By JAIMIE DING

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the arid, cracked desert ground in Southern California, a tiny bee pokes its head out of a hole no larger than the tip of a crayon.

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Krystle Hickman crouches over with her specialized camera fitted to capture the minute details of the bee’s antennae and fuzzy behind.

“Oh my gosh, you are so cute,” Hickman murmurs before the female sweat bee flies away.

Hickman is on a quest to document hundreds of species of native bees, which are under threat by climate change and habitat loss, some of it caused by the more recognizable and agriculturally valued honey bee — an invasive species. Of the roughly 4,000 types of bees native to North America, Hickman has photographed over 300. For about 20 of them, she’s the first to ever photograph them alive.

Through photography, she wants to raise awareness about the importance of native bees to the survival of the flora and fauna around them.

“Saving the bees means saving their entire ecosystems,” Hickman said.

Community scientists play important role in observing bees

On a Saturday in January, Hickman walked among the early wildflower bloom at Anza Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, a few hundred miles southeast of Los Angeles, where clumps of purple verbena and patches of white primrose were blooming unusually early due to a wet winter.

Where there are flowers, there are bees.

Photographer Krystle Hickman photographs wild bees as desert sunflowers blanket the valley floor at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Hickman has no formal science education and dropped out of a business program that she hated. But her passion for bees and keen observation skills made her a good community scientist, she said. In October, she published a book documenting California’s native bees, partly supported by National Geographic. She’s conducted research supported by the University of California, Irvine, and hopes to publish research notes this year on some of her discoveries.

“We’re filling in a lot of gaps,” she said of the role community scientists play in contributing knowledge alongside academics.

On a given day, she might spend 16 hours waiting beside a plant, watching as bees wake up and go about their business. They pay her no attention.

Originally from Nebraska, Hickman moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She began photographing honey bees in 2018, but soon realized native bees were in greater danger.

Now, she’s a bee scientist full time.

“I really think anyone could do this,” Hickman said.

A different approach

Melittologists, or people who study bees, have traditionally used pan trapping to collect and examine dead bee specimens. To officially log a new species, scientists usually must submit several bees to labs, Hickman said.

There can be small anatomical differences between species that can’t be photographed, such as the underside of a bee, Hickman said.

This photo, provided by Krystle Hickman, shows a Perdita californica male bee on May, 1, 2025 at Orange Hills Regional Park in Orange, Calif. (Krystle Hickman via AP)

But Hickman is vehemently against capturing bees. She worries about harming already threatened species. Unofficially, she thinks she’s photographed at least four previously undescribed species.

Hickman said she’s angered “a few melittologists before because I won’t tell them where things are.”

Her approach has helped her forge a path as a bee behavior expert.

During her trip to Anza Borrego, Hickman noted that the bees won’t emerge from their hideouts until around 10 a.m., when the desert begins to heat up. They generally spend 20 minutes foraging and 10 minutes back in their burrows to offload pollen, she said.

“It’s really shockingly easy to make new behavioral discoveries just because no one’s looking at insects alive,” she said.

Hickman still works closely with other melittologists, often sending them photos for identification and discussing research ideas.

Photographer Krystle Hickman photographs wild bees as desert sunflowers blanket the valley floor at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Christine Wilkinson, assistant curator of community science at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, said Hickman was a perfect example of why it’s important to incorporate different perspectives in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

“There are so many different ways of knowing and relating to the world,” Wilkinson said. “Getting engaged as a community scientist can also get people interested in and passionate about really making change.”

Declining native bees

There’s a critically endangered bee that Hickman is particularly determined to find — Bombus franklini, or Franklin’s bumblebee, last seen in 2006.

Since 2021, she’s traveled annually to the Oregon-California border to look for it.

Photographer Krystle Hickman walks in a field of wildflowers while photographing wild bees at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

“There’s quite a few people who think it’s extinct, but I’m being really optimistic about it,” she said.

Habitat loss, as well as competition from honey bees, have made it harder for native bees to survive. Many native bees will only drink the nectar or eat the pollen of a specific plant.

Because of her success in tracking down bees, she’s now working with various universities and community groups to help find lost species, which are bees that haven’t been documented in the wild for at least a decade.

Hickman often finds herself explaining to audiences why native bees are important. They don’t make honey, and the disappearance of a few bees might not have an apparent impact on humans.

“But things that live here, they deserve to live here. And that should be a good enough reason to protect them,” she said.

By DAVE COLLINS

A Connecticut judge on Friday dismissed criminal charges against three current and former New Haven police officers who were accused of mistreating prisoner Richard “Randy” Cox after he was paralyzed in the back of a police van in 2022.

Judge David Zagaja dropped the cases against Oscar Diaz, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera after granting them a probation program that allows charges to be erased from defendants’ records, saying their conduct was not malicious. Two other officers, Betsy Segui and Ronald Pressley, pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor reckless endangerment and received no jail time.

Cox, 40, was left paralyzed from the chest down on June 19, 2022, when the police van, which had no seat belts, braked hard to avoid an accident, sending him head-first into a metal partition while his hands were cuffed behind his back. He had been arrested on charges of threatening a woman with a gun, which were later dismissed.

FILE – This combo of photos provided by the Connecticut State Police, shows, from left, New Haven, Conn., police officers Oscar Diaz, Betsy Segui, Jocelyn Lavandier, Luis Rivera and Ronald Pressley. (Connecticut State Police via AP, File)

“I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me,” Cox said in the van minutes after being injured, according to police video. He later was found to have broken his neck.

Diaz, who was driving the van, brought Cox to the police department, where officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox out of the van and around the police station before placing him in a holding cell before paramedics brought him to a hospital.

Before pulling him out of the van, Lavandier told Cox to move his leg and sit up, according to an internal affairs investigation report. Cox says “I can’t move” and Lavandier says “You’re not even trying.”

New Haven State’s Attorney John P. Doyle Jr.’s office said prosecutors and Cox did not object to the charges being dismissed.

Defense lawyers said that while the officers were sympathetic to what happened to Cox, they did not cause his injuries or make them worse. The three officers whose cases were dismissed were scheduled to go on trial next month.

“We don’t think that there was sufficient evidence to prove her guilt or any wrongdoing,” said Lavandier’s attorney, Dan Ford. “This is a negotiated settlement that avoids the risk of having go through the emotional toll of a trial.”

Rivera’s lawyer, Raymond Hassett, called the decision to charge the officers “unjust and misplaced.”

“The actions of the Police Chief and City Mayor in targeting the officers were a misguided effort to deflect attention from the police department shortcomings in managing the department and ensuring proper protocols were in place and followed,” Hassett said in a statement.

Attorneys for Cox and Diaz did not immediately return phone and email messages Friday. Cox’s lawyer, Louis Rubano, has said Cox and his family hoped the criminal cases would end quickly with plea bargains.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said city officials disagreed with the judge’s decision to dismiss the charges.

“What happened to Randy was tragic and awful,” he said in a statement.

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The case drew outrage from civil rights advocates including the NAACP, along with comparisons to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Cox is Black, while all five officers who were arrested are Black or Hispanic. Gray, who also was Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a Baltimore police van.

The case also led to reforms at the New Haven police department as well as a statewide seat belt requirement for prisoners.

In 2023, the city of New Haven agreed to settle a lawsuit by Cox for $45 million.

New Haven police fired Segui, Diaz, Lavandier and Rivera for violating police conduct policies, while Pressley retired and avoided an internal investigation. Diaz appealed his firing and got his job back. Segui lost the appeal of her firing, while appeals by Lavandier and Rivera remain pending.