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

ALMOND ORCHARD in Dixon, Calif. shows rows and rows of popcornlike blossoms. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Closer, Closer, Closer

February 24, 2011

No thanks to the recent storms, almond orchards are encountering Nature's Extreme Makeover--from fluffy popcorn blossoms to tattered petals reminiscent of bottom-of-the-bag kernels. Still, there's something spectacular about driving down a rural road in Dixon, Calif.

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YELLOW-FACED BUMBLE BEE (Bombus vosnesenskii) gathers pollen on a rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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C'mon, Native Pollinators

February 23, 2011

So you want to attract native pollinators to your garden. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, based in Portland, Ore., has just published a 380-page book, Attracting Native Pollinators, that encourages you to do just that.

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SARAH HAN, who works in the Greg Lanzaro lab at UC Davis and plans to enter entomology graduate school, meets a thorny walking stick from Borneo. With her is UC Davis entomology graduate student Matan Shelomi, who studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Now That's Thorny

February 22, 2011

You never know who's coming to dinner...er...reception. When the UC Davis Department of Entomology hosted an open house today for prospective graduate students, the Bohart Museum of Entomology brought along some thorny walking sticks.

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A HONEY BEE heads for the only blossom on the nectarine branch. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Nectarines Bursting Into Bloom

February 21, 2011

It's Presidents' Day and far too early for nectarines to burst into bloom. The unseasonable weather, however, fooled 'em. Didn't fool the honey bees.

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EGGS inside honey bee cells will turn into larvae, which will increase in weight 1000 times during the six days that they feed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Weighty Matter in the Hive

February 18, 2011

Think what it would be like if you increased your weight by 1000 times in six days. But that's exactly what worker bee larvae do in the honey bee colony.

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