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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Valley carpenter bee foraging on a passion flower. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Behold, the Gold!

October 22, 2013
When you visit the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, be sure to check out the passionflower vine clinging to the fence. You'll see female Valley carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) seemingly speckled with gold dust.
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Norm Gary's bee cluster in the middle of a sunflower field in Winters. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Ultimate Swarms

October 21, 2013
It was blazing hot that summer day in Winters, Calif. The date: July 22, 2012. The place: a sunfiower field in Winters, Calif.
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The world's largest hornet next to a honey bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Now That's Huge!

October 18, 2013
The world's largest hornet (Vespa mandarinia) is huge. Just how huge? We photographed a two-inch specimen last week at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis. Among the insect musem's nearly eight million specimens is the giant hornet.
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