Ongoing research

The Washington Post, using data from Black Knight Financial Services, recently published an amazing series of maps showing disparities in the United States' housing recoveries.

UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources is now taking online public comment and public ranking of proposals for new Cooperative Extension Specialists and County Advisor positions.

Remember the massive "buzz kill" in Wilsonville, Oregon back in June 2013 when more than 50,000 bumble bees died in a Target parking lot after coming into contact with pesticide-treated flowering linden trees? Ironically, it occurred the first day of National Pollinator Week.

May, 2016 Contents: Presentation Day Success Emerald Star Project in the Bag Scholarships Available Can't We All Just Get Along?

Think back to the first time you spotted a Red Admiral butterfly. You probably admired it and said something like "Ooh, look at that!" That may be how its name originated; someone corrupted "admirable" to "admiral." And mistook "orange" for "red.

The Zika virus is "scarier than we initially thought." So screamed a recent USA Today headline in a quote attributed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If you've never seen the "teddy bear bee," keep an eye out for it. A fuzzy golden bee with green eyes, it's the male Valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta). Last Friday we saw it foraging in the half-acre Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.

If you attended the 141st annual Dixon May Fair, held May 5-8, and saw the honey bee display in Madden Hall, you probably heard the buzz. In keeping with the theme, "Buzzing with Excitement," bees buzzed in the bee observation hives as fairgoers singled out the queen bee, worker bees and drones.

You don't have to crane your neck to see the crane flies. They're everywhere. They're zigzagging around your yard, bumping into walls and windows, landing on your screen door and fence, and clustering on your porch lights, all the while searching for mates. They're in your garden, home and garage.

Elise Gornish, Josh Davy, Travis Bean, and I are testing the use of sheep for management of late-season invasive annual grasses. This trial is taking place at five sites at the Hopland Research and Extension Center two with barb goatgrass, two with medusahead, and one mixed.