Bug Squad

A daily (M-F) blog launched Aug. 6, 2008 and about the wonderful world of insects and those who study them. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Beekeepers are gearing up for the California almond polination season, which usually starts around Feb. 14. Here, in this file photo, an industrious bee forages on an almond blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Meet the President of the American Honey Producers

January 9, 2020

January is cold in Bruce, S.D., where the average nighttime temperature dips to 3 degrees. Beekeeper Kelvin Adee, who hails from Bruce, isn't experiencing any of that right now. He's in California--and so are his bees for the almond pollination season.

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This is the tiny insect--a fruit fly known as the spotted-wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) that Antoine Abrieuz studies in the Joanna Chiu lab at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Congrats to Antoine Abrieux, Innovator Fellow Award

January 8, 2020

Congrats to postdoctoral researcher Antoine Abrieux of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of California, Davis! Abrieux, an international scholar from France in the Joanna Chiu lab, is one of two recipients of an Innovator Fellow Award from the UC Davis Innovation Institute for...

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Lead author James R. Carey also designed the cover of the book, "Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods."

Covering Biodemography and Trail-Blazing the Emerging Field

January 7, 2020

When you look at the cover of the newly published book on biodemography by James R. Carey of UC Davis and Deborah A. Roach of the University of Virginia, it beckons you to read it.

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Photographer Allan Jones captured this image of a black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, on Jan. 6 in UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden to win the Robbin Thorp Memorial Bumble Bee Contest.

We Have a Winner of the Yolo-Solano Bumble Bee Contest!

January 6, 2020

We have a winner of the Yolo-Solano Memorial Bumble Bee Contest! Macro insect photographer extraordinaire Allan Jones captured an image of a female black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus on Monday, Jan. 6 on the UC Davis campus. The time: 1:45 p.m.

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This is an image of a fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, an insect that researcher Karen Menuz, who will present a seminar Jan. 8 at UC Davis, studies. She and colleague Pratyajit Mohapatra recently published research on "Molecular Profiling of the Drosophila Antenna Reveals Conserved Genes Underlying Olfaction in Insects." (Photo by Sanjay Acharya, courtesy of Wikipedia)

Karen Menuz: 'The Molecular Basis of Insect Olfaction'

January 3, 2020

"Repellent odors are widely used to prevent insect-borne diseases, making it imperative to identify the conserved molecular underpinnings of their olfactory systems.

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