Bug Squad

The Sting. (c) Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ROSEMARY GILLESPIE, director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, University of California, Berkeley, and chair of the Berkeley Natural History Museums, will be UC Davis on Feb. 24 to speak on "Community Assembly through Adaptive Radiation: Spiders on Islands.”
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From UC Berkeley to UC Davis

February 19, 2010
The arthropod community at UC Davis--and beyond--has circled the date, Wednesday, Feb. 24. It's not just the last Wednesday of the month.
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NATIVE BEE SPECIALIST Robbin Thorp looks for native bees in an almond tree on the grounds of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. He'll be a keynote speaker at the 2010 Bee Symposium, set March 7 in Sebastopol. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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A Symposium to Help the Bees

February 18, 2010
Robbin Thorp's many areas of expertise include the amazing diversity of native bees. He'll discuss their diversity, nesting habits and nest site requirements when he addresses the 2010 Bee Symposium, sponsored by the Santa Rosa-based Partners for Sustainable Pollination (PFSP).
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BEE BREEDER-GENETICIST Kim Fondrk mows the lush grass at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Springing Into Action at the Laidlaw Facility

February 17, 2010
It's not spring, but don't tell that to the folks at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis. Today bee breeder-geneticist Michael "Kim" Fondrk mowed the lush green grass around the apiary.
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A SYRPHID FLY (problably from the Genus Toxomerus) heads toward a white ceanothus blossom near Tomales Bay. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Syrphids Back Again

February 16, 2010
Have you seen the little syrphid flies, aka flower flies and hover flies, hovering around the early spring blossoms? We saw half a dozen of them Monday, Feb. 15 nectaring a white ceanothus at the Marshall Post Office in Marin County. The ceanothus is a shrub from the buckhorn family, Rhamnaceae.
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HONEY BEE visiting an almond blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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No Day Off

February 15, 2010
It's Presidents' Day today, a holiday for most of us but not for the honey bees. The bees are buzzing in and around the almond blossoms, collecting nectar and pollen for their hives. Nectar provides the carbohydrates for the hive, and pollen provides the proteins.
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