Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay

Looking for a specific Blog post?

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

TEAM B.E.E.S.--These high school students from Allendale, N.J., are learning to be beekeepers and are educating the public about the importance of bees. From left are Camila Robbins, Bryan DiBlasi, Malith Waharaka, Colin Bassett, and Manny Gonzalez. However, Allendale prohibits backyard beekeeping. They're lobbying to change the ordinance.

Article

What Would We Do Without the Bees?

January 16, 2009

Dianne DiBlasi is frustrated. Shes the advisor of Team B.E.E.S. (Bergen Environmental Effort to Save Bees), a group of six high school students in Allendale, N.J. involved in a honey bee project.

View Article

BEE CRUSADER--Katie Brown, 6, of Phoenix, Ariz., loves bees and just donated $20 from her allowance savings to the UC Davis honey bee research program.

Article

Our Young Bee Crusaders

January 15, 2009

Dear Bee Scientists, wrote 6-year-old Katie Brown of Phoenix, Ariz. I am giving this money to you so you can help the bees. I love the bees. She enclosed $20 from her allowance savings. Hannah Fisher Gray, 11, of Wilmington, Del.

View Article

TINY PREDATOR--This juvenile Gambian spotted-eyed flower mantis, less than an inch long, is one of the live specimens at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

A Tiny Predator

January 14, 2009

If you meander over to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis campus, you'll see a very tiny predator that looks for all the world like a green leaf. It's the Gambian spotted-eye flower mantis and it's one of the many live specimens housed there.

View Article

Article

Blowin' Smoke

January 13, 2009

If you've been around honey bee hives much, you know what a smoker is. It's a tool that beekeepers use to inspect, manipulate or handle a hive. They smoke a hive to check the health of the colony, to add a little food, and to take a little honey.

View Article

HEAD OF ARGENTINE ANT--This automontage of an Argentine ant is the work of Eli Sarnat at the University of California, Davis. Sarnat has just launched an interactive ant key to help professionals and non-professionals identify ants. See Web site at http://www.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/PIAkey/index.html.

Article

Know Your Ants

January 12, 2009

Know your ants. If you want to identify red imported fire ants and other invasive ants found in the Pacific Island region, a newly launched Web site by an entomology graduate student at the University of California, Davis, will help you do just that.

View Article