A beer for a butterfly? Suds for a bug? 

It's almost time for the Art Shapiro's annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest that he's sponsored since 1972. The person who finds the first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, in the three-county area of Yolo, Sacramento and Solano, wins a beer--or its equivalent.

And bragging rights!

Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Evolution and Ecology, is retired, but not from his research and not from sponsoring the annual “Beer-for-a-Butterfly” contest.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, Shapiro will be collaborating with the Bohart Museum of Entomology, the "dropping off point," for the entries. Bohart curator and collections manager Brennen Dyer will be accepting the entries. 

Shapiro launched the contest a half a century ago 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.

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

Shapiro, who 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.

First of 2023. Shapiro spotted the first butterfly of the year in 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. 

Feb 8 was "the 11th latest first rapae day since 1972,” he said, detailing the 10 later finds: Feb. 26, 1972 (“which is probably too late, since I hadn't yet learned where to look for them first!”); Feb. 22, 1992 (“I fully believe that one”); Feb. 18, 1978 and 1986; Feb. 17, 1979; Feb. 16, 1975; Feb. 14, 1981; Feb. 13, 1983 and 1985; and Feb. 10, 1980. “Note that most of these are from the '80s,” he said. “There has indeed been a trend to earlier emergence, though this year is an outlier!”

Shapiro says 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,  participates in his own 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.

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

Recent Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest statistics:

• 2023: Art Shapiro recorded the first butterfly of the year at 11:22 a.m., Feb 8 in West Sacramento County, Yolo County. He did not collect the specimen and no one can forth with a winner. 
• 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

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.

Collaborating with Shapiro on butterfly research projects is Foundation Professor Matthew Forister, the Trevor J. McMinn Endowed Research Professor in Biology, University of Nevada. Forister received his doctorate from UC Davis, studying with Shapiro, his major professor.

Pest of Cole Crops. 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.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology is directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey. Entomologist Jeff Smith curates the Lepidoptera collection, a global collection of some 500,000 moths and butterflies.

If history repeats itself, the person who finds and photographs the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano will do so in the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden--or will find it foraging on a plant purchased from one of the Arboretum's popular plant sales.

And the plant may be a manzanita or ceonothus.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology is sponsoring its fourth annual  Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest, which begins at 12:01, Jan. 1, 2024.  The first person to photograph a bumble bee in either Yolo or Solano and email it to the sponsor, the Bohart Museum, will receive a coffee cup designed with the endangered Franklin's bumble bee, the bee that Thorp monitored along the California-Oregon border for decades.

Contest coordinator Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, 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 previous winners:

2023: Ria deGrassi of Davis took a video of a Bombus melanopygus foraging on a Ceanothus in her backyard on Jan. 8 She had purchased the plant from the Arboretum plant sales.

2022: Maureen Page, then a doctoral candidate in the lab of pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and horticulturist Ellen Zagory, retired director of public horticulture for the Arboretum, tied for first by each photographing a bumble bee foraging on manzanita (Arctostaphylos) in the Arboretum. The time: 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 1. Page, who now holds a doctorate in entomology, photographed a Bombus melanopygus, while Zagory captured an image of the yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii.

2021: Postdoctoral researcher Charlie Casey Nicholson of the Neal Williams lab and the Elina Lastro Niño lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won the 2021 contest by photographing a B. melanopygus at 3:10 p.m., Jan. 14 in a manzanita patch in the Arboretum.  

Thorp, a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, co-authored two books in 2014, during his retirement:  Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University,) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday). Every year he looked forward to finding or seeing the first bumble bee in the area. He co-taught The Bee Course from 2002 to 2019. An intensive nine-day workshop affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History and held annually at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz., it draws participants from around the world, includkng conservation biologists, pollination ecologists, and other biologists who want to gain greater knowledge of the systematics and biology of bees.

For years, Thorp monitored Franklin's bumble bee, found only in a small range in Southern Oregon and Northern California, and now feared extinct. He last spotted it in 2006.

The bumble bee contest originated in 2012 with the "Bombus posse" of Thorp, Allan Jones, Gary Zamzow, Kim Chacon and Kathy Keatley Garvey, who engaged in a friendly contest to see who could find the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area. The first bumble bee to emerge in the area is usually the black-tailed bumble bee. B. melanopygus, Thorp used to say. Another early bumble bee is the yellow-faced bumble bee, B. vosnesenskii.

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens. It also houses a live petting zoo and an insect-themed gift shop. It is open to the public from 8 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, excluding university holidays.

It's bee-ginning to look a lot like Christmas... 

All hail our littlest agricultural worker.

European colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) to what is now the United States in 1622.  Specifically, the bees arrived at the Jamestown colony (Virginia). Native Americans nicknamed the honey bee "the white man's fly."

California would have to wait until 1853 for honey bees to arrive. That's when Texas beekeeper Christopher Shelton, brought his colonies to the San Jose area. A plaque outside the international terminal of the San Jose airport documents their arrival. 

The plaque, "First Honeybees in California," reads:

 "Here, on the 1939-acre Rancho Potrero de Santa Clara, Christopher A. Shelton in early March 1853 introduced the honey bee to California. In Aspinwall, Panama, Shelton purchased 12 bee hives from a New Yorker and transported them by rail, “bongo,” pack mule and steamship to San Francisco. Only enough bees survived to fill one hive, but these quickly propagated, laying the foundation for California's modern beekeeping industry. California registered Landmark No. 945 plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in Cooperation with E. Clampus Vitus, Mountain Charlie Chapter No. 1850, and in honor of San Jose City Historian Clyde Arbuckle, March 6, 1982."

According to atlasobscura.com, "In 1853, Texan Christopher A. Shelton purchased 12 hives of bees from an unknown beekeeper in what is now Colon, Panama. The bees, already transported to Panama from New York, were then sent up to San Francisco and Alviso, the nearest port to San Jose, by steamer. They then continued their journey via train and mule to the 1939-acre Rancho Potrero de Santa Clara where Shelton settled."

"Only enough bees to form one hive survived," the Atlas Obscura post related. "These German black bees (Apis mellifera mellifera) endured the tedious trek and were propagated throughout California and soon the whole of the West Coast. Shelton was not so fortunate and died alongside other prominent South Bay Residents of the time on the infamous Jenny Lind steamship explosion just a month after the receipt of his bees. His three hives—it didn't take long for his original stock to multiply—were sold at auction for $110 each, 22 times the price of a beehive on the East Coast."

Ever seen the inside of a hive? That's where the magic begins. You'll see "The Girls": the queen, nurse maids, nannies, royal attendants, builders, architects, dancers, honey tenders, pollen packers, propolis or "glue" specialists, air conditioning and heating technicians, guards, and undertakers.

And in spring, summer and early fall, you'll see "The Boys," the drones. They have one responsibility: reproduction. The drone mates in mid-air with a virgin queen, and then he dies--"and with a smile on his face," according to the UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022). 

As we celebrate Merry Christmas and the New Year, the bees could use some cele-bee-tion, too.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Bug Squad. 

Back in 2010, UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and yours truly, department communications specialist, wondered why no insects appear in "The Twelve Days of Christmas."  

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Just a partridge in a pear tree, 2 turtle doves, 3 French hens, 4 calling birds, 5 gold rings, 6 geese-a-laying, 7 swans-a-swimming, 8 maids a'milking, 9 ladies dancing, 10 lords-a-leaping, and 11 pipers piping.

Where, oh, where, are all the insects?

So we replaced "five gold rings" with "five golden bees."  Other insects crawled, hopped, leaped and fluttered into the song.  We sang the piece during our 2010 UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology holiday party. The lyrics went viral when U.S. News picked it up:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a psyllid in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 2 tortoises beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 10 locusts leaping, 9 mayflies dancing,  8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 11 queen bees piping, 10 locusts leaping, 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 12 deathwatch beetles drumming, 11 queen bees piping, 10 locusts leaping, 9 mayflies dancing, 8 ants a'milking aphids, 7 boatmen swimming, 6 lice a'laying, 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree

"On the 13th day of Christmas, Californians woke to see: 13 Kaphra beetles, ?12 Diaprepes weevils, ?11 citrus psyllids, ?10 Tropilaelaps clareae, ?9 melon fruit flies, 8 Aedes aegypti, 7 ash tree borers, 6 six spotted-wing Drosophila, 5 ?five gypsy moths, 4 Japanese beetles, 3 imported fire ants, 2 brown apple moths, and a medfly in a pear tree."

Today the song is still making the rounds, but with some different pests--pests that challenge entomologists in the California Department of Food and Agriculture: 

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a psyllid in a pear tree.
One the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two peach fruit flies
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, three false codling moths
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, four peach fruit flies
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, five gypsy moths
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six white striped fruit flies
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, seven imported fire ants
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eight longhorn beetles
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, nine melon fruit flies
On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, ten brown apple moths
On the 11th  day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eleven citrus psyllids
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, twelve guava fruit flies.
On the 13th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, thirteen Japanese beetles

And, then, of course, there's that dratted pest, the Varroa destructor (varroa mite) from Asia, which arrived in the United States in 1987. Known as the No. 1 enemy of beekeepers, this external parasitic mite feeds on fat body tissue, and can transmit debilitating viruses. This is not what you want for Christmas--or any other time.

'Tis the season to celebrate the holidays...and to check your Yule tree branches for a praying mantis egg case (ootheca).