Fairfield resident Nancy Hansen won the 4th annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest with a video of a black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus that she submitted to the sponsor, the Bohart Museum of Entomology, at 10:57 a.m., Monday, Jan. 1.

She took the video in her Madrone tree, Arbutus menziesii, in her back yard. (See video on YouTube)

Contest coordinator Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology and director of the Bohart Museum, applauded the winner as the earliest ever recipient, and the first from Solano County.

Contest rules state that 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 the legendary Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor and a 30-year member of the Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, monitored for decades.

"I've lived in Fairfield since 1970 and I retired from Kaiser Medical Center Vallejo after 33 years," Hansen said. "I'm a longtime gardener and flower-aholic!  I'm very interested in soil health,  pollinators and in soil microbes. I didn't plant the Madrone tree but I'm happy it provides food for pollinators most of the year. The first year we lived here, 2017,   the tree was full of bees. Their buzz sounded like an airplane engine, but since then I've seen fewer and fewer bees."

"On Monday I was out back enjoying the bit of sunshine that had peaked through the clouds when  I heard buzzing in my Madrone tree.  I went over, looked and I saw a lot of honey bees, but then I looked up and saw the bumble bee. I ran to get my camera hoping I could catch his picture before he flew away."

Hansen retired as a cardiology technician at Vallejo's Kaiser facility, where she performed the cardiology testing for the doctors. "It was one of the most interesting and varied jobs in the facility," she said. "I learned so much during my working years. I was in charge of training new employees so I was able to pass that knowledge on."

Previous record-holders: 

2023: Ria deGrassi of Davis, who photographed a B. melanopygus at 12:32, Jan. 8 on a ceanothus in her yard.

2022: Tie between Maureen Page, then a doctoral candidate in the lab of pollination ecologist Neal Williams, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology; and Ellen Zagory of Davis, retired director of public horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Each photographed a bumble bee on manzanita in the  Arboretum at 2:30 p.m., Jan. 1.  Page photographed a B. melanopygus, while Zagory captured an image of the yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii. 

2021: UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Charlie Casey Nicholson, then of the Williams lab and the Elina Lastro Niño lab, photographed a B. melanopygus at 3:10 p.m., Jan. 14 in a manzanita patch in the Arboretum.

The contest memorializes Professor Thorp, a global authority on bees and a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, who died June 7, 2019 at age 85. 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. 

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.

Thorp 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, including 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.

Senior scientist Arnon Dag of the Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Institute, Israel, will speak on "Improving Cross-Pollination in Deciduous Fruit Trees" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar on Monday, Nov. 27.

Dag will present his seminar at 4:10 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall. It also will be on Zoom: the Zoom link:
 https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.

"Tree crops belonging to the Rosaceae, such as almond, pear, apple, and sweet cherry, depend on cross-pollination by insects to set fruit," Dag says in his abstract. "The primary pollinator of the crops is the honey bee (Apis mellifera). However, due to harsh climatic conditions during flowering, limited movement of bees between cultivars, low preference of the bees for flowers of the target crop, and limited overlap in flowering between the cultivars, pollination is a primary factor limiting yield. Our group has tested multiple approaches to mitigate this problem: Using 'Pollen dispensers,' sequential introduction of beehives to the orchards, selection of honeybee strains with higher preference for the target crop, introduction of bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) colonies and phosphorous fertilization to increase nectar secretion and improve crop-flower attractiveness. I will summarize the effects of those methods on fruit set and yield in apples, almonds, and pears." 

A native of Moshav Lachish, Israel,  Dag received his bachelor's degree (1990) and master's degree (1992)  in life sciences at the Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University. His master's thesis: "Improving the Honey Bee Efficiency of Melon Pollination in Greenhouses." He obtained his doctorate in agriculture at the Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His thesis: "Pollenizers, Pollinators and Pollination in Mango." He held postdoctoral positions at both Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dag's research interests include fruit tree physiology, olive biology and cultivation, reproductive biology of fruit trees, crop pollination, pomology in semi-arid conditions and "developing guava as an export crop."

He served as an Extension specialist in beekeeping from 1991 to 2003 for the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture.

Seminar coordinator is Brian Johnson, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. For Zoom technical issues, he may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu. The list of seminars is posted here. 

What exactly happened when two predators and their prey--a praying mantis, a green darner dragonfly, a queen bee and a monarch butterfly--recently entered the Bohart Museum of Entomology with assorted entomologists?

They all socialized and enjoyed a buffet dinner, followed by a cake. No predation! The occasion: the Bohart Museum's annual pre-Halloween party, hosted by the Bohart Museum Society. 

• The queen bee: UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum
• The praying mantis: Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum
• The green darner dragonfly: Christofer Brothers, a UC Davis doctoral candidate researching dragonflies
• The monarch: Barbara Heinsch, a Bohart Museum volunteer, who arrived with her entomologist-husband, Mike Pitcairn, retired  senior environmental scientist, supervisor, California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). He wore his CDFA lab coat and swung an insect net.

UC Davis entomology alumna Ivana Li, a biology lab manager at UC Davis, catered the event and arrived with her dog, Juniper, dressed as a taco. Lynn Kimsey cut a carrot cake,  decorated with tiny carrots and large googly eyes. Forensic entomologist Robert "Bob" Kimsey, dressed in his ghillie suit,  served beverages.

Some attendees, including Joanna Chiu, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology; UC Davis doctoral alumna Fran Keller, professor at Folsom Lake College; Bohart Museum associate Greg Karofelas; UC Davis doctoral alumnus Dick Meyer (who studied with the late Richard Bohart); and entomology student Kaitai Liu, arrived as themselves, sans Halloween costumes. 

Background. The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live insect petting zoo and a gift shop. Founded in 1946 by the late UC Davis professor Richard Bohart, it has been directed by Kimsey, his former doctoral student, since 1990. 

Kimsey was recently selected the recipient of the 2023 Exceptional Faculty Award from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES).  She will be honored at the CA&ES Award of Distinction dinner on Thursday, Nov. 2 in the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) Ballroom

A recognized authority on insect biodiversity, systematics and biogeography of parasitic wasps, urban entomology, civil forensic entomology, and arthropod-related industrial hygiene, Kimsey is a 34-year member of the UC Davis entomology faculty and a UC Davis alumna, holding bachelor and doctoral degrees in entomology. 

When former department chair Richard Bohart (for whom the museum is named), founded the museum in 1946, it was a “hole in the wall” in Briggs Hall that included only 400 insect specimens. Under Kimsey's tenure,  it has grown to a global collection of eight million insect specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America.

The Bohart draws an average of 15,000 visitors a year, adds an average of 30,000 new specimens annually, and loans an average 7000 specimens yearly to scientists worldwide. It supports campus classes with specimens, live insects and exhibits in keeping with its mission:  “Understanding, documenting and communicating terrestrial arthropod diversity.” 

Wings up!

Butterfly and monarch scientists will discuss their expertise at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on "Monarchs," set Saturday, Nov. 4 from 1 to 4 p.m.

The event, free and family friendly, will be held in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane. This is an opportunity for attendees to ask questions about monarchs (Danaus plexippus) and native vs. non-native milkweed, among other topics.

The scientists will include:

• UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, who has studied butterfly populations in central California since 1972 and maintains a research website, Art's Butterfly World.
  
  
• UC Davis emeritus professor Hugh Dingle, a worldwide authority on animal migration, including monarchs.  He is the author of Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move (Oxford University Press), a sequel to the first edition published in 1996. See news story on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
  
  
• UC Davis professor Louie Yang, who does research on monarchs. Due to parental duties, he may be able to attend only the last part of the open house. See news story about his work.
  
  
• UC Davis professor Elizabeth Crone of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, formerly of Tufts University, who researches monarchs. See news story about the declining monarch population on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
  
  
• UC Davis postdoctoral fellow Aramee Diethelm of the Elizabeth Crone lab. She holds a doctorate from the University of Nevada, Reno.  Both her Ph.D. and postdoctoral work are on monarch butterflies.  As a doctoral student, she investigated the phytochemical landscape of milkweed (Asclepias) species across northern Nevada and the effects of this variation on western monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly performance. See her research posted on Google Scholar, and her blog on "Drought Influences Monarch Host Plant Selection."

Shapiro points out that the monarch "is NOT a focal species in my research and I am NOT a monarch expert. On the other hand, I have a unique breeding-season census data set starting in 1999. The only other census data are for the overwintering roosts on the coast. It has become apparent that the two data sets do not always agree." Shapiro said he'd talk briefly about this at the open house. 

"The iconic black and orange monarch butterfly is known for its astonishing long-distance annual migration and reliance on milkweed as its obligate larval host plant," according to a post on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). "Though genetically similar, there are two subpopulations of monarchs in North America, with the eastern population overwintering in Mexico and breeding in the midwestern states, and the western population overwintering in coastal California and fanning out across the west from Arizona to Idaho. Outside the U.S., there are at least 74 known populations of resident, non-migratory monarchs that have established around the world in the past 200 years, all with origins in North America (Nial et al. 2019)."

"Both North American migratory populations have declined over the past twenty years due to a suite of interrelated factors including habitat loss in breeding and overwintering sites, habitat degradation, disease, pesticide exposure, and climate change," CDFW says. "Recently the western population has experienced dramatic swings, for a low of less than 2,000 in 2020-21 to over 200,000 in 2021-22 (Xerces Society Western Monarch Count). While it is unclear which of the many factors are driving these dynamics, insect population commonly fluctuate from year to year. The overall downward trend remains concerning, particularly if the threats are not ameliorated. Though more research is needed, a stable population for western monarchs is likely closer to the historic averages in the 1980's, which are estimated to have ranged between one to four million overwintering butterflies."

"n 2014, monarchs were petitioned to be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. In December 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that listing was warranted but precluded by other listing actions on its National Priority List. The monarch is currently slated to be listed in 2024."

The monarch population is in trouble. Says the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in a post on its website: "In the 1990s, hundreds of millions of monarchs made the epic flight each fall from the northern plains of the U.S. and Canada to sites in the oyamel fir forests in central Mexico, and more than a million monarchs overwintered in forested groves on the California coast. Now, researchers and community scientists estimate that only a fraction of the population remains—a decline of approximately 70% has been seen in central Mexico and a decline of >90% has been seen in California."

Resources/Further Reading:

• Monarch Butterfly, California Department of Fish and Wildlife
• Research Permits, CDFW
• Western Monarch Mllkweed Mapper 
• Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program, Monarch Joint Venture
• Western Monarch Count, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
• Monarch Butterfly Conservation, Xerces Society
• Spreading Milkweed, Not Myths, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
• Habitat Corridor Project, Views on milkweed
• Tropical Milkweed Doesn't Deserve the Bad Rap, Bug Squad blog, views on the ban of tropical milkweed by UC Davis emeriti professors Art Shapiro and Hugh Dingle, and Washington State University entomologist David James,  who studies migratory monarchs.