- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And trying to save it from development.
Scientists and citizen-scientists will gather Sunday, June 1 in the western highlands of the Oakland park to conduct a "bioblitz"--or a tally of the biodiversity of animals and plants living there.
"The Oakland Zoo is planning to bulldoze and build upon 56 acres of the most sensitive habitat, which will demolish pristine stands of maritime chaparral and native grasses, destroy over 50 mature trees including heritage oaks, and fence out wildlife that depends on this land to survive," said Constance Taylor of www.wildoakland.org in a news release issued today.
"Rare maritime chaparral and native grasslands alongside coastal scrub and oak woodlands comprise interconnected ecosystems with spectacular diversity: Hundreds of species of lichen, moss, and fungi (including a 100+ year-old giant puffball “fairy ring”), fields of wildflowers and many other California native plants, from ground cover to shrubs and trees," she said.
"These habitats sustain a multitude of wildlife species—insects, reptiles (including the federal and state protected Alameda whipsnake), resident and migratory birds, and an array of mammals—from the lowly dusky-footed woodrat (a California Species of Special Concern) to the top of the food chain, our native mountain lion."
And insects? "Yes, we are definitely looking for bugs," said bioblitz leader/entomologist Eddie Dunbar, founder and president of the Insect Sciences Museum of California (ISMC). "The same evening we will be sheetlighting for nightflying insects. Moths will be out, of course. However, it has been suggested that there may be a vernal kind of riparian area. If so, we want to see what aquatics we can attract. Also, there would be sampling during the day for aquatics, if they are there. During the day we will sweep, beat, poot, and check underneath ground debris for insects. We want to make a case that this area deserves protection."
One of ISMC's many activities is to conduct surveys of Northern California insect ecosystems. Clients participate in field surveys, learning contemporary science techniques and using authentic science equipment. Survey findings are published into regionally specific web guides, searchable photographic databases, and geographically relevant science learning aids. Learning aids are developed, distributed and modeled by ISMC staff.
Entomology graduate and undergraduate students and enthusiasts at the University of California, Davis, are expected to be among those participating. Dunbar hopes that the participants will find many insects, including native bees. Anyone interested in helping out can email Eddie Dunbar at eddie@bugpeople.org.
Further information:
Learn more about Knowland Park and the proposed zoo expansion at www.saveknowland.org
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Don't you just love watching bumble bees?
This morning we watched a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) foraging on lavender. It moved quickly from one blossom to another, barely allowing us time for a "bee shoot." It was "bee gone" every time we aimed the camera.
Finally, it cooperated.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, identified it as a male, the first (photo of a male Bombus vosnesenskii) he's seen this season.
He thinks a prize is in order.
Well, okay!
Thorp, co-author of the newly published Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton Press), and Davis photographers Gary Zamzow and Allan Jones and yours truly usually have a friendly competition to find and photograph the first bumble bee of the year, of the month, of the day, of the minute. Well, almost. It's "Bumble Bee Alert" a lot. On Christmas Day, I managed to capture an image of a black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, foraging on jade blossoms at the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park, Solano County. (The black-tailed bumble bees emerge much earlier than the yellow-faced bumble bees.)
Now a Bumble Bee Watch group has launched a website to track bumble bee populations across the U.S. and Canada. This is a collaborative effort among several conservation groups and universities, according to the website and they need your sightings, including photos. As a spokesperson said: "The information will help researchers determine the status and conservation needs of bumble bees, and help locate rare or endangered populations. They will also help with identification!"
Well, today, I watched one male Bombus vosnesenskii, and he watched me.
My prize? Just enjoying--and appreciating--nature at its finest.
(Note: How can you distinguish a male from a female Bombus vosnesenskii? Said Robbin Thorp: "Boy bumble bees have an one more segment in the antenna and the abdomen than females do. The tip of the abdomen is also more rounded. Male bees do not have any pollen transport structures. In bumble bees, this means that the hind tibia is much more slender than in females which have corbiculae (pollen baskets). In Bombus vosnesenskii there is a second partial yellow band on the abdomen on T-5."
"The most accurate test of female vs male bumble bees, is to pick up a specimen with a bare hand. If you get stung, it is a female, if not, it is a boy bee. Boy bees can't sting, because they have no stinger. But I do not recommend this test unless you already know the answer! :)"
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The occasion: Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president of the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR), was on the UC Davis campus recently to fulfill her UC Promise for Education. Last October she vowed that if she received $2500 in contributions for UC students, she would wear honey bees. Actually, she not only reached her goal but surpassed it.
Enter Norm Gary, no doubt the world's best bee wrangler until his retirement last year. A UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology (specializing in apiculture or bee science), he showed that his work is definitely buzzworthy: he kept bees for 66 years, researched bees, wrote about them in peer-reviewed publications and popular books, and appeared in movies, TV shows, commercials, and fairs and festivals and other special events.
So, he volunteered to come out of retirement and train a few bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility to land on a nectar-soaked sponge, which he then transferred to Allen-Diaz' hand.
"I wanted to help her communicate the importance of honey bees to everyone, regarding pollination, research on pollination and teaching of bees and I wanted to help her do this by showing her how much fun it is to work with bees," he told videographer Ray Lucas of UC ANR. (See video.) The artificial nectar he used was a special one he patented.
"It was no threat," he said. For the bees it was "like kids in an ice cream store."
Allen-Diaz graciously thanked all her supporters. "I wanted to promise to do something that would highlight this incredibly important part of our ecosystem." (See video.)
He once trained bees to fly into his mouth to collect food from a small sponge saturated with his patented artificial nectar. He holds the Guinness World record (109 bees inside his closed mouth for 10 seconds) for the stunt. He is well known for wearing a head-to-toe suit of bees while "Buzzing with his B-Flat Clarinet."
What now? At the young age of 80, he says he's "devoting the rest of my life to music."
He's in a duo, Mellow Fellas, and plays clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, and flute.
"For the last two years I have also been performing in a Dixieland band, Dr. Bach and the Jazz Practitioners. We are playing lots of gigs in every imaginable venue," he said. "Our most notable performances are at the Sacramento Music Festival, a four-day event held each Memorial Day weekend. We also perform at pizza parlors, senior retirement organizations, etc. We play swing-music style, too. "
Gary also performs with a quartet, Four For Fun, that has eclectic tastes, but most tunes, he says, have a Dixieland flavor. "I still play duo gigs with several piano/keyboard professionals. And I play clarinet occasionally with the Sacramento Banjo Band."
The "B" flat clarinet, of course.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Visiting entomologist May Berenbaum, professor and head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this morning stopped by the haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, to see the bee activity.
Joining her were Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen; bee scientist Brian Johnson, assistant professor of entomology, and native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, all of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The garden, planted in the fall of 2009, is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. It is open year around, from dawn to dusk and maintained by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Berenbaum, who will become the fifth woman president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America in 2016, saw honey bees foraging on pomegranate and flowering artichoke blossoms and other flowers. Thorp pointed out the Valley carpenter bees, mountain carpenter bees, European wool carder bees, yellow-faced bumble bees and black-tailed bumble bees.
Thorp, who monitors the garden for bees, has found some 85 different species of bees--"and counting"--over the last five years. He began forming baseline data a year before the garden was planted.
The key goals of the garden are to provide bees with a year-around food source, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own. Häagen-Dazs, a premier ice cream brand, generously supports the garden.
The garden design is the work of a Sausalito team which won the international design competition using a series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,” "Orchard Alley,” "Growers' Circle," “Round Dance Circle” and “Waggle Dance Way." The team: landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki.
The art work in the garden is by the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, co-founded and co-directed by entomologist/associate dean Diane Ullman and self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick. Billick also created the six-foot long worker bee sculpture that anchors the garden. The sculpture, which Billick cleverly named "Miss Bee Haven," is of mosaic ceramic.
Berenbaum visited the UC Davis campus May 20-21 to deliver two presentations as part of the Storer Lectureships: "Bees in Crisis: Colony Collapse, Honey Laundering and Other Problems Bee-Setting American Apiculture" on May 20 and "Sex and the Single Parsnip: Coping with Florivores and Pollinators in Two Hemispheres" on May 21. (Click on this link to watch a video of her talk, "Bees in Crisis.")
Berenbaum, a talented scientist, dedicated researcher, dynamic speaker, creative author, and an insect ambassador who wants people to overcome their fear of insects, focuses her research on the chemical interactions between herbivorous insects and their host plants, and the implications of these interactions on the organization of natural communities and the evolution of species.
As as a spokesperson for the scientific community on the honey bee colony collapse disorder, Berenbaum has conducted research, written op-ed essays and testified before Congress on the issue.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That's what happened Sunday. A dragonfly--identified by naturalist Greg Kareofelas, volunteer at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis as a female Sympetrum madidum--zigzagged into our yard and began catching flies, sweat bees and other soft-bodied insects near our fish pond.
It favored a series of bamboo stakes, installed there just for the dragonflies. It moved from one to another as if trying to decide which one it liked the best.
It appeared to like them all! It stayed for four hours.
This dragonfly, also called a red-veined meadowhawk, belongs to the family Libellulidae, the same family as our favorite red flameskimmers (Libellula saturata).
Most of the dragonflies we've encountered are quite skittish—you can't go within 25 feet before they dart off. Not this one. It allowed us to get within an inch of it. Guess it figured we were no threat. Curious, yes. Predator, no.
Nearby, however, scrub jays nesting in the cherry laurels popped out occasionally to find food for their chirping offspring. Fortunately, Ms. Sympetrum madidum wasn't on the menu.