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

UC Davis honey ready to be extracted last fall. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Show Me the Honey! (And Taste It, Too!)

April 18, 2012

One of the six honey varieties that the UC Davis Department of Entomology will serve during the campuswide 98th annual UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 21 is...drum roll...cactus honey. Yes, you heard that right. Cactus honey.

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Honey bees ready to swarm at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Unhappy Ending

April 17, 2012

Bee swarms don't always have happy endings. Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology was quoted in a news story published today about a bee swarm on a Stockton ballfield.

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Pea aphids on a rose leaf. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Oh, Those Pestiferous Aphids!

April 16, 2012

By now, you're probably seen enough aphids to last you for the entire year. That's why we're looking forward to hearing Bryony Bonning speak on "Novel Toxin Delivery Strategies for Management of Pestiferous Aphids" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology seminar, scheduled from 12:10 to 1 p.m.

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Honey bee swarm on the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Facility grounds on Friday the 13th. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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It Happened on Friday the 13th

April 13, 2012

It happened on Friday the 13th. It was the first swarm of the season at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis. The bees swirled, darkening the sky, and then swarmed from one of bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey's hives around 2 p.

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A jumping spider perched on a rose leaf. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Bug Safari!

April 12, 2012

They're there. If you walk slowly into your garden or backyard, and observe your surroundings, you'll find them. A jumping spider perched on a rose leaf. A soldier beetle climbing out of a tulip. A syrphid fly, aka flower fly or hover fly, foraging on a poppy blossom.

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