Ever heard of Schinia sueta?

It's a moth.

We spotted this little moth, from the Noctuidae family, in a meadow at the Hastings Preserve in Carmel in early May during the BugShot Macro Photography Course, taught by Alex Wild, John Abbott and Thomas Shahan.

The day-flying moth, as identified by butterfly experts Art Shapiro of UC Davis and Greg Kareofelas, an associate of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, stood out.

Schinia sueta is widespread in western North America. We were waiting for it to spread its wings in the meadow, filled with lupine, vetch and California golden poppies, and it finally did!

Speaking of moths, the Bohart Museum is hosting a "Moth Night"--the first of its kind held by the museum--on Saturday night, July 18 from 8 to 11 just outside its location, 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. Yes, that's 8 to 11. At night.

You'll learn how to collect moths and how to identify them. You won't see Schinia sueta, but you'll see other moths! The event is free and open to the public. It's also the last weekend open house of the academic year.

The Bohart Museum 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. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.

The museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The facility is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free. More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.

It's almost time to celebrate! Or cele-bee-ate!

In observation of National Pollinator Week, the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology has scheduled an open house at its half-acre bee garden,  the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven from 5:30 to 7 p..m., Friday, June 19. The haven is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus. 

Activities will include bee observation and identification, honey tasting, sales of native bee houses to support the haven, and information about low-water plants.

Low-water plants? This is especially important now that California is in the fourth year of a severe drought. Many people are letting their lawns go from green to brown, removing their lawns to plant bee-friendly plants, or selecting drought-tolerant plants.

The garden is open from dawn to dusk every day of the week. Admission is free. It's anchored by a six-foot-long mosaic sculpture of a worker bee, "Miss Beehaven," the work of Davis artist Donna Billick, co-founder and co-director (emeritus) of the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Project.

The haven was planted in 2009, thanks to a generous donation from Häagen-Dazs. More than 50 percent of their ice cream flavors depend on pollination.

The garden came to life under the direction of Lynn Kimsey, interim chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "I suggested the idea of a demonstration bee garden that would serve two purposes, to provide food for our colonies and as a lovely place to educate the public," Kimsey recalled. Professor Kimsey directs the Bohart Museum of Entomology, home of nearly eight million specimens, and teaches entomology.

A Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--won the international design competition

Kimsey was singled out for her work in founding and directing the installation of the garden when the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America honored her and four others--"The Bee Team"--with the 2013 outstanding team award. The history of the garden is on the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website at http://bit.ly/1OAtD6W. 

A private opening of the garden occurred Oct. 16, 2009 and a grand opening celebration took place Sept. 11, 2010.

Haven manager Chris Casey offers group tours for a nominal fee. Access the website for more information. The website also includes a list of plants in the haven list of plants in the haven, by common name and botanical name; a list of donors and how to donate.

The haven is a good place to "bee" on June 19. 

You never know what you'll see in your pollinator garden.

That's why it's always a good idea to carry a camera with you, or you might miss a bit of drama. Not in drama queens, but in drama kings.

Take the case of the male flameskimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) perched on a bamboo stake in our yard on Memorial Day. The dragonfly is sunning himself, warming his flight muscles. Periodically he loops to grab an insect and return to his perch to eat it.

Whoa! What's this? A Gulf Fritillary butterfly (Agraulis vanillae)--probably a male searching for a female or a territorial male protecting his turf--is rapidly approaching.  The flameskimmer isn't about to move. After all, there's a "dragon" in his name and hunting is his game. He holds his ground.  Er, his perch.

The Gulf Frit moves closer and closer. Soon it's a red blur against stationary red.

Oops! Right color. Wrong species.

Newly published research by a Michigan State University-led team indicates that one of the reasons why the varroa mite is so destructive is because it infiltrates hives by smelling like a bee.

The parasitic mite, or Varroa destructor, is a "blood sucker" that feeds on bees. Scientists and beekeepers alike consider it the world's No. 1 enemy of honey bees.

MSU entomologist Zachary Huang,  a lead author of the paper in Biology Letters, and his fellow researchers showed that "mites are able to change their surface chemicals to an entirely different species of honeybees," according to an article in the American Bee Journal. "Further, they also revealed that the mites were able to make these changes rather quickly - adapting in days rather than evolving over generations."

The varroa mite was initially found in Asian honey bees (Apis cerana) and then shifted hosts to the European honey bee (Apis mellifera). It was first detected in the United States in 1987. Today it is found in hives throughout the world except in Australia.

The eight-legged reddish-brown parasite, about 1–1.8 mm long and 1.5–2 mm wide, is a blood sucker that's difficult to control, according to Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Mites transmit viruses (there are now some 22 named RNA viruses) that can wipe out a hive. A familiar mite-transmitted disease that beekeepers see is DWV or Deformed Wing Virus. Mites can also lower the protein level of a bee's blood, and reduce its weight and life span.

Mussen says that mites spread from colony to colony by phoresy (animal-to-animal transport). They ride on flying drones (males) and adult worker bees (females). They also spread changing hosts on flowers.

"A mite enters a honey bee cell just before or during the time it is being capped," Mussen points out. "It feeds on older larva or prepupa. Sixty hours later, the mite lays its first egg. The egg will hatch in about 24 hours."

"The number and release of offspring depend on the length of the pupal stage. The queen is pupa for 8.5 days (no mites). The worker is pupa for 12.5 days (1.3 mites) and the drone is pupa for 14.7 days (3 or 4 mites)," he says. Thus, due to the longer time required for drone development, drone pupae get the worst of it.

"When maturing, the newly emerged mites climb onto adult bees and feed by puncturing the intersegmental membranes and sucking the bee blood," Mussen related recently to a UC Davis class. "Often these are nurse bees that stay around the brood nest. Sometimes the hosts are drones and older foragers that are flying from the hive every day. Eventually the new mite climbs off the nurse bee onto a comb in the brood nest and enters a cell. The reproductive cycle starts and within 6 days, 44 percent of the young mites have moved into the brood cells; within 12 days, 69 percent of the mites are in the brood cells; and within 24 days, 90 percent of the mite are in the brood cells."

"If there is no brood, the mite has to feed on adult bee blood every six days or so to remain alive," Mussen says. "Mite life expectancy in summer is around 60 days; bees about 42 days. Mite life expectancy in the winter is up to 9 months; bees about six months."

Now if scientists could only figure out how to eliminate the varroa mite from the world's hives...