Are you ready for National Pollinator Week, June 18-June 24?

A spectacular pollinator garden that's a "must-see" is Kate Frey's pollinator garden at Sonoma Cornerstone.

Kate Frey, a world-class pollinator garden designer, pollinator advocate and author who addressed the UC Davis Bee Symposium in March on "Designing Bee Friendly Gardens," has created a masterpiece. And yes, the pollinator garden is open to the public--no admission fee.

We visited the garden last Saturday and saw a pipevine swallowtail nectaring on Nepeta tuberosa, yellow-faced bumble bees sipping nectar from Stachys bullata, hummingbirds scoring nectar from salvia, and honey bees foraging on everything from Scabiosa "Fama Blue" to a native milkweed, Asclepias speciosa.

This is a happy place.

As she told the crowd at the Bee Symposium, hosted by the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology:  Whether you plant them, nurture them, or walk through them, bee gardens make us happy.

Frey, a resident of Hopland, is the author of the award-winning book, The Bee Friendly Garden, with Professor Gretchen LeBuhn of San Francisco State University, a book that details how to design an abundant, flower-filled garden that nurtures bees and supports biodiversity. She's a two-time gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show and co-founder of The American Garden School.  (Read this Bug Squad post to learn her favorite plants and how to attract pollinators.)

Frey's sign at the Sonoma pollinator garden explains that "All the plants offer food resources of pollen and nectar for pollinators such as native bees, honey bees, hummingbirds and beneficial insects. Pollen is a protein, mineral and fat source and is primarily a larval food for bees, while nectar is composed of various sugars and is the main food for pollinators and the adult life stage of many beneficial insects. Pollinators need a continuous food source for many months of the year. This garden contains a range of plants that will bloom in succession from early spring to late fall."

Frey's sign also noted that "Pollinators all have preferred plants they feed from, and flowers cater to specific pollinators. Some flower shapes are designed to exclude unwanted pollinators. The long, constricted floral tubes of honeysuckles or many salvia exhibit their focus on hummingbirds as primary pollinators. Other flowers nectar, like coffee berry is easily accessible to all pollinators. This garden contains a wide range of plants to appear to a variety of pollinators. Over 80 percent of flowering plants require insect or animal pollination. What insects or birds do you see visiting each flower type?"

Well, let's see: bees, butterflies, and birds...Apis mellifera, Battus philenor, Bombus vosnesenskii, Papilio rutulus, Calypte anna...

"The same plants that support pollinators," Frey indicated on the sign, "also make us happy."

They do! Happiness is a pollinator garden...

The University of California, Davis, is the place to "bee" on Saturday, April 7.

There's a plant sale at the UC Davis Arboretum Nursery on Garrod Drive from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and there's an open house and plant sale at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Bee Biology Road.

And they are within several miles of one another.

At the one-acre Arboretum Nursery,  you'll find what the officials are calling "an incredible selection of Arboretum All-Stars, California natives and thousands of other attractive, low-water plants perfect for creating a landscape alive with environmentally important pollinators."  You'll find drought-tolerant, easy-care plants. Look for the inventory here. Members receive discounts, and you can join online, at the gate. Credit cards are accepted.

At the bee haven, operated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, you're likely to find asters, California fuchsia, salvia, ceanothus, manzanita, coffeeberry and currant.  Favorites include Salvia "Bee's Bliss" and Ceanothus "Valley Violet." Check out the plant list here. Payment is cash only.

As the temperatures soar to 80 degrees, and the ground warms up, the green thumbs are emerging! So are the honey bees, native bees and other pollinators...

If you're a graduate student engaged in pollinator research, you may want to enter the Graduate Student Research Poster competition, to take place Saturday, March 3 during the fourth annual UC Davis Bee Symposium in the UC Davis Conference Center. The winners will share $1800 in cash prizes.

But you have only until Feb. 12 to submit your application to Liz Luu at luu@caes.ucdavis.edu.  For the rules, see this web page.

The competition is open to all graduate students throughout the country involved in pollinator research, Luu says. Judging criteria? Objectives, methodology, results, research significance, conclusions, appearance, and presentation and interaction with the judges.  The winner receives $1000, while the second-place award is $750; third place, $500; and fourth place, $250.

The poster competition is a traditional part of the daylong symposium, hosted by the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Keynote speaker is bee scientist/professor/author Tom Seeley of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., who will discuss "Darwinian Beekeeping." Seeley is the Horace White Professor in Biology, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, where he teaches courses on animal behavior and researches the behavior and social life of honey bees. He is the author of three major books, Honeybee Ecology: A Study of Adaptation in Social Life(1985), The Wisdom of the Hive: the Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies (1995), and Honeybee Democracy(2010), all published by Princeton University Press. His books will be available for purchase and signing at the symposium.

The 2017 poster competition drew 14 posters throughout the country. Phillipp Brand, a graduate student in the Santiago Ramirez lab, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, and a member of the Population Biology Graduate Group, won the competition for his research on "The Evolution of Sex Pheromone Communication in a Pair of Sibling Species of Orchid Bees." He received $1000.

Brand, who joined the Ramirez lab in 2013, obtained his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Dusseldorf, Germany, and then went on to pursue his master's degree there, studying the evolutionary history and the patterns of selection of olfactory receptor genes in a pair of sister lineages of euglossine bees.

"Pheromone communication has long been known to play a central role in the origin and evolution of species diversity throughout the tree of life," he wrote in the introduction on his poster. "What are the underlying genetic and molecular mechanisms that control pheromone variation and signal detection?"

Other 2017 winners were:

• Second place, $750; Jacob Peters, Harvard University, “Self-Organization of Collective Nest Ventilation by Honey Bees”
• Third place, $500; John Mola, UC Davis, “Fire-Induced Change in Flowering Phenology Benefits Bumble Bees"
• Fourth place, $250; Devon Picklum, University of Nevada, Reno, “Floral Visitation and pollen Deposition Bombus- Pollinated Dodecatheon Apinum and Pedicularis Groenlandica in the Sierra Nevada”

The fourth annual UC Davis Bee Symposium: Keeping Bees Healthy is designed for beekeepers of all experience levels, including gardeners, farmers and anyone interested in the world of pollination and bees," said Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center. "In addition to our speakers, there will be lobby displays featuring graduate student research posters, the latest in beekeeping equipment, books, honey, plants, and much more." Registration is underway. 

The conference begins with registration and a continental breakfast at 8:30 a.m., with welcomes and introductions at 9 a.m., by Amina Harris and Neal Williams, UC Davis professor of entomology and faculty co-director of the center. See more at http://honey.ucdavis.edu/events/2018-bee-symposium.