- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
All classes, taught by Haven manager Christine Casey, are offered as either remote ($25 registration) or hybrid remote/in-person ($40 registration). All proceeds support the Haven.
Excerpts from the Bee Haven website:
I Planted a Bee Garden: Now What?
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 9 to 10:30 a.m.
Many California gardeners are removing their water-hungry turf and replacing it with lower-water plants that provide food and habitat for bees and other animals. But if all you know about garden maintenance is how to start the lawnmower, deciding what to plant and learning how to maintain it can be daunting.
Aimed at beginning bee gardeners, this class will cover the basics of turf conversion and weed control along with plant selection for bees and other pollinators. We'll also cover maintenance of a turf yard compared to planted borders.
Registration links: remote class or remote/in-person class.
Advanced Bee Gardening
Saturday, April 22, 2023, 9 to 10:30 am
This class is for experienced gardeners who want to better support bees in their gardens. We'll discuss garden design and plant selection based on bee biology as well as how to encourage insect natural enemies to keep bee gardens pesticide-free. We'll also learn about some of the latest research on bees and gardens and how to incorporate this into your garden. The class will conclude with a tour of the Haven for a hands-on look at plants and bees.
Registration links: remote class or remote/in-person class.
Collecting Bees Through Photos
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Bees are fascinating animals, and many people are intrigued by the idea of having their own bee collection for closer observation. An effective way to ‘collect' bees without harm is by making a bee photo album. We'll start with an overview of bee anatomy and classification and learn how to distinguish bees from other insects. We'll then look at key features of common bees that can be used to identify them in flight. The class will finish outdoors for hands-on experience observing, identifying, and photographing bees.
Registration links: remote class or remote/in-person class.
The Haven, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, is open daily at no charge from dawn to dusk.
History of the Bee Garden.
Häagen-Dazs wanted the funds to benefit sustainable pollination research, target colony collapse disorder, and support a postdoctoral researcher. It was decided to install an educational garden, conduct a design contest, and award a research postdoctoral fellowship to Michelle Flenniken (now with the Montana State University).
A Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--won the design competition. The garden was installed in the fall of 2009 under the direction of interim department chair Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology.
An eight-member panel selected the winner of the design competition: Professor Kimsey; founding garden manager Missy Borel (now Missy Borel Gable), then of the California Center for Urban Horticulture; David Fujino, executive director, California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis; Aaron Majors, construction department manager, Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors, based in Novato; Diane McIntyre, senior public relations manager, Häagen-Dazs ice cream; Heath Schenker, professor of environmental design, UC Davis; Jacob Voit, sustainability manager and construction project manager, Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors; and Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology.
"The Honey Bee Haven will be a pollinator paradise," Kimsey related in December 2008. "It will provide a much needed, year-round food source for our bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. We anticipate it also will be a gathering place to inform and educate the public about bees. We are grateful to Haagen-Dazs for its continued efforts to ensure bee health."
The garden, Kimsey said, would include a seasonal variety of blooming plants that will provide a year-round food source for honey bees. It would be a living laboratory supporting research into the nutritional needs and natural feeding behaviors of honey bees and other insect pollinators.
Visitors to the garden, she said, would able to glean ideas on how to establish their own bee-friendly gardens and help to improve the nutrition of bees in their own backyards.
The timeline:
Feb. 19, 2008
Häagen-Dazs Donation to UC Davis
Dec. 8, 2008
Häagen-Dazs Launches Bee Garden Design Contest
Aug. 6, 2008
Insect Virus Researcher Michelle Flenniken Named Häagen-Dazs Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Davis
Feb. 26, 2009
Sausalito Team Wins Design Competition
Aug. 6, 2009
Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven Site Preparation
Aug. 13, 2009
Bee Biology Website to Be Launched
Aug. 13, 2009
Thinking Outside the Box
Sept. 15, 2009
Campus Buzzway: Wildflowers
Dec. 15, 2009
Bee Biology Website Lauded
2010
June 6, 2010
Grand Opening Celebration of Honey Bee Garden
July 15, 2010
Art Is Where the Community Is; Blending Science with Art in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
July 30, 2010
More Than 50 Bee Species Found in Haven: Robbin Thorp (Now there's more than 80 and counting!)
Aug. 25, 2010
Donna Billick: Miss Bee Haven
Aug. 11, 2011
What the Signs Tell Us in the UC Davis Honey Bee Garden
Aug. 24, 2011
Royal Visit to Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility
April 11, 2012
Brian Fishback: Spreading the Word about Honey Bees
Aug. 26, 2013
Eagle Scout Project: Fence Around the Bee Garden
Sept. 11 2012
A Fence to Behold
2013
April 25, 2013
UC Davis Bee Team Wins Major Award
Aug. 1, 2013
Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven Place to Be
With photo of founding volunteers
Donors
List of Donors Who Helped Launch the Garden (2009 through July 2014)
Missy Borel, then manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture (and now Missy Borel Gable, director of the California Master Gardener Program) served as the founding manager, a part-time position. Nineteen volunteers assisted her.
Today the bee garden is the UC Davis Bee Haven. Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, serves as the faculty director of the garden. Christine Casey is the academic program manager. For more information on the garden, access the Bee Haven website or contact beegarden@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Following on the heels of its 2022 open house on "Eight-Legged Wonders," the Bohart Museum of Entomology will showcase spiders, millipedes, centipedes, scorpions, tarantulas and isopods—and more—at its open house themed “Many-Legged Wonders” on Saturday, March 18.
The event, free and family friendly, will be from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. A family arts and crafts activity is also planned.
Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart announced that doctoral candidates Emma Jochim and Xavier Zahnle of the Jason Bond arachnology lab will dispel myths about spiders and millipedes at a question-and-answer session from 1 to 1:30. Doctoral student Iris Quayle will moderate.
From 1:30 to 4 p.m., will be the general open house with a showing of live animals and specimens. UC Davis student Elijah Shih will display his isopods, which are crustaceans and have 14 legs.
Shih, a third-year transfer student studying neurobiology, physiology and behavior, says that “Isopods come in many morphs and sizes. There are many colorful and beautifully patterned isopods, some natural, some man made. Isopods are crustaceans and require moisture to breathe and molt properly. Some species have the ability to conglobate or roll up in to the ball where as others do not. They are great for helping create a bioactive system for reptiles, planted tanks, and a great feeder for young reptiles and amphibians.”
“There are many isopod species in the world,” Shih related, “and at least five common isopod species that are found in California: Porcellio laevis, Porcellio scaber, Armadillidium vulgare, Porcellio dilatatus, and Cubaris marina. Their morphs are considered wild type.”
Shih, who hopes to pursue a career in veterinary medicine, said he houses “many reptiles, both aquatic and terrestrial, such as the box turtle and gargoyle gecko. I wanted to create bioactive environments for my reptiles—(mainly to not have to pick up the feces)-- so I looked for ways to make that possible. I need something that was small, agile, prolific, and safe to be eaten. Isopods, better known as Rollie pillows or pill bugs, are the best solution for me. I had my isopods, but to complete the cleanup crew, I added springtails to help clean up any leftover food, but more importantly, the mold.”
Bohart Museum research associate Brittany Kohler, the "zookeeper" of the Bohart petting zoo, says the current residents include:
- Princess Herbert, a Brazilian salmon-pink bird-eating tarantula (Lasiodora parahybana), age estimated to be around 20 (current oldest resident)
- Peaches, a Chilean rose hair tarantula (Grammostola rosea)
- Coco McFluffin, a Chaco golden knee tarantula (Grammostola pulchripes)
- Beatrice, a Vietnamese centipede (Scolopendra subspinipes), newest resident
- Two black widows (Latrodectus hesperus)
- One brown widow (Latrodectus geometricus)
Among the other residents are Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a giant cave cockroach, stick insects, a bark scorpion and ironclad beetles.
The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus the petting zoo and a gift shop stocked with insect-themed books, posters, jewelry, t-shirts, hoodies and more. Dedicated to "understanding, documenting and communicating terrestrial arthropod diversity," the Bohart Museum was founded in 1946 and named for UC Davis professor and noted entomologist Richard Bohart. The insect museum is open to the public Mondays through Thursdays, from 8 a.m. to noon, and 1 to 5 p.m.
More information is available on the Bohart website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or by emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The seminar, virtual only, will be at 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time, Wednesday, March 15. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672
"In a warming world, species may buffer to some extent part of the environmental changes by exploiting the microclimates that are available across space and time," Pincebourde says in his abstract. "My presentation will focus on the role of the leaf surface microclimate, and in particular temperature, in driving the vulnerability of insects to climate change. I will exemplify the framework we apply to investigate this role. Our approach is deeply rooted into a multidisciplinary background, relying on physics, physiology and ecology of both plant and animal sciences. The microclimatic effects can be quite subtle and mechanistic approaches are fundamentally needed to depict the complexity of the interaction between plant, insect and climate."
On Research Gate, Pincebourde explains that his work "focuses on the role of microclimates in modulating the response of ectotherms (mostly insects) to climate change. I use ecophysiological approaching mostly relying to thermal ecology, connected to the biophysical ecology of organisms. I integrate both temporal and spatial issues of thermal variability. My research has connection with conservation biology by identifying novel or unsuspected interactions between (micro) climates and organisms."
Urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor with the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology, and coordinator of the department's weekly seminars, will host the seminar and introduce him.
Pincebourde holds a doctorate (2005) from the Institute of Research on Insect Biology (IRBI), France, a joint research unit of the University of Tours and CNRS. He studied for his doctorate with Professor Jérôme Casas. Pincebourde then completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University South Carolina (2006-2007), supervised by Professor Brian Helmuth, and at IRBI (2008-2009), working with Professor Casas's team that studied the ecology of multitropic systems and biomimetism.
Pincebourde joined CNRS as a research scientist, second class, in 2009 and advanced to first class in 2015. Since 2018, he has been in charge of the IRBI's organism-environmental interactions team, known as INOV or the INteractions Organisme-enVironnment.
He has published his work in a number of journals, including Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Ecological Monographs, Agriculture and Forest Entomology, Functional Ecology, Journal of Thermal Biology, Biotropica, with papers pending in Global Change Biology and Freshwater Biology. He is a member of the editorial board for American Naturalist.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. (See schedule.) She may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu for technical issues.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Of the 14 awards, UC Riverside scored four; UC Davis, three; Washington State University, two; University of Arizona, two; Arizona State University, one; and USDA-ARS, two.
UC Davis-affiliated awards include two in the professional category, and one in the student category.
- Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. won the top award, the C. W. Woodworth Award. (See news story). He is the 12th UC Davis entomologist to win the award, first presented in 1969. Previous UC Davis recipients:
1978: William Harry Lange Jr. (1912-2004)
1981: Harry Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003)
1987: Robert Washino
1991: Thomas Leigh (1923-1993)
1998: Harry Kaya
2009: Charles Summers (1941-2021)
2010: Walter Leal
2011: Frank Zalom
2014: James R. Carey
2015: Thomas Scott
2020: Lynn Kimsey - Community ecologist Louie Yang won the Distinction in Student Mentoring Award, an award first presented in 2012. (See news story) He is the third UC Davis faculty member to receive the award. Previous UC Davis recipients:
2018: Jay Rosenheim
2020: Robert Kimsey - Research scholar Gary Ge of the UC Davis Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, won the second annual Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship. (See news story) Previous UC Davis recipient:
2022: Gwen Erdosh
In the United States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai'i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
U.S. Territories: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Johnston Atoll, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Midway Islands, Wake Island
In Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Yukon
In Mexico: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora
The complete list of winners is posted here.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ge, who studies with Professor Louie Yang of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and UC Davis Distinguished Professor Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, researches the American Apollo butterfly (Parnassius clodius) as a model to study how microclimatic conditions affect cold-adapted insects.
Ge will be honored at the annual PBESA meeting, April 2-5 in Seattle, which encompasses 11 Western states, plus Canada and Mexico and U.S. territories. Ge will receive a $1000 award for travel expenses and a waived registration fee. Last year UC Davis student Gwen Erdosh, also of RSPIP and a research scholar with the Yang lab, won the inaugural Garczynski scholarship.
Ge serves as a research assistant with Shapiro's Central California Butterfly Population and Diversity Trends Study. He works with Yang as a project manager and a research assistant on his Milkweed Phenology Study.
“Gary is a remarkable student with an excellent understanding of the butterflies he is studying," said Yang, who researches monarch butterflies and milkweed phenology and nominated Ge for the award. "Over the years, he has applied his longstanding enthusiasm for these butterflies to ask insightful questions about the thermal ecology of cold-adapted organisms under global warming. Gary has also demonstrated the determination and resilience required to overcome unexpected barriers and to see his research through to completion. He is a skilled and thoughtful scientist with the ability to make valuable contributions to ecology, and I've been happy to have had a chance to work with him.”
Ge just finished writing a National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) grant proposal. The results are expected to be announced in April.
His hypothesis: "that mid-elevation populations of P. clodius have the best cold tolerance as overwintering eggs. The main factor behind this is snow cover. Snow cover is known to provide significant insulation to whatever is underneath, usually creating higher microclimatic temperatures under the snow than above. At mid-elevations, the winter temperatures are lower than at low elevations, and the snow cover is supposedly less and more unstable compared to higher elevations. This means the mid-elevation populations are likely exposed to the coldest winter temperature, and have locally adapted to it.”
Ge said he is testing his hypothesis “partly by looking at the supercooling points (SCPs) of diapausing eggs in different populations. The SCP indicates the freezing temperature of the egg, so it should be close to the lower lethal temperature. So, the population with the lowest average SCP would be the most cold-tolerant. I got some preliminary results recently indicating the SCP of the mid-elevation eggs is around -30 °C, which is pretty cold! On the side I am also testing the egg SCP of a Parnassius behrii population. This is a California endemic. It would be cool to see how their thermal tolerance differ from that of P. clodius as P. behrii is only found in high-elevation habitats (mostly around and above 9,000 feet).”
“The genus Parnassius is prone to global warming due to its affinity for alpine and arctic habitats, and several species are considered to be threatened," Ge said.
Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations across central California for the last 50 years, says that “Parnassians are a group of cold-adapted Northern Hemisphere butterflies that are becoming increasingly important as objects of physiological, ecological and evolutionary study. They are only likely to grow more important in the context of climate change. Thus, Gary's study is very timely and should attract plenty of attention! It is demanding given the rigorous conditions in which they breed and develop, and he is likely to learn a lot that will facilitate future lab and field studies.”
On his research website, Art's Shapiro's Butterfly site, Shapiro says that P. clodius is “common to abundant Lang Crossing up to Castle Peak; not at Sierra Valley. Common at Washington, near the lower elevational limit of its range. Higher-altitude specimens are consistently smaller than at Washington and Lang. The male of this species generates a large waxy vaginal plug (the sphragis) that prevents the female from mating again (though other males do try). It does not, of course, interfere with egg-laying! Both sexes visit Yerba Santa, Coyotemint, and a wide variety of other flowers. At lower elevations this is a typical species of cool, mesic mixed forest, often along streamsides and at the bases of cliffs. At higher elevations it occurs in moist conifer forest and along streams and the edges of meadows. It does not hilltop. One brood, May-June (low) and June-August (rarely later) (high). Larval host plant Bleeding Heart, genus Dicentra (Fumariaceae, now put in Papaveraceae). Larvae are crepuscular-nocturnal except on cloudy, cool days and mimic poisonous millipedes.”
Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB). Co-founded and directed by Professors Jay Rosenheim, Joanna Chiu and Yang, RSPIB helps students learn cutting-edge research through close mentoring relationships with faculty. The program, launched in 2011, crosses numerous biological fields, including population biology; behavior and ecology; biodiversity and evolutionary ecology; agroecology; genetics and molecular biology; biochemistry and physiology; entomology; and cell biology. The goal: to provide academically strong and highly motivated undergraduates with a multi-year research experience that cultivates skills that will prepare them for a career in biological research.
Ge, born in Beijing, China, attended elementary school in New York City, middle school in Singapore, and high school in Hawaii, and now California for college. “This allowed me to have experience with a range oflepidopterans and ants and termites as well—social insects are my other favorite group.” He anticipates receiving his bachelor of science degree at UC Davis this year and hopes to enroll in graduate school at UC Davis.
He developed his passion for Parnassius during middle school. “When I was visiting my extended family in Tibet, I saw this small white butterfly flying through the seemingly lifeless alpine scree habitat at an elevation of around 1,5000 feet. I later found out that it was a Parnassius species and got immediately intrigued by the fact that they are mostly specialist of alpine and arctic habitats, living in some of the world's coldest and most hostile environments. Since many of the genus members have habitats restricted to mountain tops above the tree line, our P. behrii is an example, climate change--rising tree lines-would leave them nowhere to go. This makes better understanding the ecology of this genus utterly important.”
The scholarship memorializes Stephen Garczynski (1960-2019), a research geneticist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Wapato, Wash.,"who had an unmatched passion for mentoring undergraduate students in their research," according to the PBESA website. "Steve helped students by serving as a role model with his contagious energy and drive, his ability to teach and convey his scientific knowledge, and by encouraging students to be creative and innovative in their work. The purpose of this merit-based award is to honor students for their accomplishments in research, and to support and encourage them to present their work at a branch or national ESA meeting."