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)
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A syrphid fly heads for a Gaura in a Vacaville garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

It's Friday Fly Day!

November 15, 2024
It's Friday Fly Day and what an appropriate day to honor a syrphid fly. This syrphid, caught in flight, was seeking nectar from a Gaura, a genus of flowering plants in the family Onagraceae, native to North America.
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Honey bee nectaring on tower of jewels, Echium wilpretii. This is a non-native, but isn't it pretty? The California Master Beekeeper Program is offering a class on "Planning Year-Round Native Plant Pollinator Garden" on Nov. 17. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

CAMBP Classes on Pollinator Gardens and Apiary Technology

November 12, 2024
Like to learn about planning a year-round native pollinator garden or about technology in the apiary? The California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP) has announced its last two classes of 2024. One is a three-hour course, Planning Year-Round Native Plant Pollinator Garden from 9 a.m.
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Samuel Davidson Laughlin, shown here at his home in Castle Rock, Wash., contracted malaria when he was a color bearer for the Union Army during the Siege of Vicksburg.

Mosquitoes, Malaria and the Civil War

November 11, 2024
Not many Americans think about mosquitoes and malaria on Nov. 11, Veterans' Day. But they should. The mosquito played a major adversarial role in our nation's Civil War. Some 30,000 soldiers died of malaria, and more than half of the 2.
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