Is it an insect?

How can you tell?

When the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology participates in the 103rd annual UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 22, visitors to Briggs Hall and the Bohart Museum of Entomology will learn all about insects.

One of the displays asks: "Is it an insect?" Key points:

• Insects have six legs (the legs may be modified for jumping, climbing or event catching prey
• Most adult insects have two pairs of wings (insects don't grow wings until the adult stage, but not all adult insects have wings)
• Insects have an exoskeleton (this is a feature shared by all animals in the phylum Arthropoda, not just insects)
• Insects have compound eye (compound eyes are made up of many facets and are good at detecting movement)
• Insects have three body parts (the head has the eyes, mouth and antennae; the thorax has the wings and legs; and the abdomen has the reproductive organs)

What's new this year in the department's line-up will be an insect scavenger hunt, replacing the Pollinator Pavilion, said graduate student Brendon Boudinot, chair of the department's Picnic Day Committee.

"Visitors will search for and identify insects in display boxes and be rewarded with stickers," said Boudinot, who studies with major professor and ant specialist Phil Ward.

The campuswide Picnic Day gets underway at 9:30 a.m. with an opening ceremony by the grandstands on North Quad Ave., across from Wickson Hall. The parade starts at 10 a.m. from the same site. Announcement locations are at 2nd and D streets in downtown Davis; F Street in front of PDQ Fingerprinting, and 3rd and C streets in downtown Davis. The UC Davis Entomology Club, advised by forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey, will enter its popular black widow float.

The Briggs Hall activities will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but the cockroach races will close at 2 p.m.

• Honey Tasting (You can sample varietals of honey)
• Bug Doctor (The doctor is in!)
• Cockroach Races (Pick a winner)
• Scavenger Hunt (Do you know your insects?)
• Dr. Death (Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will answer your questions)
• Insect Face Painting (Get a bee, lady beetle or another insect painted on your face)
• Little Swimmers and Fly Tying (Watch and identify aquatic insects, a project from the Sharon Lawler lab, and learn "how to tie a fly" from the Fly Fishers of Davis
• Maggot Art (Dip a maggot into a water-based, non-toxic paint and create a painting suitable for framing)
• UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM)  (See their many publications and ask questions; youngsters can receive a vial of free lady beetles, aka ladybugs)
• T-shirt sales by the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Students' Association (popular t-shirts include beetles and honey bees)
• Social insects, insect forestry, medical entomology, and more (See a honey bee observation hive from the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility and ants from the Phil Ward lab; and also learn about forest insects and mosquitoes. The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will staff a booth)

The Bohart Museum of Entomology in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building will swing open its doors from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The theme: "Bigger, Better and Buglier: Impressive Science at the Bohart."  This will be an opportunity to see some of the nearly eight million specimens, visit the live petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and taranatulas) and ask questions of the scientists. The nematology collection will be on display in the Sciences Laboratory Building, across from Briggs.

Theme of this year's Picnic Day is "Growing Together." The schedule can be downloaded from the campus website.

Ol' Blue Eyes.

What a treat to see. No, not an old movie starring Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), but the blue-eyed darner, the Rhionaeschna multicolor blue-eyed darner, Aeshna multicolor.

Order: Odonata
Suborder: Anisoptera
Superfamily: Aeshnoidea
Family: Aeshnidae
Genus: Rhionaeschna
Species: multicolor (Hagen, 1861) [Aeshna] Rhionaeschna multicolor Blue-eyed Darner

Like a spinning helicopter struggling in a brisk breeze, the dragonfly circled our Spanish lavender patch in our bee friendly (and dragonfly friendly) garden in Vacaville, Calif. for just the right spot. It finally landed its 2.6-inch frame on one of the outside blossoms.

Hey, here I am! Take my picture!

So, I did.

Then it flew over the fish pond and it was over and out.

The blue-eyed darner is one of California's earliest emerging spring dragonflies and what a beauty. Its distribution, according to Odonatocentral.org: "Central and western North America from southern Alberta and British Columbia to Texas and California southward to Morelos, Mexico."

"This is a common, predominately blue western species," according to Odonatocentral.org. "The face, eyes and pale spots are all brilliant blue...There are the usual pale blue spots throughout its length. The male cerci are forked. Females may have blue or yellow-green thoracic stripes and abdominal spots."

This is our first dragonfly sighting of the season.

The welcome mat is out.

How often do you see a honey bee "standing upright" to reach nectar?

"Well, I guess I could just buzz up there and grab some nectar! But why not stay right here where I am and just s-t-r-e-t-c-h  like a giraffe to get it?"

This bee, foraging on a Photinia blossom, almost looked like an athlete in training.  Was she stretching to "warm up?"  Was she stretching to improve performance? Flexibility?  Mobility?

Me thinks she was just taking a short cut to the sweet stuff and being a little territorial as other bees buzzed around her.

Our honey bee will return to the hive where workers will process the nectar into honey. Humans will get some of it, too.

If you'd like to sample honey--and mix with entomologists--mark your calendar for Saturday, April 22 and "bee" at Briggs Hall for the annual honey tasting, just one part of the 200 some events at the 103rd annual UC Davis Picnic Day. It's an all-day campuswide open house aimed to educate, inform and entertain.

Have you checked to see what's foraging on your early spring blooms?

Our cherry laurels (Prunus laurocerasus) are blooming and the Andrena (mining) bees are zooming. These fast-moving bees are solitary ground-nesting bees that are early spring bees, according to native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis. The males emerge first.

"Females emerge several days later and, with only a few short weeks to live, waste no time with polite introductions," write and Thorp (who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley) and UC Berkeley professor Gordon Frankie in California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists.  The book is also co-authored by UC Berkeley affiliates: entomologist/photographer Rollin E. Coville and botany specialist Barbara Ertter.

"Mating is first on their agenda, followed by a quick meal of pollen to build up their ovaries," Thorp and Frankie point out. "They then dig or forage for materials to construct their nests, and for food for their offspring. At the end of the short flight season, the adults die and the new generation's life cycle continues inside the nest."

Thorp identified the bees below as two females: Andrena candida and A. nigrocaerulea. He and several colleagues teach The Bee Course, "an annual workshop for conservation biologists, pollination ecologists and other biologists who want to gain greater knowledge of the systematics and biology of bees." It's held at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz., and this year's dates are Aug. 21-Aug. 31.

"Most North American Andrena species are black, dull metallic blue, or green and moderately hairy, with bands of pale hair on their abdomens," according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. "Females have large, velvety facial depressions (foveae) that look like eyebrows and large pollen-collecting hairs (scopae) on the upper part of their hind legs, seemingly in their 'armpits.' Despite a variety of striking colorations, Andrenan species are difficult to tell part."

If you have sandy soil and shrubs, that's ideal for them. You'll be the landlord and they'll be your tenants. "They nest in the ground, typically in sandy soil and often near or under shrubs. The nest entrance is usually marked by a small mound (tumulus) of soil."--Xerces Society.

Andrena is the largest genus in the family Andrenidae, with more than 1300 species, and about 261 in California. They occur nearly worldwide (Americas, Eurasia and the Old World tropics). The tiniest of the Andrena are only 7 millimeters long.

You may not see them. They're as tiny as they are fast, and they don't stop for photographs!

Sometimes you get lucky...