If you've ever wanted free access to incredible macro images of insects and spiders, this is it.

Images of arthropods in the public domain that you can download.

Free. For. All.

Noted insect photographer/entomologist Alex Wild, curator of entomology for the Biodiversity Collections, University of Texas at Austin, has launched the "Insects Unlocked" Project, aiming for $8000 over a month-long campaign.

Wild, who received his doctorate in entomology in 2005 from the University of California, Davis, is a professional insect photographer extraordinaire. And, under his mentorship, a team of students in UT's Insect Image Lab "will learn the art and artistry of digital microphotography while capturing images of Texas's smallest wildlife," he explains. They will "create thousands of beautiful, unique, and informative visual works for release into the public domain. The resulting image collection will be open for anyone to use, free of the constraints of traditional copyright."

"Where can you use Insects Unlocked's images?" he asks. "Anywhere you'd like! Web pages, magazine covers, books, billboards, blogs, t-shirts, scientific papers, apps, social media, coffee mug designs, classroom presentations, Wikipedia, and more. Ours are public works and can be used for anything, including commercialization, without the need for advance permission or even credit."

Today he posted on his Facebook page: "I am pleased to report that the Insects Unlocked project to crowd-fund public domain arthropod images is more than 60% funded, not even a week into a month-long campaign. Your support has been generous and unexpected--thanks so much! To celebrate, over the weekend I created some new public domain images for the project, including this 60 image focus-stack of a Brachygastra mellifica Mexican honey wasp (see below). If you'd like to support more images like this, consider contributing at the link: https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/proj…/54e79bbc14bdf7205ddd5ab7

Basically, donations to the program will support several undergraduate students as they learn the UT imaging system and receive training in scientific imaging, entomology, and outreach. As Wild says, "Donations will also improve our processing computers, add cameras and lighting rigs for field use, and offset the costs of web hosting. Our team will start in the summer of 2015, using the 2015-16 academic cycle as a pilot while we evaluate the feasibility of a long term publicly-funded program."

How many images will be in the public domain? "The amount and type of images we produce is proportional to the level of support we receive," Wild says. "Our image lab is located inside the UT insect collection, and we begin with high-magnification captures of curated material, as well as live field photography at the adjoining Brackenridge Field Laboratory. Should we exceed our funding goal, the Insects Unlocked team may be able to mount expeditions to diverse parts of Texas to photograph and video more live insect behavior in the field. 

Wild, who studied with major professor/ant specialist Phil Ward at UC Davis, captures amazing images of insects. His work has been published in scientific journals, books, magazines, and newspapers, including the New York Times, National Geographic and Scientific American. He returned to the UC Davis campus in October 2011 to deliver a presentation on "How to Take Better Insect Photographs." His presentation is the most popular of all the UCTV seminar videos posted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Watch it online.

Wild is enjoying his new position as curator. The collection contains about 500,000 pinned and 500,000 ethanol specimens. "We have one of the world's largest collections of cave arthropods," he said.

You can follow the project on Twitter at @InsectsUnlocked, and view and download the images on Flickr. Wild writes about the project on his Myremocs blog and in his Scientific American blog.

Alex Wild appreciates the generosity of the 75 donors (as of today). But he, too, is generous--exceedingly generous!--with his time and talents that will benefit us all.

It was all the buzz.

Visitors at the annual California Agriculture Day, held Wednesday, March 18 on the west lawn of the State Capitol, made a beeline to the California State Beekeepers' Asssociation (CSBA) booth to see the bees, pocket some honey sticks and talk bees.

Staffing the booth were five beekeepers and Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who retired last June after 38 years of service, fielded lots of questions.

Bill Cervenka of Bill Cervenka Apariies, Half Moon Bay, provided a bee observation hive. Carlin Jupe of Sacramento, secretary-treasurer of the CSBA, brought along 2000 Honey Stix containing wildflower honey,  ordered from Nature's Kick, Salem, Ore.

Each honey stick contained a CSBA message:

• Honey bees are the backbone of agriculture
• They pollinate 1/3 of the human diet
• They pollinate 50 varied U.S. crops worth more than $20 billion
• They pollinate California's $2.5 billion almond production
• They produce $150 million in U.S. honey and beeswax

Assisting throughout the morning were beekeepers Bob Sugar, Wendy Mather and Claudia Parrish. Mather, of El Dorado,  is with the NOD Apiary Products; Sugar belongs to several beekeeping associations, including CSBA, the Sacramento Area Beekeepers' Association (SABA), Nevada County Beekeepers, and the Western Apicultural Society, while Parrish serves as vice president of the Delta Bee Club.

"I spent quite a bit of time on  'How do I keep bees in a thirty-third floor apartment with no balcony?'" Mussen related. "I sent a number of people to the Sacramento Beekeeping Supply store to find an opening in beginning beekeeping courses.  I spent time explaining the bee space and how to keep purchasing wooden ware from the same supplier, so the space would not be violated."

Folks also wanted to know how the drought is impacting the bees. State Senator Jim Nielsen "wanted to know that he kicked up enough of a fuss to get agriculture a place at the water conference table.  Up until then, no ag reps were desired."

Eight-year-old Sam Blincoe of Sacramento took a special interest in the bee observation hive, as Mather explained what the bee colony is all about. "He's going to become a beekeeper," she predicted.

 "Breaking New Ground" set the theme for Cal Ag Day. Explained Secretary of Agriculture Karen Ross: 'Growing our food supply takes seed and water,  labor and treatment, and a host of other ingredients that all come together at harvest time. But when you get right down to it, our soils are the foundation of California's agricultural abundance. That's why this year's Ag Day event features information about our farmers and ranchers' efforts to preserve, restore and protect the health of this most bsic and most important source."

The theme, she added, "also reflects the United Nations' declaration of 2015 as the International Year of Soils to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of soil for food security and essential ecosystem functions."

She concluded: "Our legislative representatives here in Sacramento recognize the importance of farming in the Golden State, and they also recognize farmers' responsibility to be good stewards of the natural resources under their care. Today is our representatives' chance to shake a farmer's hand and advance our shared understanding of the importance of our food supply. This day is also an opportunity for the public, especially our youth, to meet a farmer, try on a cowboy hat, and learn how California's soil and other natural resources are combined with creativity, technology, ingenuity and determination to produce more than 400 crops and commodities."

Meanwhile, California Farm Bureau Foundation president Paul Wenger issued this statement today, the first day of spring: "On this first day of spring, we celebrate the agricultural bounty of our nation and especially of California, where a unique combination of climate, soils, water and know-how allows farmers and ranchers to harvest food and farm products every day of the year. While parts of our nation continue to shiver in cold and snow, California provides, thanks to one of only five Mediterranean climates in the world. As we celebrate this bounty, we must also resolve to assure we can sustain it. As California suffers through another year of drought, we must pay particular attention to our state's ability to manage the rain and snow that does fall each winter, to sustain us through dry times. Farm Bureau will continue to press our leaders, at the local, state and national levels, to assure sustainable food production by building new water storage and better managing the entire water system, to ensure California remains the No. 1 agricultural state in the nation."

Ever watched Valley carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) foraging on salvia?

Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, recently noticed a flurry of carpenter bees in the grape-scented sage, Salvia melissodora, in the Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden on Bee Biology Road.

Native bee enthusiast Celeste Ets-Hokin of the Bay Area gifted the plant to him. It is now thriving in the department's half-acre bee friendly garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. Planted in 2009, the garden is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus.

When carpenter bees forage on the sage, they receive "pollen deposits" or "pollen caps" on their heads. "A perfect placement spot for pollen transfer from flower to flower," Thorp commented. "It also produces a striking orangish patch on the face of the all black bees."

The female Valley carpenter beesare solid black, while the males (which Thorp calls "teddy bear bees"), are green-eyed blonds.

As for the Salvia melissodora, the name "melissodora" originates from the Greek "Melissa" (honey bee) and "odora" (fragrance).

Mark your calendar for Saturday, May 2. That's when the Department of Entomology and Nematology will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the garden installation. Free and open to the public, the open house will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. UC Davis bee scientists will be there to help you observe and identify the native bees and provide information on honey bees.   Download the flier for more information.

Thanks to a generous gift from Häagen-Dazs, the garden came to life during the term of interim department chair, Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, who coordinated the entire project.

A Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--won the design competition. The judges were Professor Kimsey; founding garden manager Missy Borel (now Missy Borel Gable), then of the California Center for Urban Horticulture (CCUH) at UC Davis and now director of the statewide UC Master Gardeners; David Fujino, executive director, CCHU; Aaron Majors, construction department manager, Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors, based in Novato; Diane McIntyre, senior public relations manager, Häagen-Dazs ice cream; Heath Schenker, professor of environmental design, UC Davis; Jacob Voit, sustainability manager and construction project manager, Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors; and Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Others who played a key role in the founding and "look" of the garden included the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, co-founded and co-directed by the duo of entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now Department of Entomology and Nematology), and self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick.  The ceramic mosaic art is the work of UC Davis Entomology 1 students, taught by Ullman and Billick, and artists from the community. Billick's stunning ceramic bee sculpture of a worker bee, "Miss Bee Haven," anchors the garden. Eagle Scout Derek Tully planned, organized and built a state-of-the-art fence around the garden. Later the California chapter of the Daughters of the America Revolution provided a much-welcomed donation.  (Read more about the history of the bee garden here). Chris Casey succeeded Melissa Borel as the manager of garden.

Now five years have come and gone, and generations of bees have come and gone. Life is good.

The "Painted Ladies" are back in the Davis area.

These are not the two-legged type, but the winged type--Vanessa cardui.

They're migrating and driving UC Davis entomology and ecology students nuts. It's finals week and they'd love to be outdoors watching the migration instead of inside studying for their tests.

Butterfly expert Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, said that on Tuesday, March 17, St. Patrick's Day, "the front of a significant Painted Lady migration hit Davis about 7:30 this morning. I saw about 30 just in walking from Storer Hall to the Memorial Union bus terminal.

Shapiro then went to Gates Canyon, Vacaville, one of his field study sites, and saw more. It was 77 degrees at Gates Canyon (sorry, Bostonians!). He saw PLs all the way. He counted 81 in the canyon "but the apparent density in the open--Pleasants Valley, Vacaville--was much higher, with about 6 per minute in my field of vision."

"I imagine many were going over my head out of sight at Gates. Back in Davis I was seeing 10 per minute. This is about 1/6 of the density during the legendary 2005 migration."

"They are ALL large, fresh-looking, and on a solid SE-NW course, as usual stopping for nothing and going up and over all obstacles; very few are nectaring. We'll see how long it lasts! The condition suggests these are the offspring of a first round of breeding somewhere in Southern California--not direct from the deserts. We have an exceptional crop of milk thistle (Silybum) this year. May their offspring eat it all!"

You can read about the 2005 migration on Sharpiro's butterfly site. "This mass-migrant occurs in much of the Northern Hemisphere," he wrote. "Apparently the entire North American population winters near the US-Mexico border, breeding in the desert after the winter rains generate a crop of annual Malvaceous, Boraginaceous and Asteraceous hosts. The resulting butterflies migrate north."

Painted Ladies on the move. Painted Ladies everywhere. And more on the way.  Life is good!