Rangelands

Welcome to the world of monarchs, Greta! We don't normally name the monarch butterflies we rear, but we decided that the first one reared from an egg "The Greg Way" would be named for Greg--naturalist Greg Kareofelas, associate at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis.

What do honey bee colonies do when a raging wildfire heads straight toward their hives (bee boxes)? No, the bees do not abscond with their queen and relocate, says Norman Gary, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis.

Six UC Cooperative Extension research projects were awarded funding ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 each from the California Department of Food and Agriculture Healthy Soils Program.

If you think there's a butterfly invasion in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento, wait until you hear what Art Shapiro, distinguished professor evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, says about that.

The raging fires sparked during August have raised the visibility of UC fire scientists, who provide critical information to state and national media.

Honey bees just can't get enough of our tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica. We plant three species of milkweed (the host plant for the monarchs), but both the monarchs and the honey bees gravitate toward A. curassavica, a non-native.

Please join us in congratulating UC California Naturalist Program Advisory Committee Member and course instructor Claudia P Diaz Carrasco for an award and recognition she received from Senator Mike Morrell for her work engaging underserved youth in environmental stewardship.

The white garden snail (Theba pisana), sometimes known as the Italian white snail, can be a serious pest of landscape ornamentals, including trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and herbaceous plants (Figure 1).

It's heartbreaking. Beyond heartbreaking. Caroline Yelle, 28, owner of Pope Canyon Queens (PCQ) at 8307 Quail Canyon Road, Vacaville, lost her business when the lightning-sparked Hennessey Fire, part of the LNU Lightning Complex Fire, swept through rural Vacaville on Aug. 19 from Napa County.

Honey is the soul of a field of flowers. It's also been called "the nectar of the gods." "The bee hive is the ultimate home sweet home," says Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute.