Rangelands

Internationally known honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page, Jr. is spotlighted in the current issue of American Entomologist in Marlin E. Rice's popular Legends feature. Titled "Robert E. Page, Jr.

How can you interest your children in insects?

The week of June 17-23 is National Pollinator Week, which celebrates the vital winged creatures we are so dependent on to pollinate most of the flowering plants in the world.

Costumed as river creatures with papier mch heads and dressed as the Army Corps of Engineers, Cleo Woelfle Hazard and a performance art group called The Water Underground dazzled the biennial Bay Delta Science Conference a few years ago. Woelfle Hazard then a Ph.D.

Bees, butterflies, beetles, birds and bats. What do they have in common? Skipping the alliteration for a moment, they're all pollinators. Honey bees grab the most attention, of course, and they do the bulk of the work. But so do bumble bees and other native bees.

It's not often that an entomologist chalks up a 44-year career of teaching, research and public service. But such is the case with UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey.

"Jay Rosenheim joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty in 1990. He received his bachelor of science degree from UC Davis in 1983 with a double major in entomology and genetics, and his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1987.

A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, is foraging on lavender in a Vacaville garden. Abruptly, the bumble bee senses a fast-approaching honey bee, Apis mellifera. Bombus: "Hey, bee, this is my territory, my lavender, my food." Honey Bee: "Sorry, I'm just passing by.

Ever seen the wooly bear caterpillar, Arctia virginalis, formerly known as Platyprepia virginalis? It's found in low elevations in western North America, from southern Monterey Bay, across Nevada and southern Utah to Colorado, and north to southern British Columbia.

"If you know how to shear, you'll never be poor," Stephany Wilkes remembers John Harper, University of California Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor for Mendocino and Lake counties, telling her sheep shearing class in 2013.