Bug Squad

Looking for a specific Blog post?

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/bugsquad/index.cfm. The story behind "The Sting" is here: https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=7735.

"Wild Bee Gardens" is the first known conservation app for North American native bees

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Remembering the Wild Bees

November 19, 2014

Native bee enthusiast Celeste Ets-Hokin of the Bay Area is on a mission: she wants residents to provide habitat for wild bees, including bumble bees, sweat bees, miner bees, mason bees, digger bees and long-horned bees.

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Gulf Fritillary butterfly on Cosmos. One myth is that if you rub the scales off their wings (who would want to?), they can't fly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Bohart Museum Open House: Insect Myths!

November 18, 2014

How many insect myths do you know? Worker bees are males, right? Butterflies and moths can't fly if you rub the scales off their wings, right? Earwigs crawl into your ears and then into your brain, right? Wrong. They're all widely known but falsely held beliefs.

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Worker bes cleaning out queen cells. Honey bee presentations will be part of the ICE program. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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ICE Is Red-Hot!

November 17, 2014

You've heard folks say "cold as ice," right? Well, ICE is red hot. The International Congress of Entomology (ICE) is gearing up for its 2016 conference, "Entomology without Borders," to take place Sept. 25-30, 2016 in Orlando, Fla.

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This honey may or may not have been poisoned by neonics, but it's definitely "under the weather." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Neonics: Should They Be Banned?

November 14, 2014

Neonicotinoids. It's a 14-letter word but many people consider it a four-letter word. Wikipedia defines it as a "a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically similar to nicotine...In the late 2000s some neonicotinoids came under increasing scrutiny over their environmental impacts.

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A honey bee encounters rain drops Nov. 13 in the midst of the California drought. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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It's All The Buzz

November 13, 2014

Honey bees will be "all the buzz" next week when the California State Beekeepers' Association (CSBA) meets Nov. 18-20 in Valencia, Calif., and the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meets Nov. 16-19 in Portland, Ore.

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