- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But when it comes to UC Davis Picnic Day 101, the "101" doesn't mean inexperience. This is the 101st annual celebration, which means UC Davis has been doing this for a century.
It's an event billed as entertaining, educational and informative--and it is. Plus, it's just plain fun!
Longtime friends and family get to hug ya. Entomologists get to bug ya. Visitors will see plenty of insects and other arthropods from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at two sites: Briggs Hall on Kleiber Hall Drive and the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Crocker Lane.
Theme of the campuswide picnic is “The Heart of Our Community,” but over at the Bohart Museum, the theme is “The Good, the Bad and the Bugly.” The museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, will feature pollinators. The museum houses nearly 8 million specimens. It also houses a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and a rose-haired tarantula named Peaches, a crowd favorite.
At Briggs Hall, a new event is the Pollinator Pavilion, where visitors can see and learn about bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Pollination ecologist/graduate student Margaret “Rei” Scampavia is coordinating the project. “We're going to have painted lady butterflies, monarchs, male blue orchard bees, and a live bumblebee colony,” she said. Other events at the Pollinator Pavilion will include puppet shows, a chance to practice pollinator observations, museum specimens, and information on how individuals can help support healthy pollinator populations.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will portray “Dr. Death,” showing methods used in forensic entomology in 122 Briggs. The Phil Ward lab will assemble a display on the incredible diversity of ants. The Sharon Lawler lab will display aquatic insects and answer any questions about them.
Visitors can sample six different varietals of honey at a honey tasting table in the Briggs courtyard. The flavors are coffee blossom, meadowfoam blossom, buckwheat, creamed clover, cotton and chestnut, said Elina Niño, Extension apiculturist. A bee observation hive will be set up in across from the courtyard, where Niño and staff research associate Billy Synk will answer questions about bees.
Also at Briggs: graduate student Stacy Hishinuma and forest entomologist Steve Seybold, a chemical ecologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Davis, and an affiliate of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will display forest insects. Medical entomology graduate students will set up displays about diseases vectored by mosquitoes and other insects. The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will provide an educational exhibit about mosquito abatement. Exhibits also will include such topics as fly fishing/fly-tying.
The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will be giving away lady beetles, aka ladybugs, in front of Briggs Hall. They will answer questions about insects and display many of their books.
The Graduate Student Entomology Association (GMSA) and the Entomology Club will be out in force, coordinating and staffing the many insect activities. If you like bugs, you can buy an entomology t-shirt or have a bug painted on your face. The Bohart Museum also will be selling t-shirts and other items in its gift shop, which is open year-around.
If you're going to the parade, which starts at 9:30 a.m., be sure to check out the Entomology Club's float. It will not be an "itsy bitsy spider." It will be one ritsy gigantic spider! Following the parade, the float will be showcased in front of Briggs Hall.
What a day it promises to be...the good, the bad, and the bugly...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
With your camera!
If you're into pollinators, plants and photography, and want to share your work nationally, here's a new project for you.
To generate some buzz for pollinators, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) is partnering with the Wild Bee Gardens app to sponsor a national photography contest.
Bay Area native bee enthusiast Celeste Ets-Hokin, who launched the Wild Bee Gardens app (with identification assistance from consultants, including native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis), alerted us to the contest.
It is "designed to raise awareness about the dazzling diversity of North America's native bees and other pollinators," she said, "and to engage residents from coast to coast in the vital and rewarding business of creating a continental tapestry of wild bee gardens,"
The winning photographs will be published in the Wild Bee Gardens app, and also promoted on the CFS website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
CFS, headquartered in Washington, D.C., with branch offices in San Francisco, Honolulu and Portland (Ore.) describes itself as "a national non-profit public interest and environmental advocacy organization working to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS also educates consumers concerning the definition of organic food and products."
Judges will choose numerous winners, and each will receive a free Wild Bee Gardens app to keep, or give as a gift, "so that you can share your enthusiasm for wild bees and their gardens with your friends and families," Ets-Hokin said. Winners also will receive a pollinator swag bag from CFS.
Want to learn more about the submission guidelines and selection criteria? Access http://centerforfoodsafety-wildbees.tumblr.com . The deadline to submit photos is April 17.
If you can't identify the pollinator, not to worry. After the judges select the winners, Thorp will identify the bees. He's a co-author of California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday), along with colleagues Gordon Frankie, Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter. Thorp also co-authored Bumble Bees of North America: an Identification Guide (Princeton University Press).
Speaking of bumble bees, they seem to be quite scarce this year. We saw our first black-tailed bumble bee (Bombus melanopygus) of the season on March 15 on Spanish lavender in Vacaville.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Beetles do it. Birds do it.
Bats do it.
Do what, you ask? They pollinate!
The Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, will greet visitors on Saturday, March 14 at its open house, themed "Pollinator Nation."
To be held from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, it promises to be both fun and educational.
“It will be about bees, bees, bees!” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis. "Also, we are borrowing specimens of pollinating birds, bats and lemurs from the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology to cover non-insect pollinators, which should be fun."
Lots of animals are pollinators. It's not just bees, bats, butterflies. bats and birds. Pollinators can be ants, flies, moths, wasps and the like.
You'll see many of them at the open house. Staff research associate Billy Synk of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, will provide a bee observation hive. That's a glassed-in hive filled with a bee colony. You'll be able to see the queen bee, worker bees and drones.
The event is free and open to the public. Family activities are also planned.
Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.
The museum is open to the public four days a week, Monday through Thursday, but special weekend open houses are held throughout the academic year
The Bohart Museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The insect museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
More information is available by accessing the website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/; telephoning (530) 752-9493; or emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Today is Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014 the last day of the year.
Looking back, it was a year of wonder in our pollinator garden, a year filled with flourishing lavender, salvia, catmint, honeysuckle, lantana, passionflower vine, foxgloves, cosmos, California poppies, rock purslane, basil and oregano, with three towers of jewels (Echium wildpretii) anchoring the garden. The bees sipped nectar, praying mantids ate the bees, bluejays ate the praying mantids, and hawks ate the bluejays. As we watched the hawks splash in our birdbath, we wondered about the bees, jays and mantids that were all part of this circle of life that happened in our garden.
New Year's Eve. It's a time not to make resolutions, but renewals. It's a time to refocus and recharge; to sharpen the focus and recharge the batteries; to see Mother Nature snag a little more of Father Time.
So, Bug Squad on the last day of 2014 will include four photos of two Gulf Fritillaries becoming one. These Gulf Frits (Agraulis vanillae) provided us with eggs, larvae, chrysalids and more adults. They, along with the other pollinators that inhabit our garden, make our flowers complete, our garden complete and our lives complete.
May all your gardens be filled with the buzz, the flutter and the whirl of pollinators in 2015!
Happy New Year!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Good news for the honey bees!
And none too soon.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today (Oct. 29) in a press release that "more than $4 million in technical and financial assistance will be provided to help farmers and ranchers in the Midwest improve the health of honey bees, which play an important role in crop production."
“The future of America's food supply depends on honey bees, and this effort is one way USDA is helping improve the health of honey bee populations,” Vilsack said in the USDA release. “Significant progress has been made in understanding the factors that are associated with Colony Collapse Disorder and the overall health of honey bees, and this funding will allow us to work with farmers and ranchers to apply that knowledge over a broader area.”
The declining honey bee population is besieged with health issues, exacerbated by pests, parasites, pesticides, diseases, stress and malnutrition Nationally, however, honey bees pollinate an estimated $15 billion worth of crops, including more than 130 fruits and vegetables. If you enjoy such produce as almonds, apples, cherries, cucumbers, and peaches, thank a bee for its pollination services.
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is focusing the effort on five Midwestern states: Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Why the Midwest? "From June to September, the Midwest is home to more than 65 percent of the commercially managed honey bees in the country. It is a critical time when bees require abundant and diverse forage across broad landscapes to build up hive strength for the winter."
The announcement renews and expands what USDA calls "a successful $3 million pilot investment that was announced earlier this year and continues to have high levels of interest." It's all part of the June 2014 Presidential Memorandum – Creating a Federal Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, which directs USDA to expand the acreage and forage value in its conservation programs.
Funding will be provided to producers through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Applications are due Friday, Nov. 21.
This means that the farmers and ranchers will receive support and guidance to implement conservation practices that will provide safe and diverse food sources for honey bees. This will include appropriate cover crops or rangeland and pasture management. In addition to providing good forage and habitat for honey bees and other pollinators, the actions taken are expected to reduce erosion, increase soil health and inhibit invasive species.
California also will benefit. "This year, several NRCS state offices are setting aside additional funds for similar efforts, including California – where more than half of all managed honey bees in the U.S. help pollinate almond groves and other agricultural lands – as well as Ohio and Florida," according to the release.
A nice push for the pollinators!