It's like Old Home Week or Old Home Day when Michelle Monheit visits the UC Davis Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road. I visit the garden whenever I'm in the area, she said, as she headed over to the six-foot-long ceramic-mosaic bee sculpture, Miss Bee Haven, that anchors the half-acre bee garden.

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UC Davis professor Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. with then graduate student Robert E. Page Jr., circa 1980.

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Hear That Buzz? Long-Awaited UC Davis Bee Genetics Book Updated

January 3rd, 2025

Hear that buzz? The long-awaited update of the landmark UC Davis-authored book, Queen Bee Rearing and Bee Breeding by Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003), the father of bee genetics, and his former doctoral research mentee Robert E. Page Jr.

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A Golden Paper Wasp

January 2nd, 2025

We're so accustomed to seeing the non-native European paper wasp, Polistes dominula, that it's quite a surprise to encounter a native, the golden paper wasp, P. aurifer, and especially in the winter. It was--and is--sheltering at the UC Davis Bee Haven.

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In many parts of Davis, mistletoe is missing. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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The Missing Mistletoe and the Non-Purple Great Purple Hairstreak Butterfly

January 1st, 2025

You may not recognize mistletoe unless it sports a red bow and is hanging over a doorway during the holiday season. You may not recognize The Great Purple Hairstreak, Atlides halesus. Its host plant is mistletoe. (Color-cognizant folks who are fond of purple won't recognize it, either.

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A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, nectaring on a California golden poppy. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Who Will Find and Photograph the First Bumble Bee of the Year?

December 31st, 2025

Who will find and photograph the first bumble bee of the year in Yolo and Solano counties and win the fifth annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest? In 2024, Fairfield resident Nancy Hansen won the contest with a video of B.

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