ESA showcased the winning images on Sunday, Nov. 13 at its joint meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada and the Entomological Society of British Columbia, which opened Nov. 13 and continues through Nov. 16 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Garvey captured the image of the fly, Scathophaga stercoraria, perched on a lavender stem in her family's pollinator garden in Vacaville and titled it “Checking You Out.” Scathophaga play an important role in the natural decomposition of dung.
The Peoria Camera Club, Illinois, sponsors the Insect Salon in conjunction with ESA and the Photographic Society of America. Coordinator Joe Virbickis of the Peoria Camera Club said the images are restricted to insects, spiders, and related arthropods (such as barnacles, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, centipedes, and millipedes.) Each photographer may submit up to four entries. "The range for acceptances is 33-35 percent of eligible images," he said.
This year's competition drew 254 entries. Judges gave acceptances to photographers from 17 countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, England, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States. (See acceptances and awards at https://insectsalon.peoriacameraclub.com/results/2022/Html/sect_1.htm)
Two other images that Garvey submitted also gained acceptances. One was of a crab spider nailing a katydid (Did or Didn't I?), and the other of a pollen-covered honey bee (Eureka! I Found It!).
Best of Show. Best of show medal went to Kenneth Gillies of West Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom, for his “Peppermint Shrimps Inside a Sponge.”
Gillies was joined by the five other top winners:
- Medal for Most Unusual Image: Weihua Ma of Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China, for “Pretending to be a Branch.”
- Medal for Best Storytelling Image: Dre Van Mensel of Tielen, Antwerpen, Belgium, for “It's Mine.”
- Medal for Best Image by a ESA member: Kathy Keatley Garvey of UC Davis/Vacaville, Calif., for “Checking You Out.”
- Medal for Best Image by a non-ESA member, Tim Sanders of Bideford, Devon, England, for “At Work.”
- Medal for Best Peoria Camera Club member: Ladean Spring of Creve Coeur, lll., for “Hummingbird Moth.”
ESA member and noted insect photographer Tom Myers of Lexington, Ky., displayed the Insect Salon images at the ESA meeting. Virbickis assisted in preparing it. Myers is a frequent recipient of Insect Salon awards. His acceptances this year: "European Hornet Vespa Crabro" (honorable mention); "Chalcid Wasp 1"; and "Brood X Cicada Magicicada Sp."
The 7000-member ESA, founded in 1889 and located in Annapolis, Md., is the world's largest entomological organization. It is affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, wrote the news article on "An Amazing Doctoral Opportunity Few Receive,” in March of 2021. The article won the “writing for newspapers” category. (See https://bit.ly/3MfuaLn)
“When five-year-old Rebecca Jean “RJ” Millena entered her kindergarten class in Concord, Calif., she immediately settled on a career choice: entomology,” Garvey began.
“An ‘About Me' poster hanging in her childhood home in Concord confirms it: ‘When I grow up, I want to be an entomologist.'
“She did and she is.”
Millena, who over a two-year-period worked as a student researcher in the laboratory of UC Davis distinguished professor Jay Rosenheim, studied the bizarre Strepsiptera endoparasites that attack their hosts, the Ammophila (thread-waisted) wasps. Millena went on to receive her bachelor's degree in entomology in 2021, and a rare four-year, full-ride doctoral fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History.
While at UC Davis, Millena studied Ammophila specimens at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses a worldwide collection of more than 30,000 Ammophila (among the Bohart's eight million specimens). As larvae, members of the order Strepsiptera, known as “twisted wings,” enter theirs hosts, including wasps and bees, through joints or sutures.
Millena drew information and inspiration from UC Davis alumnus Arnold Menke, a global authority on Ammophila and author of "The Ammophila of North and Central America (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae).
“Strepsiptera are very unusual among parasites in that the parasite is visible on the outside of the host's body,” Rosenheim explained. “The head of the parasite protrudes between the sclerites on the abdomen. Looking across a growing list of species, RJ has shown that Ammophila species where mothers have more extended contact with their young--because they provision their nests with many, small caterpillars instead of one giant caterpillar-- are at much greater risk of acting as inadvertent vectors of strepsipteran parasites to their young.”
“RJ has shown that this one feature explains something like 90 percent of the total variation across Ammophila species in the risk of parasitism,” Rosenheim said. “Ecology virtually never works in such a predictable way; this is one truly exceptional counterexample of nature being highly predictable. Anyway, RJ's work shows that sometimes parental care can be a double-edged sword; we usually think of parental care as providing enhanced protection of offspring from predators and parasites. In this case, it proves to be the reverse.”
Also quoted in the news story was Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology: “RJ is one of those rare students that is focused, task-oriented and simultaneously creative. She was great fun to have working in the museum.”
Entomology Photo Series Award
Garvey also won the ACE silver award (second-place) for her picture story on “The Flight of the Bumble Bee,” posted June 14, 2021 on her daily (Monday through Friday) Bug Squad blog on the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources website. (See https://bit.ly/3xuoPLN)
Garvey captured in-flight images of a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, foraging on lupine at Bodega Bay. In her blog, she drew attention to two books: California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014), the work of University of California scientists Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp, Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter; and Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014), co-authored by Thorp (1933-2019), a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology.
ACE, an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists who focus on communicating research-based information, will present the communication awards at its 2022 conference, set June 12-14, in Kansas City, MO.


- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The 20,000-square-foot facility, which houses the Moon Shine Trading Company, Island of the Moon Apiaries, and The Hive, includes a processing plant, a tasting room (honey and mead), a gift shop, an outdoor courtyard and a pollinator garden.
Amina Harris, executive director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, is the self-described "queen bee" of the family-owned business. Her son, Josh Zeldner, is the nectar director, and Liz Luu, formerly of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, is the marketing manager and tasting room manager.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology will display bee specimens, and Kathy Keatley Garvey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology will showcase 24 images of honey bees--most taken in her family's pollinator garden.
Nature Day is a family event. It will include games, an observation hive, a scavenger hunt and more.
Here's what's planned:
Don't Toss Those Scraps! – Natural Dye Workshop
Time: All day
Learn how to utilize food scraps and create one-of-a-kind dyes for clothing, fabric and yarn. You'll be provided white cloth, avocado pits and black beans. What's with food waste? Each year Americans waste 108 billion pounds of food, contributing to extensive environmental, economic, and societal impacts.
Miridae Living Labs
Time: All day
You'll get to play with seed bombs, bugs, and plants with Miridae Living Labs! This is a non-profit, Sacramento-area organization dedicated to using native insects and plants as tools for education, research, and community engagement. The business "strives to generate positive ecological changes in our communities under the guidance and leadership of community members," a spokesperson said.
Miridae Mobile Nursery
Noon: Container Gardening with California Native Plants (first-come, first-serve basis with purchase of plant)
Miridae Mobile Nursery is a customized box truck that transforms into a curbside native plant shop. Its goal is "to bring people together through plants and gardening." All profits from its sales of native plants support its science education, non-profit Miridae Living Labs.
The Hive Nature Loop Scavenger Hunt
Time: All Day
Grab a pamphlet and go on a scavenger hunt for plants in The Hive Nature Loop. Find all the plants and show to a team member to win a prize.
Pollinator Garden Tour
Time: 1 p.m.
Join plant curator Rowan Boswell for a tour of the two-acre pollinator gardens at The Hive. It's billed as: "Get inspired by our oasis and outdoor courtyard, designed to meet the needs of our community and native species. Discover pollinator favorites, California natives, and drought-tolerant plants."
Bohart Museum of Entomology
The Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis will display specimens of bees. The insect museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens; a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas); and a gift shop.
Photography
Some 24 images of honey bees by award-winning photographer Kathy Keatley Garvey of UC Davis will be showcased. She writes a daily (Monday-Friday) Bug Squad blog on the UC ANR website.
The Hive Facility Tour
Times: 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Visitors are invited to tour the four-year development, created to educate the public on honey, bees, and pollination. Nectar director Josh Zeldner will guide the tours of 20,000-square-foot, Zero Net Energy facility.
Z Specialty Food began as the Moon Shine Trading Company, founded in 1979 by Ishai Zeldner (1947-2018), who died at age 71. He worked as a commercial beekeeper and studied beekeeping at UC Davis. He became fond of yellow starthistle honey. "He loved it so much that he began giving it away to his friends, and quickly realized he was going broke doing so," Harris remembers. His business grew to become Z Specialty Food.
It was his lifelong dream to open "The Hive."



- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Several UC Davis scientists, including Professor Lynn Kimsey, and Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, weighed in on "The Plight of the Pollinators," in an informative article by Ula Chrobak in the March edition of UC Davis Magazine, edited by Jocelyn Anderson.
Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, specializes in Hymenoptera. One of her activities: she hosts the annual Robbin Thorp Memorial Bumble Bee Contest contest to determine who can find the first bumble bee of the year in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento.
Niño, the statewide Extension apiculturist, serves as the director of the California Master Beekeepers' Program, and faculty director of the UC Davis Bee Haven.
Also featured were Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who has monitored the butterfly population of Central California since 1972; and avian veterinarian and hummingbird expert Lisa Tell, a UC Davis professor of veterinary medicine and author of a newly published children's poetry book, "If Hummingbirds Could Hum," that relates how to attract hummers.
Some resources mentioned:
- What to plant to attract bees and other pollinators: See the UC Davis Bee Haven website, directed by Niño and managed by Chris Casey. The Haven, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, is open year around, from dawn to dusk.
- What to plant to attract butterflies: See Art Shapiro's website, Art's Butterfly World
- Sign up for bee classes with the California Master Beekeepers' Program, launched and directed by Elina Lastro Niño
- See pollinators and other insects at the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology, home of a global collection of 8 million insect specimens. (The Bohart, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, is temporarily closed due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions)
Photographs for the UC Davis Magazine article are the work of Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and an avid pollinator photographer.
UC Davis Magazine, which has been covering the campus community since 1983, is printed in March and September. A yearly subscription is $12.

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Three UC Davis-affiliated communication specialists won a total of six writing or photography awards in a global competition hosted by the international Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Life and Human Sciences (ACE).
Steve Elliott, communications coordinator for the Western Integrated Pest Management Center, Davis, won one silver (second-place) and two bronze (third-place) for his writing and photography; Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, two silvers for her writing and photography; and Diane Nelson, communication specialist for the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, won a bronze for her writing.
Elliott's entries and the categories:
- Writing for the Web, silver award for “IPM in Yellowstone”
- Photo Essay, bronze award for “Growing in Guam”
- Social media, bronze award for single blog post, “To Communicate Better, Start with Audience”
Garvey's entries and the categories:
- Writing for Newspapers, silver award for “Paying It Forward,” about the successful career of award-winning academic advisor Elvira Galvan Hack
- Picture Story, silver award for “Kira Meets a Stick Insect” (at Bohart Museum of Entomology)
Nelson's entry and category:
- Writing for the Web, bronze award for "Can Science Save Citrus?"
The awards will be presented during ACE's virtual conference June 24-25. ACE is an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists who focus on communicating research-based information. The organization offers professional development and networking for individuals who extend knowledge about agriculture, natural resources, and life and human sciences.
The Western Integrated Pest Management Center, also known as the Western IPM Center, is housed within the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program and funded by U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. It promotes "smart, safe and sustainable pest management to protect the people, environment and economy of the American West," which includes 17 Western states and Pacific island territories.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology is world-renowned for its quality research, education and public service. Faculty are globally recognized for their expertise in insect demography, systematics and evolutionary biology of ants, pollination and community ecology, integrated pest management, insect biochemistry, molecular biology, and the systematics and evolutionary biology of nematodes. The department is one of 14 in the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES) is one of four colleges on the UC Davis campus. It is dedicated to "solving real-world problems in the agricultural, environmental, and human sciences to produce a better world, healthier lives, and an improved standard of living for everyone." It is ranked No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 1 in the world for agricultural sciences and forestry by QS World University Rankings; ranked No. 1in the world in plant and animal sciences by U.S. News & World Report; and ranked No. 1 in agricultural economics and policy research by the Center for World University Rankings.



