Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay
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THIS MALE green metallic sweat bee, Agapostemon texanus, is nectaring a Seaside daisy, the Erigeron glaucus Wayne Roderick. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Something Quite Magical

October 28th, 2009
There's something so magical and captivating about the metallic green sweat bee. Shouldn't it be yellow? No. Is it a bee? Yes. Does it attract attention? Definitely.
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CHEMICAL ECOLOGISTS Walter Leal (left), professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and postdoctoral researcher Zain Syed, at work in the Walter Leal lab. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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The SWAT Team

October 27th, 2009
Chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and his postdoctoral researcher Zain Syed have done it again. In August of 2008, they discovered the secret mode of the insect repellent, DEET.
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SHARING A LAVENDER are an Italian bee (left) and a Carniolan bee, two races of the species Apis mellifera. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Racing for the Lavender

October 26th, 2009
A bee is a bee is a bee? Poet Gertrude Stein ("a rose is a rose is a rose") could have said that. True, there's only one species of honey bee in the United States--Apis mellifera, the Western or European honey bee--but there are several races.
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NOCTUID CUTWORM, soon to be a dull brown moth, crawls on a yarrow at the Storer Garden, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Cutting It

October 22nd, 2009
The dull brown moth may be dull-looking but as noctuid cutworms they're not. We spotted this noctuid cutworm, soon to be a dull brown moth, last week on a yarrow in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis.
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