No announcements as of today regarding the winner of the fifth annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest, sponsored by the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
The gist of the contest: The person who submits a photo or video to the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu of the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano--and is judged the winner--will receive a coffee cup designed with the endangered Franklin's bumble bee, the bee that Thorp monitored on the California-Oregon border for decades.
The entries must include the time, date and place. Previous winners are not eligible, per the rules.
Fairfield resident Nancy Hansen won the 2024 contest with a video of B. melanopygus that she emailed to the Bohart Museum at 10:57 a.m., Monday, Jan. 1. She took the video in her Madrone tree, Arbutus menziesii, in her backyard. (See video on YouTube)
The contest, launched in 2021, memorializes Professor Thorp (1933-2019), a global authority on bees and a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, who died June 7, 2019 at age 85. A 30-year member of the UC Davis faculty, he retired in 1994 but continued working until several weeks before his death. Every year he looked forward to seeing the first bumble bee in the area.
The black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, is usually the first bumble bee to emerge in this area, Thorp used to say. It forages on manzanitas, wild lilacs, wild buckwheats, lupines, penstemons, clovers, and sages, among others.
A tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, Throp co-authored two books in 2014, during his retirement: Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University,) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday).
Thorp detected and identified more than 80 species of bees in the UC Davis Bee Haven, a half-acre bee garden installed in the fall o 2009 and maintained by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, it is open from dawn to dusk. Admission is free.
Director of the Bohart Museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The Bohart, the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It also includes a live petting zoo, and an insect-themed gift shop.
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