Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay
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The Kniphofia "Christmas Cheer" poker plant, seen here in the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden and nearby area, grows in clumps. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Spreading Some Holiday Cheer

December 28th, 2023
If you've lately visited the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, part of the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, you've seen them. Honey bees nectaring on the Kniphofia "Christmas Cheer" poker plant.
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A feral honey bee colony (now gone) from a backyard in Vacavile, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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It's Bee-ginning to Look a Lot Like...

December 25th, 2023
It's bee-ginning to look a lot like Christmas... All hail our littlest agricultural worker. European colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) to what is now the United States in 1622. Specifically, the bees arrived at the Jamestown colony (Virginia).
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A golden honey bee, a Cordovan, nectaring in a Vacaville, Calif., garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Revisiting 'The 13 Bugs of Christmas'

December 22nd, 2023
Back in 2010, UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and yours truly, department communications specialist, wondered why no insects appear in "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Zero. Zilch. Nada.
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