Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay
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UC ANR is renovating its website. The Bug Squad blogs are archived at https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/archive.cfm

 

Meanwhile, here are the latest blogs. They can also be found on the Bug Squad blog, Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/TheBugSquad

March 28, 2025: Congrats to Douglas Walsh, PBESA's Woodworth Award Recipient

March 27, 2025:  In Support of Honey Bees

March 26, 2025: Remembering Professor Harry Lange and Helping the Bohart Museum of Entomology

March 25, 2025: Hammock, Morisseau to Give TEDX Talk at School of Medicine Research Celebration

March 24, 2025: A UC Davis Living Lab: Which Plants Are Best for Your Garden?

March 21, 2025: 'Fantastic' and Much Needed Workshop: Fruit Fly ID

March 19, 2025: Thinking Pink on the First Day of Spring

March 18, 2025: Dad's Bees

March 17, 2025: Don't Pinch Me! I'm Green

March 14, 2025: CC Edwards Elected Chair of Youth Professionals, American Mosquito Control Association

March 13, 2025: Bohart Scientists Explain Venomous vs. Poisonous

March 12 2025: A Beautiful Bombus at Bodega
 
March 11 2025: Learn How Two UC Davis Entomologists-Artists Fuse Art with Science
 
March 10, 2025: How to Color a Frog: the Boh-Art Way
 
March 7, 2025: Bohart Museum Open House: Hopping with Poison Dart Frogs
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUEEN BEE, marked with the dot, is circled by her royal attendants in a retinue. This was taken through the glass of an observation hive. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Life and Death in the Hive

October 14th, 2009
Life and death in the bee observation hive... If you ever have the opportunity to check out a bee observation hive--a glassed-in hive showing the colony at work--you can easily spot the three castes: the queen bee, worker bees and drones.
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HONEY BEE nectars a blue marguerite daisy, a member of the sunflower family. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Blue Day for the Bees

October 13th, 2009
It's a blue day for the honey bees. The massive Northern California storm--one of our worst-ever storms and marked by heavy rains and equally strong winds--means that bees are clustering inside their hives. No foraging today.
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THIS EGG CASE on a potted plant outside the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis, will yield from 100 to 200 tiny mantises next spring when the weather warms. A praying mantis recently deposited her eggs on the plant. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Cold Case

October 12th, 2009
Here's a "cold case" to investigate. Check your backyard or neighborhood park and see if a praying mantis has deposited an egg case on a tree limb, plant or fence. Case in point: Over at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.
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THIS VARROA MITE is feeding on a drone pupa. Varroa mites reproduce in the brood cells and attack the developing bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Not a Pretty Sight

October 9th, 2009
It's not a pretty sight--the Varroa mite attacking a honey bee. Beekeepers are accustomed to seeing the reddish-brown, eight-legged parasite (aka "blood sucker") in their hives. UC Davis bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, manager of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.
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TINY female sweat bee (Halictus tripartitus) nectaring rock purslane. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Between a Rock and a...

October 8th, 2009
Caught between a rock and a...soft place... You'll often see tiny sweat bees nectaring rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora) in urban gardens. This plant, a native of Chile, brightens landscapes with its pinkish magenta blossoms.
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