its May 23, 2010 edition, described Lawrence as an expert on honey bee health:

"Tim Lawrence has the credentials of an old-school extension services director, with a master's degree in rural sociology, a doctorate in environmental sciences and 20 years of experience working with extension programs in three states."

Some background: Tim and his wife, noted WSU bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, were formerly based at the University of California, Davis, where Cobey served as the manager of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. Together they operated a commercial queen production business, Vaca Valley Apiaries, in Vacaville, Solano County.

But back to the documentary.

You'll learn about pollen, nectar and how pollen is transferred. You'll learn why honey bees are considered the best of all the pollinators but why honey bees are not the "best pollinators for some crops" and why.

You'll learn about almond pollination, along with many of the other crops that require bee pollination, including apples, cherries, plums, blueberries and cranberries. No bees? No almonds. No bees? No cranberries.

You'll learn who developed the Langstroth Hive and why it's important. Hint: the Rev. Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (1810-1895) discovered "bee space." You'll learn what "bee space" is.

You'll learn what Moses Quinby of New York did. Hint: Quinby (1810-1875) is considered the first commercial beekeeper in the United States. You'll learn how many hives he maintained in the Mohawk Valley region of New York.

You'll learn why Lawrence says "we won't starve if bees disappear."

And finally, you'll learn what you can do to help the bees.

"Do your part and we can all do this together," Lawrence says. Good advice. And timely advice as we begin the new year.

You can watch the video at https://vimeo.com/146957716.