Rangelands

If you've lately visited the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, part of the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, you've seen them. Honey bees nectaring on the Kniphofia "Christmas Cheer" poker plant.

A beer for a butterfly? Suds for a bug? It's almost time for the Art Shapiro's annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest that he's sponsored since 1972.

If history repeats itself, the person who finds and photographs the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano will do so in the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden--or will find it foraging on a plant purchased from one of the Arboretum's popular plant sales.

It's bee-ginning to look a lot like Christmas... All hail our littlest agricultural worker. European colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) to what is now the United States in 1622. Specifically, the bees arrived at the Jamestown colony (Virginia).

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Evolution and Ecology, is retired, but not from his research and not from sponsoring the annual Beer-for-a-Butterfly contest, in which the person who collects the first live cabbage white butterfly of the year in th...

Doctoral students Carla-Cristina "CC" Edwards and Mia Lippey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology recently introduced students in the Holy Rosary Catholic School, Woodland, and Winters Middle School to insect science as part of the STEM Squad project.

Back in 2010, UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and yours truly, department communications specialist, wondered why no insects appear in "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Zero. Zilch. Nada.

A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes, writes evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman, author of the newly published book, Most Delicious Poison: the Story of Nature's Toxinsfrom Spices to Vices (Little, Brown Spark).

It's a week before Christmas and it's not just the geese that are getting fat. If you're thinking that the bathroom scale and you are not good friends, not to worry.

Who will spot and photograph the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano? The Bohart Museum of Entomology is sponsoring its fourth annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest, which begins at 12:01, Jan. 1, 2024.