Peponapis pruinosa isn't your common household word. But among the people who study pollinators, it is. Also known as a squash bee, it is an important pollinator of cultivated crops of squash, pumpkins, and others members of the genus Cucurbita.

View Article

UC Davis Art/Science Fusion co-founder and co-director Donna Billick with her mosaic ceramic sculpture, Miss Bee Haven, in the half-acre Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey

Article

Fusing Art With Science

May 30th, 2014

The UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program is incredible. It's a program that, as the name indicates, fuses art and science. Science with art. On that note, two noteworthy events sponsored by the program will take place next week.

View Article

Honey bee foraging on milkweed in the UC Davis Arboretum, near Mrak Hall. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

Got Milk (Weed) for the Bees?

May 29th, 2014

Folks are planting milkweed for the monarchs. The milkweed (genus Asclepias) is the host plant (larval food) for the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). No wonder the monarch is sometimes called "the milkweed butterfly.

View Article

Mountain carpenter bee, Xylocopa tabaniformis orpifex, engaging in nectar robbing. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

The Nectar Robbers

May 28th, 2014

If you have a patch of salvia (sage) growing in your yard, watch for the nectar robbers. Carpenter bees are among the insects that engage in nectar robbing. They drill a hole in the corolla of the flower, circumventing the usual plant-pollinator relationship.

View Article

Formica moki, a native ant, frequents Yolo County gardens. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

You, Too, Can Be a Scientist!

May 27th, 2014

You don't have to be a citizen to be a "citizen scientist," and you don't have to be a scientist to be a citizen. But "citizen scientist" is a catchy term, all the same. Basically, it's the public engagement in scientific research activities.

View Article