Where to begin. I first met John in 1972 when I was a college sophomore at CSUF in Fullerton, CA and in the laboratory of botanist C. Eugene Jones, Jr. This was John's first year as a professor at ASU in Tempe, AZ. All of us were studying the nesting and mating biology of our favorite bee, the ground-nesting Centris pallida Fox, a pollinator of palo verde trees in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Some of this early work was conducted near Earp, CA while most of it happened at a massive nesting and emergence site along the Salt River in the Blue Pt. Bridge area. I continued to study the biology of this wonderful native desert bee for many years and even now almost 43 years later. I was fortunate to publish quite a few papers with John on this and other species of Centris and Habropoda bees in Arizona. John and Sue welcomed me into their Tempe home when John and I would venture out to the Blue Pt. Bridge site. I loved that John ditched his grassy front yard and terraformed it into an island of native plants, much to the consternation of some neighbors. Some of my fondest memories are of John deftly sweeping up male bees in his aerial net. He would use a dial caliper to measure their head widths. John discovered that the larger males were often the most successful at securing a mate. Often, he would apply a dot of paint so that we could identify the same bees when they returned to patrol areas searching for mates. I remember his intense focus on the bees and ideas about sexual selection (his book with Randy Thornhill, his many papers and 10 editions of his classic Animal Behavior textbook). John, and his many papers and books, were and still are an inspiration to me. I considered John my mentor in the ways of bees. His passing has left a big void in my life, but every time I read one of his papers or popular books (e.g. Sonoran Desert Spring, The Kookaburra's Song etc.) a smile comes to my face and I treasure the memories of my dear lifelong friend, mentor and scientific colleague. I almost got my Ph.D. with John at ASU. I say almost because some pesky SAT scores got in the way. No way around those departmental rules and I went to UCD instead with Robbin Thorp. John was incredibly supportive throughout my career. My last field experience with John and Sue was in 2021 at a big nesting site of the rare Centris caesalpinae along Jomax Rd. in Scottsdale, AZ. I take great pleasure in co-dedicating my new book "What a Bee Knows" to John, that is being published by Island Press on March 7, 2023.
