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

PISTACHIO LOVER--This navel orangeworm showed a preference for pistachios. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Penchant for Pistachios Leads to Startling Find

January 2, 2009

Chemical ecologists at the University of California, Davis, are changing their navel-orangeworm research direction after an elementary school students science project found that the major agricultural pest prefers pistachios over almonds and walnuts.

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ROCK PURSLANE--The magenta-colored rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora) is a favorite of honey bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Twenty-Nine Days to Go

January 1, 2009

Twenty-nine days to go. If you love bees and know how to design a bee friendly garden, remember Jan. 30. Jan. 30 is the deadline to submit your design for the half-acre bee friendly garden at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis.

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TURN OVER A NEW LEAF--and there's a praying mantis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Turning Over a New Leaf

December 31, 2008

For my New Year's resolution, I resolve to turn over a new leaf. Oh, sure, most folks resolve to eat less, exercise more, drink less, read more, stress less, save more, gripe less, and volunteer more. Not me. I'm turning over a new leaf.

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BLUE BUTTERFLY--This butterfly in the live butterfly display at the Entomological Society of America's recent meeting in Reno prompted photographers to aim, focus and shoot. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Flying Flower

December 30, 2008

Ponce Denis couchard Lebrun compared the butterfly to a flying flower: The butterfly is a flying flower, The flower a tethered butterfly. At the recent Entomological Society of America meeting in Reno, a blue butterfly drew the attention of lepidopterists and photographers alike.

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GATHERING NECTAR--This honey bee at the University of California, Davis, is gathering nectar on Cenizo (Leucophyllum frutescens). Newly published research from the University of Illinois finds that honey bees on cocaine dance more, and that the bees are motivated by feelings of reward. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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What a Buzz!

December 29, 2008

Right out of Champaign, Ill., comes a research story about honey bees on coke. Cocaine. University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson and his colleagues have found that honey bees on cocaine dance more.

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