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

Honey bee on a cenizo, Leucophyllum frutescens. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Plants, Pollinators and UC Davis

October 12, 2012

If you've never been to a UC Davis Arboretum plant sale, you should. The last plant sale of the year will take place Sunday, Oct. 14 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Arboretum Teaching Nursery on Garrod Drive.

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Close-up of a Smerinthus cerisyi caterpillar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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What's That Caterpillar?

October 11, 2012

What's that caterpillar? This little fellow (or gal) was munching--quite contentedly, thank you--on the leaves of an aspen tree. The homeowner didn't take too kindly to the critter defoliating his prized tree, newly purchased in Oregon and newly planted in Vacaville, Calif.

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Monarch butterfly nectaring lantana, while a digger bee, Anthophora urbana, heads toward it. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Coming Right at You

October 10, 2012

It's not often you see a monarch butterfly and a digger bee in the same photo. Such was the case on a recent visit to a lantana patch at a west Vacaville home.

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New World orchid bees at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Green Bees

October 9, 2012

The folks at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis,call them "jungle gems." And "gems" they are. They're New World orchid bees (Euglossine bees), which museum director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, describes as "the most beautiful bees in the world.

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Honey bee on a blanket flower, Gaillardia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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So Bee It

October 8, 2012

Honey bees on blanket flowers (Gaillardia). Honey bees on Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia). The Girls of Autumn....not unlike The Boys of Summer...

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