What's wrong with this photo? A honey bee is nectaring a lavender, right? Right. But if you look closely, you'll see a Varroa mite--a parasite--attached to her. Varroa mites, considered the No.
A recent visit to the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden found honey bees making a...yes...beeline...for the pink oxalis (Oxalis herta), a native of South Africa. Some folks consider oxalis, especially yellow oxalis, a "weed.
The honey bees are hungry. There are fewer flowers blooming this time of the year, so the bees are foraging for what they can. This morning the bees were all over the lavender (Lavandula) in our yard.
Pollination Nation. That's the title of a new display at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis. It's quite timely and appropriate because of the beleaguered bees.
"R" is for research at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Faciity at the University of California, Davis. What's it all about? The Laidlaw facility is a nexus for diverse bee research and scientists from throughout the world.
