- Author: Andrew Mason Sutherland
It's that time of year again: termite swarm season! Western subterranean termites, Reticulitermes hesperus (species complex), produce reproductive swarms during calm sunny periods immediately following the first autumn rains. This is especially pronounced in the San Francisco Bay Area and parts of the Sacramento Valley, where mature termite colonies across a broad region may swarm simultaneously en masse, filling the air with termites fluttering their gossamer wings and filling social media discussions with wonder, horror, confusion, and dread.
Western subterranean termites may also swarm in the
While we are staying home during the pandemic, insects are most definitely not!
In fact, you may have seen different types of insects swarming over the last few weeks. Swarming is a reproductive behavior where certain insects leave their colonies in droves, mate, disperse, and establish new colonies. Most of these swarms are not successful and end up dying, but for those that are successful, spring is an optimal time for insect colonies to find new homes.
Honey bees are one type of insect that can swarm at this time of the year while looking for new nesting locations. A large number of bees may appear frightening, but most spring swarms of the European honey bee are very docile and unlikely to sting. Our
- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
It's not often that we get to mix baseball and pests in our blog, but today we learned that the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds game was delayed by almost 20 minutes due to swarming bees.
You can read different takes on this story from the Washington Post, NBC News, and on the Major League Baseball website, and see as one Reds player pretended to spray a pesticide to kill the bees.
In a practical...
