You're participating in a monarch-counting expedition, you photograph an image of a bumble bee with your cell phone, and you win a regional bumble bee contest, a contest you didn't know about at the time.
That's what happened when two Western Monarch Count volunteers--Michael Kwong of Sacramento, a senior environmental scientist with the state of California, and Kaylen Teves of Vallejo, a computer science student at San Francisco State University--were counting monarchs on Jan. 11 at the Glen Cove Waterfront Park, Vallejo.
When they spotted a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenkii, sunning on an oak leaf, Kwong captured an image of it with his cell phone at 9:35 a.m.
That led to entering the 5th annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest, sponsored by the Bohart Museum of Entomology. The prize: bragging rights, and a coffee cup adorned with Franklin's bumble bee. This is the endangered bee that UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor Robbin Thorp, (1933-2019), a global authority on bees, monitored for decades along the California-Oregon border. It is now feared extinct. (And some say the monarchs may be going that way, too.)
The Western Monarch Count (WMC) is part of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a group that the late UC Davis professor was involved with in trying to protect endangered species and raise public awareness.
And did the WMC volunteers find any monarchs on Jan. 11? They did. “Our monarch count team observed and documented 21 monarchs sunning, flying, and/or nectaring at Glen Cove that day!” Kwong said.
Kwong, also a volunteer with California Bumble Bee Atlas, is keenly interested in pollinators, “particularly bumble bees and monarchs; geospatial science; invasive species and botany.” Teves, in addition to her interests in computer graphics, web development, and art, explores habitat conservation, biology and gardening--“mainly succulents, but I'm also practicing with native plants.” Kwong and Teves also participated recently in a WMC count near St. Peter's Chapel, Mare Island, Vallejo.
Teves said she did not know Thorp, but “after being introduced to the contest, I became curious and read several articles about him. I'm very impressed with the contributions Dr. Thorp has made to bee conservation, and it's truly admirable that this contest is dedicated to his legacy.”
The two claimed the treasured prize during a visit Friday, Jan. 24 to the Bohart Museum, where Bohart bee scientist Sandy Shanks showed them drawers of bumble bee specimens. Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart, presented them with the cup.
“We are glad that the Bohart continues to offer this fun, commemorative contest in honor of Dr. Thorp,” Kwong wrote in an email to the Bohart Museum.
The contest rules specify that the first person to document (via photo or video) a first-of-the-year bumble bee in the two-county area of Yolo or Solano and email it to the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu--and is judged the winner--will receive the special coffee cup. The entries must include the time, date and place. Per the rules, previous winners are ineligible to win but are encouraged to participate.
Other previous winners:
2023: Ria deGrassi of Davis photographed a B. melanopygus at 12:32, Jan. 8 on a ceanothus in her yard.
2022: Two scientists shared the 2022 prize: UC Davis doctoral candidate Maureen Page of the Neal Williams lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and horticulturist Ellen Zagory, retired director of public horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. They each photographed a bumble bee foraging on manzanita (Arctostaphylos) in the 100-acre Arboretum at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 1. Page photographed a black-tailed bumble bee, B. melanopygus, while Zagory captured an image of the yellow-faced bumble bee, B. vosnesenskii.
2021: Postdoctoral researcher Charlie Casey Nicholson of the Neal Williams lab and the Elina Lastro Niño lab photographed a B. melanopygus at 3:10 p.m., Jan. 14 in a manzanita patch in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden
The Bohart Museum launched the contest in 2021 to memorialize Thorp, 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. He always looked forward to seeing the first bumble bee of the year.
A tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, Thorp 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).
Among his many projects, he detected and identified more than 80 species of bees in the UC Davis Bee Haven, the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's bee garden installed in the fall of 2009. The half-acre bee garden is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It also houses a live petting zoo, and an insect-themed gift shop. 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.
Attached Images:
Tabatha Yang (left), education an outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology with the contest winners Michael Kwong an Kaylen Teves. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Contest winners Michael Kwong and Kaylen Teves look at butterfly specimens at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)