Bug Squad

Welcome to the Bug Squad blog! The Bug Squad blog was launched Aug. 6, 2008 and is a daily blog (Monday through Friday). It showcases entomologists and the work they do. The blog focuses on scientists in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, the Bohart Museum of Entomology, Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, the UC Davis Bee Haven, and assorted campuswide events, including UC Davis Picnic Day, UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, and Bohart Museum open houses. The blog spotlights insects, including bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and praying mantises, as well as arachnids such as jumping spiders and crab spiders. Author and photographer is Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and a longtime journalist and community scientist with two degrees from Washington State University. She is a member of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE). Her blog posts and images have won international awards from ACE and ESA and appeared on journal and magazine covers. She shoots primarily with a Nikon Z-8 mirrorless camera, a Nikon D500 and Nikon 800, with assorted macro lenses. Feedspot lists it as one of the top entomology blogs on the Internet.

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)

The SWAT Team

October 27, 2009

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

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)

Racing for the Lavender

October 26, 2009

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

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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SPORTING the new honey bee t-shirts they created to raise funds for honey bee research at UC Davis are Nanase Nakanishi (left), an animal science major and a student employee at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, and Fran Keller, a doctoral student in entomology. Nanase models the front, and Fran, the back. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Saving the Bees, One Shirt at a Time

October 23, 2009

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

Officials at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the Bohart Museum of Entomology are saving the bees--one T-shirt at a time.

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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)

Cutting It

October 22, 2009

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

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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NEWLY EMERGED BEE at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. Bees like this are now welcome in Allendale, N.J., thanks to the successful efforts of beekeeper Dianne DiBlasi to lift a ban on backyard beekeeping. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Bee-lieve!

October 21, 2009

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

Dianne DiBlasi did it. Back in January, we wrote a Bug Squad blog about Dianne DiBlasis three-year effort to overturn an Allendale, N.J. ban on backyard beekeeping. DiBlasi, who leads a group of teen environmentalists known as Team B.E.E.S.

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