Microscopic Portraits of Native Bees on Display at UCSB Library

A new exhibit at the UC Santa Barbara Library invites visitors to explore the intricate beauty of California’s native bees through high-resolution images produced by the Big-Bee project at UC Santa Barbara. Curated by entomologist Katja Seltmann, the exhibit reveals the rich structural diversity of bee wings, hairs, and other features that are often invisible to the naked eye.

Photo Credit: Harrison Tasoff

These striking images are not merely artistic — they are scientific records. Each was generated as part of a recent study published in Functional Ecology (Ostwald et al., 2025) by the Big-Bee lab, which used detailed morphological data to examine how bee body form relates to ecological function.

By presenting these data-driven visuals in a gallery setting, the exhibit bridges taxonomic research and visual culture, expanding how we engage with biodiversity and inviting new audiences to connect with the science behind species conservation.

The exhibit is free and open to the public at the UCSB Library until the end of June, 2025.

5 Minute Hour

Antenna Alley

Join us for a walk through Antenna Alley, a new series of short, absurd, yet factual insect-music adventures created by Irene Moon. Special guest artists from the world of noise and sound will contribute an extra buzz. Episodes start on January 15th and will air exclusively on WFMU's Daniel Blumin Show every Monday between 9 PM to midnight EST.

Contributing Artists/Special Guests: GX Jupitter-Larsen, Ian MacPhee, LoVid, Ironing, Ergo Phizmiz and Lottie Bowater, The Virus, Francisco López, Hearty White, Jana Winderen, Wobbly, Matmos, Rrose, venoztks, People Like Us, Hearty White & Ed Sunspot.

episode 1

Title: Latch Key Larvae

Music: Musical composition created for Antenna Alley by GX Jupitter-Larsen called Bees and the Pollywave (http://jupitter-larsen.com)

Insect: Melissodes or the long-horn bee

Links: https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Melissodes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissodes 

Broadcast date: Jan 15, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/135934

episode 2

Title: Smooth Criminal

Music: Musical composition created for Antenna Alley by Ian MacPhee (https://ianmacphee.bandcamp.com), Fame is a Bee (Emily Dickenson) read by Vicki Bennett (https://peoplelikeus.org)

Insect: Triepeolus cuckoo bee

Links: https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Triepeolus, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triepeolus, https://www.museumoftheearth.org/bees/behavior

Broadcast date: Jan 22, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/136192

episode 3 Title: Bees are Related to Wasps Music: Matmos with Mud Dauber Wasp from the 2023 release "Return to Archive" which consists of remixing the nature recordings back catalog of Smithsonian Folkways records (https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-archive). Mud Dauber Wasp sounds were originally recorded by Albro T Gaul's for the 1960 "Sounds of Insects" LP Insect: Wasps Links: https://www.museumoftheearth.org/bees/evolution-fossil-record

Broadcast date: Jan 29, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/136425

episode 4

Title: Masked Bee

Music: Musical composition titled Little Love Song for a Masked Bee created for Antenna Alley by Ergo Phizmiz and Lottie Bowater (http://ergophizmiz.blogspot.com). Additional shortwave sounds recorded for the show by venoztks (https://venoztks.bandcamp.com) at 39.0kHz

Insect: Hylaeus or the masked bee

Links: https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Hylaeus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylaeus_(bee)

Broadcast date: Feb 05, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/136643

episode 5

Title: Hairy Eyeballs

Music: Musical compositions created for Antenna Alley by LoVid (https://lovid.org), The Viirus (insects in the studio -  www.theviirus.com) and porest reads “Fame is a Bee” (https://porest.bandcamp.com)

Insect: Our most famous bee - The Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

Links: https://bugguide.net/node/view/3080/bgimage, https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/honey-bees-have-hairy-eyes.html

Broadcast date: Feb 12, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/136875

episode 6 Title: Burying Beetles - Nicrophorus Music: Musical composition ‘burying beetle’ created for Antenna Alley by Rrose (https://rrose.ro) Insect: Burying Beetles Links: https://bugguide.net/node/view/4954/bgimage; https://dec.ny.gov/nature/animals-fish-plants/american-burying-beetle

Broadcast date: Feb 19, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/137131

episode 7 Title: Flies Are Pollinators Too Music: Musical composition created for Antenna Alley by Ironing (https://ironing.bandcamp.com) Insect: Pollinating Flies Links: https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/animals/flies.shtml Broadcast date: Feb 26, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/137374

episode 8

Title: The Tymbal of the Cicada

Music: Francisco López (http://www.franciscolopez.net) with a short selection of recordings from Borneo featuring cicadas.

Insect: Cicadas

Links: https://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/category/locations/borneo, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8677226

Broadcast date: Mar 04, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/137530

episode 9

Title: Who are the Sticky Bugs?

Music: Musical composition created for Antenna Alley by Wobbly (https://www.detritus.net/wobbly), just a touchscreen FM synthesis patch. 

Insect: cottony cushion scale and other scale insects

Links: https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/fruit/cottony_cushion_scale.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_insect

Broadcast date: Mar 11, 2024

Marathon week!

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/137770

episode 10

Title: Underwater Beetles

Music: Jana Winderen, Music from the ‘The Listener’, Second Nature, Caen and Perche, France. https://www.janawinderen.com/releases/the-listener. A hydrophone recording from the river ORNE in Normandie, close to Caen. The diver Marko narrated by Yon Visell.

Insect: Dytiscus latissimus and other predaceous diving beetles

Links: https://uk.inaturalist.org/taxa/99648-Dytiscus-latissimus

Broadcast date: Mar 18, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/138029

episode 11

Title: The Other Carpenter

Music: Musical composition created for Antenna Alley by Ed Sunspot (https://robertbeatty.bandcamp.com/album/as-ed-sunspot); Fame is a 

Bee read by Hearty White (https://wfmu.org/playlists/HA)

Insect: Carpenter Bees!

Links: https://bugguide.net/node/view/13232; https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/carpenter_bees.shtml

Broadcast date: Mar 25, 2024

Archive Show Link: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/138275

Irene Moon at Cafe OTO, London

At the wonderful Cafe OTO! Café OTO

PEOPLE LIKE US – THREE-DAY RESIDENCY:

HEARTY WHITE (COMPÈRE) + IRENE MOON + PEOPLE LIKE US / ERGO PHIZMIZ / GWILLY EDMONDEZ (TRIO) + MAGGIE NICOLS

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/.../people-like-us-three-day.../

 

New publication about bees from Santa Cruz Island and UCSB

Happy to announce a new publication from our research group!

Phenotypic divergence in an island bee population: Applying geometric morphometrics to discriminate population-level variation in wing venation

Phenotypic divergence is an important consequence of restricted gene flow in insular populations. This divergence can be challenging to detect when it occurs through subtle shifts in morphological traits, particularly in traits with complex geometries, like insect wing venation. Here, we employed geometric morphometrics to assess the extent of variation in wing venation patterns across reproductively isolated populations of the social sweat bee, Halictus tripartitus. We examined wing morphology of specimens sampled from a reproductively isolated population of H. tripartitus on Santa Cruz Island (Channel Islands, Southern California). Our analysis revealed significant differentiation in wing venation in this island population relative to conspecific mainland populations. We additionally found that this population-level variation was less pronounced than the species-level variation in wing venation
among three sympatric congeners native to the region, Halictus tripartitus, Halictus ligatus, and Halictus farinosus. Together, these results provide evidence for subtle phenotypic divergence in an island bee population. More broadly, these results emphasize the utility and potential of wing morphometrics for large-scale assessment of insect population structure.

Ostwald, M.M., Thrift, C.N. & Seltmann, K.C. (2023). Phenotypic divergence in an island bee population: Applying geometric morphometrics to discriminate population-level variation in wing venation. Ecology and Evolution, 13(5), e10085. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10085

Big-Bee

Scientifically Speaking with Irene Moon performing in Los Angeles for Touch 40

Scientifically Speaking with Irene Moon will perform Lovely Moth as part of the Touch 40 (https://touch40.net) festival. Touch, the UK-based imprint and publisher, will celebrate forty years of activity (1982-2022). Touch has grown organically and independently and continues to make ideas-based decisions in a world of changing technology, tastes, and digital freedoms. Irene has appeared on Touch Radio performing "My Queen and I," a recorded lecture about bees. She also performed in a fantastic Touch event at Rymar Auditorium that included the Bee Symphony where humans sang with bees. The Bee Symphony, consisting of recordings of bees by Mike Harding (Touch) and Chris Watson (‘The Life of Birds’, ‘The Life of Mammals’, ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ and ‘Life in Cold Blood’) and a vocal score by Marcus Davidson (Spire) will be performed live by Chris Watson and five singers from the University of York, conducted by Marcus Davidson. The Symphony was originally commissioned as part of the Festival and performed in Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.