Bug Squad

Congratulations to UC Davis alumna and pollinator enthusiast Ria de Grassi of Davis, who spotted and photographed the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano to win the third annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest.

No cabbage white butterfly, no bumble bee. As of 4 p.m. today (Jan.

Do monarch butterflies know what they want/need? Apparently so, from personal observation. Over the years, we've grown multiple species of milkweed in our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. We give them a choice.

From bark beetles to meat-eating bees! And from UC Davis to France... Seminar coordinator Emily Meineke, urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, has announced the list of the department's 10 winter seminars, which begin Jan.

So there it was...a monarch lying on its side, one wing down and one wing up, in the middle of a residential neighborhood in west Vacaville, California, on a 42-degree morning on Tuesday, Jan. 3. It looked newly emerged but it wasn't moving. In fact, it looked quite dead.