What are you doing on New Year's Day?

Well, weather permitting, you can begin searching for the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano. If you photograph it and you are judged the winner, a prize awaits you--in addition to bragging rights.

The third annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest will begin at 12:01, Jan. 1. The first person to photograph a bumble bee in the two-county area and email it to the sponsor, the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will receive a coffee cup designed with the endangered Franklin's bumble bee, the bee that Thorp monitored on the California-Oregon border for decades.

Contest coordinator Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, said the image must be taken in the wild and emailed to bmuseum@ucdavis.edu, with the time, date and place. 

The contest memorializes Professor Thorp (1933-2019), a global authority on bees and a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, who died June 7, 2019 at age 85. A 30-year member of the UC Davis faculty, he retired in 1994 but continued working until several weeks before his death. Every year he looked forward to seeing the first bumble bee in the area.

The black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, is usually the first bumble bee to emerge in this area, Thorp used to say. It forages on manzanitas, wild lilacs, wild buckwheats, lupines, penstemons, clovers, and sages, among others. 

Two scientists shared the 2022 prize:  UC Davis doctoral candidate Maureen Page of the Neal Williams lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and horticulturist Ellen Zagory, retired director of public horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. They each photographed a bumble bee foraging on manzanita (Arctostaphylos) in the 100-acre Arboretum at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 1. 

Page photographed a black-tailed bumble bee, B. melanopygus, while Zagory captured an image of the yellow-faced bumble bee, B. vosnesenskii.

Fittingly, they both knew and worked with Thorp, a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation and the co-author of Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014). 

This marked the second consecutive win for a member of the Williams lab.  Postdoctoral researcher Charlie Casey Nicholson of the Williams lab and the Elina Lastro Niño lab, won the 2021 contest by photographing a Bombus melanopygus at 3:10 p.m., Jan. 14 in a manzanita patch in the Arboretum. 

Both Page and Nicholson are alumni of The Bee Course, which Thorp co-taught from 2002-2018. Page completed the course in 2018, and Nicholson in 2015. The nine-day intensive workshop, geared for conservation biologists and pollination ecologists and considered the world's premiere native bee biology and taxonomic course, takes place annually in Portal, Ariz., at the Southwestern Research Station, part of the American Museum of Natural History, N.Y.  

In July 2016, Page participated in a "Bumble Bee Blitz" organized by Thorp and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service  on Mt. Ashland,  where, she said, "we searched for Bombus franklini and Bombus occidentalis--two very rare west coast bee species. We unfortunately did not find B. franklini, which is now recognized as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.”  

The prized coffee cup features an image of the bee specimen, photographed by Bohart scientist Brennen Dyer, now collections manager, and designed by UC Davis doctoral alumnus Fran Keller, a professor at Folsom Lake College. Previous winners are ineligible to win the prize.

Origins of the Contest. The contest actually originated in 2012 as a little rivalry between the late Professor Thorp and his "posse"--three of his bumble bee aficionados: Allan Jones and Gary Zamzow of Yolo County and yours truly of Solano County.

The Davis folks (Yolo County posse) looked for them in the manzanita bushes in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Me? As the sole member of the Solano County posse, I headed over to Benicia to the marina and to the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park grounds. I always see them in December and/or January foraging near the marina on rosemary, and on oxalis, rosemary and jade on or near the state capitol grounds. And once on a rose in downtown Benicia.

In 2017, Jones found both a female and male in the Arboretum. At 2:02 on Jan. 27 to be exact. "After finding and photographing two males just east of the Arboretum's redwood grove, he spotted and photographed a female just west of it," we wrote on our Bug Squad blog. 

"Surprising to see males this early in the season," Thorp told us. "Unusual to see males before any workers are on site.  Could be from a gyne that overwintered but was not mated before she went into hibernation; or maybe the sperm she received were not viable; or maybe she was unable to release sperm from her spermatheca to some eggs as they passed through her reproductive tract."

"At any rate," the professor told Jones, "you got two firsts for the season at one time."

"I'd pat myself on the back if I were more flexible," Jones replied. 

Pats are good. So is the prized coffee cup that awaits the 2023 winner.

To catch a cabbage white butterfly...

It was early October and a gravid praying mantis, almost ready to deposit her ootheca, was hungry.

She crawled behind a cactus in our yard, waiting for prey.

It did not take long. A cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, fluttered down and made the fatal mistake of landing right next to Ms. Mantis. 

The rest, they say, is...dinner.

Cabbage whites are in the news now because UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro is sponsoring his annual Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest. If you collect the first cabbage white of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano, you'll get a pitcher of beer, or its equivalent. 

Shapiro, a member of the Department of Evolution and Ecology faculty, has sponsored the “Suds for a Bug” contest since 1972 to determine the butterfly's first flight of the year. He launched the contest as part of his long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change.  P. rapae is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, said Shapiro.  "Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20." (See Bug Squad for contest details.)

Note that the cabbage white butterfly is not an insect to treasure.  As a caterpillar, P. rapae is a major pest of cole crops such as cabbage. UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) says the cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product. Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant," according to the UC IPM website.

Indeed, if you grow cole crops, you're probably ecstatic about a praying mantis nailing a pest.

This mantis is a Stagmomantis limbata, as identified by Lohit Garikipati, a UC Davis alumnus studying for his master's degree at Towson University, Md.

A predator and a prey.

On a wing and a prayer. 

UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro's annual Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest, in which he trades a pitcher of beer (or its equivalent) for the first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly collected in a three-county area, is of special interest this year. 

“It's of special interest this year because as of a few days ago the bug was still flying and laying eggs, which will result in non-diapause pupae,” said Shapiro, a noted butterfly expert who researches biological responses to climate change. “Depending on the weather, that could mean an earlier-than-usual emergence. There is even a slight chance the fall brood is not over yet...”

Shapiro, a member of the Department of Evolution and Ecology faculty, has sponsored the “Suds for a Bug” contest since 1972 to determine the Pieris rapae's first flight of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo. He launched the contest as part of his long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change. 

 P. rapae is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, said Shapiro.  "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 of 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 Department of Evolution and Ecology office, 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis, during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with the full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and the contact information of the collector (address, phone number and/or e-mail.) The receptionist 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 is the sole judge.

The professor said P. rapae inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. The male is white. The female is often slightly buffy; the "underside of the hindwing and apex of the forewing may be distinctly yellow and normally have a gray cast,” Shapiro said. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

Shapiro, who monitors butterfly populations in the field for more than 200 days of the year,  usually wins the contest. He 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.

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences,   Shapiro is the author of A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, illustrated by Tim Manolis and published in 2007 by the University of California Press

Recent Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest statistics:

• 2022: No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro recorded his first-of-the-year P. rapae at 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 19 in West Sacramento, Yolo County
• 2021:  No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro collected his first-of-the-year at 1:55 p.m. Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, Yolo County
• 2020: Technically, no winner, as Shapiro did not collect the one he spotted in Winters, Yolo County at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 at the Putah Creek Nature Park.  "It flew back and forth across Putah Creek and then departed the area, flying out of reach above the trees," he noted. He waited around for 90 minutes to see if it would return. It did not.
• 2019: Shapiro collected the first cabbage white butterfly near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County, at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25. "It was the earliest recorded in Suisun City in 47 seasons."
• 2018: Art Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
• 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery collected the winner in west Davis
• 2015: Jan. 26:  Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2014: Jan. 14:  Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2013: Jan. 21:  Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2012: Jan. 8:   Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2011: Jan. 31:  Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun
• 2010: Jan. 27:  Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento

Shapiro nets many of the winners in mustard patches near railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.

As a caterpillar, the insect is a pest of cole crops such as cabbage. UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) says the cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product. Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant," according to the UC IPM website.

Related Link:
Research Publication on Non-Diapause Overwintering Cabbage White Butterfly and Anise Swallowtail
Non-Diapause Overwintering by Pieris rapae (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) and Papilio zelicaon (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) in California: Adaptiveness of Type III Diapause-Induction Curves by Art Shapiro, published in 1984 in Psyche: A Journal of Entomology (open access article)

First paragraph: "Diapause is generally regarded as a physiological adaptation which increases the probability of surviving the adverse season, and thus of reproducing after it is over. Many insect species show geographic differences in the environmental regimes which induce or inhibit diapause (e.g., critical photoperiod) and in the strength of the diapause induced. Such interpopulational differences are commonly viewed as "fine tuning" to local climates, accomplished by natural selection and reflecting a genetic basis (e.g., Istock, 1981). Intrapopulational differences in photoperiodic sensitivity and diapause strength (e.g., chilling requirement) also occur, and have been interpreted as polymorphisms which "spread the risk" of environmental uncertainty over the population (cf. Bradshaw 1973, Shapiro 1979, 1980a). In multivoltine insects in seasonal climates, offspring produced by the last seasonal generation of adults are commonly induced to enter diapause by specific combinations of environmental factors; in mid-latitudes these are likely to be decreasing photophase/increasing scotophase and decreasing or consistently low night temperatures. Warmer nights tend to shorten the critical photoperiod for a given population, or may effectively inhibit diapause altogether under field conditions." (See more) 

Your mama tells you that you're a bee, but when you look around you, you don't look like any of the bees you encounter in the meadow.

Not the honey bee, not the carpenter bee, not the bumble bee, not the cuckoo bee and not any of the other assorted bees minding their own bees-ness in the meadow.

You're not yellow, you're not fuzzy, you're not social and you're just not certain. 

Makes you wonder if you're having an identity crisis, right? 

Bee scientist Felicity Muth, an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas, Austin, sets the record straight in her charming book, "Am I Even a Bee?,"  illustrated by Alexa Lindauer. It's a children's picture book, but let's face it, we're all children at heart, and everyone likes to feel appreciated. We all want to belong.

Fact is, there are more than 20,000 known species of bees in the world and about 4000 of them are native to the United States. California alone has 1600 species. The smallest known bee is the solitary bee, Perdita minima, about 2mm long. The largest bee in California is the Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa sonorina, which measures about an inch long.

Yet the non-native honey bee, a social bee, grabs all the attention and little Osmia, a solitary bee, wonders if she's even a bee. 

With the help of her friend, Xylocopa, nicknamed "Xyla," Osmia discovers that (1) yes, she is indeed a bee (2) yes, she's a pollinator and (3) yes, she's important to our ecosystem.

It's good to see Felicity Muth spreading the word about the diversity of bees, and why, in the process, it's crucial to protect them.

Like human beings, bees come in many shapes, sizes and colors. Some are specialists, such as the squash bee, which pollinates only squash and other members of the cucurbits family. Some are generalists, like the honey bee. 

But they are all bees.

In her real (academic) life, Muth works with commercial and wild bees (bumble bees, mason bees, and squash bees) "using experimental approaches to investigate questions in animal behavior and cognition from an ecological perspective...we also address anthropogenic effects on bee cognition, behavior an health."

Muth delivered a presentation on her book at the Entomological Society of America's joint meeting (with the Entomological Societies of Canada and British Columbia), held last month in Vancouver, B.C.

Muth knows science writing and science communication: her credits include publishing her work in Scientific American and being interviewed on National Public Radio's Science Friday. She holds a doctorate (2012) in animal behavior and cognition from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She discovered her passion for bees as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona and the University of Nevada, Reno.

Illustrator Alexa Lindauer's work is colorful, welcoming and enticing. In her other life, she's the project and laboratory manager at the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory through UC Santa Barbara.  Her bio says she "studies disease in amphibians and currently works to restore populations of endangered frogs in California." She holds a master's degree in biology from the University of Nevada, Reno, and a bachelor's degree in biology from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. 

"Am I Even a Bee?" is a book you'll want to place in a prominent place in your library--let your "Zoom" audience see it on your shelf. Then, re-read it when you, as Osmia, think others (honey bees) are getting all the recognition, respect and admiration while you're being ignored. In fact, as U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says on its website:  "Native bees are the primary insect pollinator of agricultural plants in most of the country. Crops that they pollinate include squash, tomatoes, cherries, blueberries, and cranberries. Native bees were here long before European honeybees were brought to the country by settlers (honeybees are not native to North America). Honeybees are key to a few crops such as almonds and lemons, but native bees like the blue orchard bees (Osmia) are better and more efficient pollinators of many crops, including those plants that evolved in the Americas. Native bees are estimated to pollinate 80 percent of flowering plants around the world."

Meanwhile, let's take a look at the diversity of bees in these images below, mostly taken in Vacaville, Calif. They come in many shapes, sizes and colors. 

What's not to like about a bee?