Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay

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UC ANR is renovating its website. The Bug Squad blog, by Kathy Keatley Garvey of the University of California, Davis, is a daily (Monday-Friday) blog launched Aug. 6, 2008. It is about the wonderful world of insects and the entomologists who study them. Blog posts are archived at https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/archive.cfm

Photographer Allan Jones captured this image of a black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, on Jan. 6 in UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden to win the Robbin Thorp Memorial Bumble Bee Contest.

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We Have a Winner of the Yolo-Solano Bumble Bee Contest!

January 6, 2020

We have a winner of the Yolo-Solano Memorial Bumble Bee Contest! Macro insect photographer extraordinaire Allan Jones captured an image of a female black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus on Monday, Jan. 6 on the UC Davis campus. The time: 1:45 p.m.

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This is an image of a fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, an insect that researcher Karen Menuz, who will present a seminar Jan. 8 at UC Davis, studies. She and colleague Pratyajit Mohapatra recently published research on "Molecular Profiling of the Drosophila Antenna Reveals Conserved Genes Underlying Olfaction in Insects." (Photo by Sanjay Acharya, courtesy of Wikipedia)

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Karen Menuz: 'The Molecular Basis of Insect Olfaction'

January 3, 2020

"Repellent odors are widely used to prevent insect-borne diseases, making it imperative to identify the conserved molecular underpinnings of their olfactory systems.

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The focus of this new USDA-ARS honey bee research program is to develop technology that improves colony survivorship through long-term studies of multiple stress factors. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Jan. 7: Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony at USDA-ARS Bee Research Facility at UC Davis

January 2, 2020

It promises to be a "bee-utiful event." And memorable. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) is gearing up for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and facility tour on Tuesday, Jan.

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The 2017 winner: Allan Jones photographed this Bombus melanopygus on manzanita on Jan. 27 in the UC Davis Arboretum.

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The Robbin Thorp Bumble Bee Memorial Contest

January 1, 2020

Where's the first bumble bee of the year in Solano and Yolo counties? It's not a $64,000 question, because there's no reward--just bragging rights.

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A honey bee heads for a winter flowering plant, Kniphofia, in Napa, on Saturday, Dec. 28. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Hear That Buzz on the Red Hot Poker?

December 31, 2019

On the last few days of Year 2019, where do you find a foraging honey bee? Well, if the temperature soars to 50 or 55, you might see honey bees slip out of their hives and head for a winter flowering plant commonly known as the "red hot poker" or "Christmas cheer" (genus Kniphofia).

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