Who will find and photograph the first bumble bee of the year?

The sixth annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest will begin at 12:01, Jan. 1, 2026. The first person to photograph or video a bumble bee in the two-county area of Solano and Yolo and send to the Bohart Museum of Entomology at [email protected] will win a coffee cup designed with the endangered Franklin's bumble bee, the bee that Thorp monitored on the California-Oregon border for decades.

The mysterious population decline of the imperiled Franklin’s bumble bee, which once flourished in a small area of northern California and southern Oregon, is not due to pathogens, but most likely to population bottlenecks and environmental issues, such as fire and drought stressors, according to newly published museum genomic research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

What are you doing on New Year's Day?

Weather permitting, you can begin searching for the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano. If you photograph or video it, and you are judged the winner, a prize awaits you--in addition to bragging rights.