Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

"We will be doing paper mache wasp nests; I'm thinking of starter queen nests, so small little paper wasp nests," said Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator. 

The event, free and family friendly, takes place in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. Parking is also free.

UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, will be featured. She will answer questions on social wasps as visitors examine wasp specimens. The Bohart, the home of a worldwide collection of eight million insect specimens,has about 50,000 wasp specimens.

Kimsey defines social wasps as "Wasps that live together and cooperate in a colony, with female workers and a queen; only the queen has babies." To date, scientists have described some 2000 wasp species worldwide, with an estimated 500 yet to be described.

Kimsey says that common myths about wasps include:

• They are often seen as malevolent beings out to get you and will chase you
• That they serve no purpose except to annoy us
• If you're allergic to bee stings you'll be allergic to wasp stings
• A copper penny place on a sting will make it go away

However, "they provide valuable ecosystem services, they do pest control and they assist in nutrient recycling and pollination," she says.

Kimsey, who joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989 and became director of the Bohart Museum in 1990, plans to retire from the university in February 2024. However, she will remain executive director of the Bohart Museum Society. "It just means that I won't be teaching or doing university administrative things any more," she wrote in the current edition of the Bohart Museum Society Newsletter, which she writes and edits. 

The Bohart Museum also houses a live petting zoo, including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas; and an insect-themed gift shop stocked with T-shirts, hoodies, books, posters, jewelry and more. Further information is available on the Bohart Museum website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or by emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.

UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

In the Beer-for-a-Butterfly contest, or "Suds for a Bug," if you collect the first live cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) of the year anywhere in the three-county area of Yolo, Sacramento and Solano, you can trade it for a beer or its equivalent, compliments of the good professor.

Shapiro participates in his own contest and usually wins it. Today he monitored butterfly populations in Suisun (Solano County), but found no P. rapae.

No rapae today!

His records for the cabbage white of the year in Suisun show: Jan. 23, 2018; Jan. 25, 2019, Feb. 10, 2020 and Jan. 22, 2022. "No sample in '21, and late in '23 due to persistent rain, with first rapae not until March!" Shapiro noted. "Based on weather models, I am tentatively predicting the first rapae in the tri-county area for around Jan. 25-26."

Shapiro launched the contest in 1972 as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the year in the three-county area. His research involves long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change. 

P. rapae is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, Shapiro says.  "Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20."

Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central California since 1972, and maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, says the point of the contest "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes. The rules require that the animal be captured and brought in alive to be verified. That way no one can falsely claim to have seen one or misidentify something else as a cabbage white."

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be brought in alive to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124, Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus,  during work hours, from 8 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. It must include full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and the contact information of the collector (address, phone number and/or e-mail.) Brennen Dyer will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If it's collected on a weekend or holiday, it can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days--do not freeze it, Shapiro says.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

Shapiro has been defeated only four times and those were by UC Davis graduate students. Adam Porter won in 1983; Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s; and Jacob Montgomery in 2016. The first three were his own graduate students.

Who won in 2023? Shapiro spotted the first butterfly of 2023 at 11:22 a.m., in West Sacramento, Yolo County. He did not collect the butterfly but recorded it as the first of the year. No one came forth with any other.

You've heard folks call insects "big 'ol bugs" (often in astonishment or terror), right?

But have you ever seen a "bigeyed bug on a monarch butterfly?"

Bigeyed bugs, Geocoris spp., are beneficial insects, "found mostly on low-growing plants, including many field and row crops and in gardens," according to the UC Statewide Integrated Management Program (UC IPM). "Adults and nymphs feed by sucking prey's body contents through their needlelike mouthparts. Bigeyed bugs feed on bug nymphs, flea beetles, insect eggs, small caterpillars, and all stages of aphids, mites, and whiteflies. Bigeyed bugs also feed harmlessly on pollen, seeds, and plant juices and are not plant pests."

And Wikipedia tells us: "Big-eyed bugs, like other true bugs, have piercing-sucking mouthparts and feed by stabbing their prey and sucking or lapping the juices. Although their effectiveness as predators is not well understood, studies have shown that nymphs can eat as many as 1600 spider mites before reaching adulthood, while adults have been reported consuming as many as 80 mites per day."

So, it's Jan. 4, 2024, and here's this bigeyed bug resting in a patch of blanket flowers (Gaillardia) in our Vacaville pollinator garden. Then it's briefly crawling up the wing of a monarch that's nectaring on the flowers. (Yes, fall and winter monarch breeding does occur here in central California, according to butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus. He recorded a monarch in flight on Jan. 19, 2020 in Sacramento, but even earlier than that--UC Davis professor Louie Yang of the Department of Entomology and Nematology spotted a monarch flying Jan. 8, 2012 in east Davis. We saw a monarch in flight on Dec. 16, 2023 in Vacaville.)

So, what happened to the bigeyed bug and the monarch butterfly? They vanished. Both of them. 

Wings up? 

UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

For one, they're pollinators. Two, they're great predators, contributing to the biocontrol of such lepidopteran pests as cabbageworms (larva of cabbage white butterflies).  Three, they're quite intelligent. Four, they're superb architects.

And they are much more. (Professor Amy Toth of Iowa State University told a UC Davis Entomoloogy and Nematology seminar: "They have been shown to carry yeasts to winemaking grapes that may be important contributors to the fermentation process and wonderful flavors in wine!"

Enter the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which is hosting an open house on "Social Wasps" from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 20 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.  Attendees can chat one-on-one with wasp expert UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum. They can check out the wasp specimens; the Bohart houses some 50,000 vespid specimens in its eight-million insect specimen collection.

The open house is free and family friendly. Parking is also free.

Kimsey estimates that 2000 described species inhabit our world, and about 500 more are undescribed. The most headline-grabbing wasp? That would be the northern giant wasp, Vespa mandarinia, formerly known as the Asian giant wasp. The news media dubbed it "the murder hornet." 

Many folks confuse the Western yellowjacket and the European paper wasp. An easy way to identify them is by the color of their antennae. Yellowjacket antennae are black, like the Las Vegas Raiders' logo, and European paper wasp antennae are orange, like the logo of the San Francisco Giants.

Kimsey details information on her fact sheets on yellowjackets and paper wasps. For example:

Yellowjackets. They build large, hidden nests, often in rodent burrows or in cavities of trees, walls or attics. Their nests can be huge with 50,000 to 100,00 workers. They feed on live prey. But the pest species, such as the Western yellowjacket, Vespula pensylvanica, "will scavenge other sources of meat and sugar, including sodas , hamburgers, and road kill." They are often called "meat bees." 

Paper Wasps. They build open-faced nests, with the cells exposed. "Nests are built out of fibers the wasps collect from plants and mix with saliva. They are commonly located under eaves an in other protected sites. Even large nests rarely have more than 30 workers and one queen. These are all annual nests. They are founded in the spring and die in the fall. Paper wasps feed only on live insects, such as caterpillars and bugs. They do not scavenge in garbage or at picnics, like some of the yellowjacket species will do." Common in Northern California is the European paper wasp, Polistes dominula.

Kimsey is a recognized authority on insect biodiversity,systematicsandbiogeography of parasitic wasps, urban entomology, civil forensic entomology, and arthropod-related industrial hygiene.  Among her many honors: she served as president of the International Society of Hymenopterists from 2002-2004. In 2020 she won the C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor bestowed by the the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA).

Kimsey plans to retire in 2024 but will continue her research and public service at the Bohart Museum. 

The Bohart Museum not only houses a global collection of insect speciments, but a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects, tarantulas and more), and an insect-themed gift shop. For more information, contact the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu 

Further Reading:
Wasps, The Astronishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect, a 256-book by Eric Eaton, published in 2021 by Princeton University. The pub;isher reports: "Wasps are far more diverse than the familiar yellowjackets and hornets that harass picnickers and build nests under the eaves of our homes. These amazing, mostly solitary creatures thrive in nearly every habitat on Earth, and their influence on our lives is overwhelmingly beneficial. Wasps are agents of pest control in agriculture and gardens. They are subjects of study in medicine, engineering, and other important fields. Wasps pollinate flowers, engage in symbiotic relationships with other organisms, and create architectural masterpieces in the form of their nests. This richly illustrated book introduces you to some of the most spectacular members of the wasp realm, colorful in both appearance and lifestyle. From minute fairyflies to gargantuan tarantula hawks, wasps exploit almost every niche on the planet. So successful are they at survival that other organisms emulate their appearance and behavior. The sting is the least reason to respect wasps and, as you will see, no reason to loathe them, either. Written by a leading authority on these remarkable insects, Wasps reveals a world of staggering variety and endless fascination."