Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay
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Distinguished Service, Distinguished Awards

April 14th, 2010
Excellent work! We're glad to see that three noted entomologists at the University of California, Davis, received distinguished awards in their fields at the 94th annual meeting of the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA) on April 13 in Boise, Idaho.
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CHEMICAL ECOLOGIST Walter Leal (right) is the 2010 recipient of the prestigious C. W. Woodworth Award, presented by Woodworth's great-grandson Brian Holden (left) at the 94th annual meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America. (Courtesy Photo)
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High Honor

April 13th, 2010
Charles W.Woodworth would have been proud. When the C. W.
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FIELD OF REDMAIDS, California native wildflowers, near the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. Mixed in are fiddleneck (yellow), also frequented by bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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A Patch of Redmaids

April 12th, 2010
Redmaids aren't red. They're purple-petaled with white centers and yellow stamens. The California native wildflower (Calandrinia ciliatais) from the purslane family (Portulacaceae) blooms from February through May. Farmers who grow baby spinach and other crops consider it a weed. Honey bees don't.
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BARELY VISIBLE, this is a newly hatched praying mantis, held by Emily Bzdyk, a first-year graduate student in entomology at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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No Fear

April 9th, 2010
No fear. None at all. Some of the bugs you'll see at the UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 17 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology are "baby" praying mantises or mantids. An egg case (here's one at right) hatched on Emily Bzdyk's desk this week.
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A HONEY BEE lands on a tulip, a plant generally not a "bee friendly plant." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Tiptoeing Through the Tulips

April 8th, 2010
Honey bees don't like tulips, right? Right. You don't plant tulips to attract bees, and you don't attract bees with tulips. They prefer such bee friendly plants as lavender, salvia, catmint, sedum, cherry laurels and tower of jewelsnot to mention fruit, almond and vegetable blossoms.
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