Bug Squad

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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.

A honey bee and yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenski, share a coneflower. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Bees 'n Blooms

October 21, 2014

Bees 'n blooms. Blooms 'n bees. Add "California" to it and you have California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists. It's a book that's well-planned, well-executed, well-written and well-photographed. Bees are hungry.

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Drone fly, Eristalis tenax, sipping nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Fly Is a Fly Is a Fly

October 20, 2014

A bee is a bee is a bee is a bee. 'Cept when it's a fly. Lately we've been seeing lots of images on social media (including Facebook and Twitter), news media websites, and stock photo sites of "honey bees." But they're actually flies.

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Close-up of a tagged Monarch butterfly. (Photo by David James, entomologist at Washington State University, Pullman, Wash.)

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Have You Seen Me? A Tagged Monarch?

October 17, 2014

The next time you see a Monarch butterfly heading your way--or settled in at an overwintering site in coastal California or in central Mexico--check to see if it's tagged.

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Michael "Kim" Fondrk of UC Davis tends Robert Page's bees in a Dixon, Calif. almond orchard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Bee BMP: 'A' for Communication

October 16, 2014

Can you say "Bee BMP?" That's a short-cut for "Bee Best Management Practices." The Almond Board of California today unveiled its long-awaited "Honey Bee Best Management Practices for California Almonds.

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Honey bee pollinating an almond blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey

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Best Management Practices for Honey Bees

October 15, 2014

The Almond Board of California will unveil its Honey Bee Best Management Practices tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 16) in an ongoing effort to promote and protect bee health. The board will do so by holding a press conference at 8:30 a.m.

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