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.

NOCTUID CUTWORM, soon to be a dull brown moth, crawls on a yarrow at the Storer Garden, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Cutting It

October 22, 2009

The dull brown moth may be dull-looking but as noctuid cutworms they're not. We spotted this noctuid cutworm, soon to be a dull brown moth, last week on a yarrow in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis.

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NEWLY EMERGED BEE at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. Bees like this are now welcome in Allendale, N.J., thanks to the successful efforts of beekeeper Dianne DiBlasi to lift a ban on backyard beekeeping. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Bee-lieve!

October 21, 2009

Dianne DiBlasi did it. Back in January, we wrote a Bug Squad blog about Dianne DiBlasis three-year effort to overturn an Allendale, N.J. ban on backyard beekeeping. DiBlasi, who leads a group of teen environmentalists known as Team B.E.E.S.

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HONEY BEE nectaring lavender. Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a method for training the common honey bee to detect the explosives used in bombs. The method involves the tongue or proboscis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Tongue for Explosives, Narcotics

October 20, 2009

Honey bees are involved in a unique "sting operation" utilizing their sense of keen smell to detect explosives and narcotics. And now a scientist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, will talk about the project on Wednesday, Oct. 21 on the UC Davis campus.

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NEWLY EMERGED: a drone (male bee) is the foreground. In the background is a worker bee (infertile female). They're one day old in this photo. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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The Drone: Target of Attacks

October 19, 2009

Drones--remotely piloted aircraft used in reconnaissance and target attacks--are in the news, but so are the other drones--male bees. This time of year drones are as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth.

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UC DAVIS ENTOMOLOGIST James R. Carey, director of a federally funded program on aging and lifespan, will speak on "Demography of the Finitude: Insights into Lifespan, Aging and Death from Insect Studies" from 12:10 to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21 in 122 Briggs Hall, UC Davis. It can be accessed live. (See above for link.) (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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What We Can Learn from Insects

October 16, 2009

What can we learn from insects? Lots. But first, let's talk about the UC Seminar Network. It's a pilot program that involves Webcasting scientific seminars on University of California campuses.

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