- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's Thanksgiving Day, and as we sit down with family and friends to count our blessings, let's thank the bees.
If your table includes pumpkin, cranberries, carrots, cucumbers, onions, apples, oranges, cherries, blueberries, grapefruit, persimmons, pomegranates, pears, sunflower seeds, and almonds, praise the bees for their pollination services.
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are generalists, while the squash bees (Peponapis pruinosa) are specialists that pollinate only the cucurbits or squash family, Cucurbitaceae.
And don't forget the spices. Honey bees visit the plants that eventually comprise our spices, including sage, basil, oregano and thyme.
Ready for dessert? Ice cream? Even milk and ice cream are closely linked to the honey bee. Cows feed on alfalfa, which is pollinated by honey bees (along with other bees).
Happy Thanksgiving!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
They're called "wonder flies."
And for a good reason.
Folks wonder what they are. As native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, says: "We non-Dipterists often refer to these flies as 'wonder flies' since most of us wonder what these tiny diverse flies are."
We recently spotted these "wonder flies" in Napa sharing a squash blossom with honey bees.
Flies are pollinators, too!
If you wonder about these flies, check out BugGuide.Net, where entomologists and others congregate to share "observations of insects, spiders, and other related creatures."