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.

Hello, Friday Fly Day!

It's time to post an image of syrphid fly, aka hover fly or flower fly.

We took this dorsal view of a syrphid fly in January of 2009.

This syrphid fly, probably as Syrphus opinator, was warming its flight muscles in the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, part of the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.  These flies are often mistaken for honey bees.

Interested in flower flies and their biological control roles? You'll want to read entomologist Robert Bugg's piece on "Flower Flies (Syrphidae) and Other Biological Control Agents for Aphids in Vegetable Crops" (Publication 8285, May 2008, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.)  Bugg, who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis,  and his four co-authors illustrated the 25-page research article with photos that will help you recognize many of the syrphids.

At the time Bugg was a senior analyst, agricutural ecology, UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, UC Davis. Perfect name for an entomologist, don't you think?

Happy Friday Fly Day!

The late Robbin Thorp, UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, would have been proud of the California Bumble Bee Atlas and its conservation plans.

Professor Thorp (1933-2019), a 30-year member of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and a worldwide authority on bees, was a tireless advocate of bumble bee conservation. During his retirement, he co-authored Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014).

And every summer from 2002 to 2018, Thorp volunteered his time and expertise to teach at The Bee Course, an annual workshop sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and held at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz.

Thorp also served as the regional co-chair of the Wild Bee Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and sounded the alarm about bumble bee declines, including Franklin's bumble bee, Bombus franklini, found only in its narrow distribution range of southern Oregon and northern California. Thorp last saw it near Mt. Ashland in 2006 and it is is now feared extinct or at the brink of extinction. The bee inhabits--or did--a 13,300-square-mile area confined to five counties--Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California; and Jackson, Douglas and Josephine counties in Oregon.

Enter the California Bumble Bee Atlas (CBBA), a collaboration of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW),  Sacramento, and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, headquartered in Portland, Ore.  Launched in March 2022, the Atlas is a "collaborative community science effort to track and conserve the state's native bumble bee species," according to Dylan Winkler, bumble bee scientific aide for the CDFW's Wildlife Diversity Program. 

Back in September 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the American bumble bee, "whose populations have plummeted by nearly 90 percent, may warrant Endangered Species Act protection." The announcement kicked off a one-year status assessment of the species. (See news story)

If you're interested in bumble bee conservation, take note. Winkler will lead a "Bumble Bee Walk" from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 28 in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. The goal is to teach interested participants how to survey bumble bees. You can pre-register at https://arcg.is/0PDyO4. Organizers plan to cap attendance at 20 people. Details about this Atlas event and several more scheduled in June:

• Saturday, May 28: UC Davis Arboretum, Davis, CA (Yolo County), parking at Putah Creek Lodge Parking Lot, Garrod Drive, Davis, CA 95616. Tour of the native plant gardens and the forest along Putah Creek from 10 a.m. to noon.
• Saturday, June 4: The Gardens at Lake Merritt, 666 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA (Alameda County). Tour of the gardens from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
• Sunday, June 5: College of Marin at Kentfield (Marin County), parking at covered Lots 6/7 off College Ave, Kentfield, CA 94904. Details: Meet at bridge over Corte Madera Creek. Tour of the campus native plants from 10 a.m. to noon.
• Saturday, June 18: Soil Born Farms, Rancho Cordova, CA (Sacramento County), parking at Soil Born Farms: American River Ranch, 2140 Chase Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670. As part of National Pollinator Week, the group will tour the gardens from 10 a.m. to noon. Closed-toed shoes required.

Of the 50 species of bumble bees found in North America, an estimated 25 inhabit California. Overall, a quarter is at risk, according to the Atlas website.  The decline is attributed to "loss or fragmentation of habitat, pesticide exposure, climate change, overgrazing, competition with honey bees, low genetic diversity, and perhaps most significant of all, the introduction and distribution of pathogens through commercial honey bee and bumble bee colonies used for crop pollination. All of these factors likely interact, increasing pollinator vulnerability. To support bumble bees, it is critical to protect existing habitat while creating and maintaining new habitat."

Winkler says "we will be using butterfly nets to catch bees, then move them to small vials, and chill them in coolers with ice, so we can take ID'able photographs of them before releasing." The full protocol is at https://www.cabumblebeeatlas.org/point-surveys.html  

What bumble bees might you see May 28 in the Arboretum?  Bombus vosnesenskii, the yellow-faced bumble bee, and  B. melanopygus, the black-tailed bumble bee. "There is a record of B. crotchii at the arboretum from last year around the same date, which is rare and would be amazing to see!" Winkler said.

The project is funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Fund. Funding is also provided by the Bureau of Land Management and several private foundations. Read more about the project and the list of coordinators here. 

Entomologists, horticulturists, botanists, anthropologists, paleontologists, nematologists, biologists, ornithologists and other scientists are gearing up for the 11th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, set from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday, March 6 in the UC Davis Conference Center, 550 Alumni Lane.  

Admission and parking are free, but visitors must adhere to the COVID-19 Campus Ready guidelines. Masks will be required in accordance with campus policies, organizers said. (See news story)

It's a science-based event featuring scores of exhibits and it's an opportunity for visitors to chat with the scientists. Eleven UC Davis museums and collections will showcase their displays, ranging from stick insects to hawks to yeast cultures:

• Arboretum and Public Garden
• Bee Haven
• Bohart Museum of Entomology
• Botanical Conservatory
• California Raptor Center 
• Center for Plant Diversity
• Department of Anthropology Museum
• Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
• Nematode Collection
• Paleontology Collection
• Phaff Yeast Culture Collection

In addition to the central exposition, several side tours are planned. Destinations: Bohart Museum of Entomology, Bee Garden, Botanical Conservatory and the Yeast Culture Collection.  The newest addition?

The Arboretum and Public Garden will provide two 30-45 minute tours, "Climate-Ready Tree Project: Texas Tree Trials." Groups will leave the Conference Center at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.  "Join us at Biodiversity Day for a tour of the Arboretum and Public Garden's new Texas Tree Trial Research Grove!" invites Rachel Davis, GATEways horticulturist and museum scientist at the Arboretum and Public Garden. "Tag along and learn about what the Urban Tree Stewardship student intern team is doing to promote a resilient and climate-adapted tree canopy in the Sacramento Valley. Make sure to bring hats, good walking shoes, and a curious attitude!"  

The Texas Tree Trials project is an exciting one.  In the face of climate change, what trees should we plant in the Sacramento Valley region that could might do better in our triple-digit temperatures and ensuing drought? What trees are the most resilient?

As Urban Tree Stewardship interns Akanksha Pabari and Karla Tapia of Learning by Leading write on the Arboretum website: "As climate change becomes a more urgent issue and global temperatures continue to rise, 58% of our current urban tree species are predicted to be to be unsuitable for the projected 2100 climate in the Sacramento Valley region (McBride & Lacán, 20181). To prepare for this monumental loss, the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden is working hard to establish a more resilient and climate-adapted tree canopy.  With support from the Saratoga Horticultural Research Endowment, the Texas Tree Trials will provide the long-term research needed to adapt by testing the drought and heat tolerance of 40 new and underutilized tree species from west and central Texas. The knowledge and selections from these field trials will help the Sacramento Valley region diversify its urban forest to ensure its resilience in a changing world."

The team collected seeds from west and central Texas, referencing climate models.

"With support from the Saratoga Horticultural Research Endowment, Arboretum and Public Garden staff and students have collected and propagated over 1,000 trees and are currently planting and monitoring trees at the first field trial site," according to the Pabari-Tapla article. The Arboretum's Texas Tree Trials Database is a resource for "horticulturists, arborists, researchers and all tree lovers."  

Some of the trees are virtual "food banks" for insects. 

"Many of the trees are keystone oaks that support tons of insects," Davis related. "There are also some flowering trees like Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa) and mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) that are amazing for pollinators." Check out the full list here.  

The mesquite tree, for example, attracts honey bees and native bees that forage for nectar and pollen. It's also the host plan for several species of butterflies. 

"Through this research, the Arboretum and Public Garden hopes to expand the availability of promising, climate-adapted, and resilient trees to ensure that our beautiful and vibrant tree canopy continues to flourish," the Pabari-Tapla team wrote.  "So next time you visit the Arboretum and Public Garden, be sure to stop by and enjoy the new planting site with all of the novel trees that will hopefully shade us for generations to come."

In the meantime, get out those walking shoes for the March 6th Texas Tree Trials Tour (TTTT)!

And if you'd like to help support the Biodiversity Museum Day Crowdfund, which ends at 12:50 p.m., Feb. 18, you can access the project at https://bit.ly/3HPhSaA.  Donors can be anonymous in name or contribution, or can donate in honor of or in memory of someone. Contributions from $5 on up are welcome, said the two project managers Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology, and Rachel Davis. The goal is $5000.