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May 2025Archived
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This is a Lasioglossum (Dialictus) sp. female, as identified by emeritus professor and native pollinator researcher Robbin Thorp of UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

No Sweat!

September 18, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Okay, everybody in the pool! That means bees, too? It does. Sweat bees. You may have noticed the tiny bees--common name sweat bees from the family Halictidae--in your swimming pool or pollinating your flowers. They're attracted to perspiring skin (thus the name sweat bees).
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UC Davis undergraduate student William Yuen wearing his dragonfly t-shirt. He has worked part-time in the Bohart Museum of Entomology for two years. (Photo by Fran Keller)
Bug Squad: Article

Behold the Dragonfly

September 17, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Some folks wear their heart on their sleeve. Others wear a dragonfly on their chest. As part of its public outreach education program and to showcase the world of insects, the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, has created t-shirts featuring a California dragonfly.
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Like a hovering helicopter, the hover fly lingers over flowers in the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, UC Davis Arboretum. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

To Bee or Not to Bee

September 16, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
To bee or not to bee. Not to bee. The flying insect hovering over the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, UC Davis Arboretum, looked like a honey bee or wasp at first glance. It wasn't. It was a hover fly or syphrid fly from the order Diptera (Greek for "two wings") and family Syrphidae.
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A pollen-packin' honey bee heads toward a gaura (Gaura linheimeri). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

High-Wire Act

September 15, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's like going to the circus. A bee circus. When you see honey bees gather pollen from a gaura (Gaura linheimeri), it's as if they ran off and joined the circus. You'll see hire-wire (er...high-stem) acts, somersaults, pirouettes, cartwheels and cliffhangers.
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A honey bee heads for the colorful button-willows (Cephalanthus occidentalis).(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

Cute as a Button (Willow)

September 12, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
A bee on a ball. When it flowers, the button-willow (Cephalanthus occidentalis), also known as willow, buttonbush, honey ball, and button ball (oh, that's so close to butter ball!) attracts honey bees and butterflies like you wouldn't believe.
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The queen bee (the largest bee, center) is surrounded by her court, the worker bees, who take care of her every need. They feed her, groom her and protect her "and then they have the additional tasks of rearing and feeding her young," said bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. (Photo courtesy of Susan Cobey, UC Davis Department of Entomology)
Bug Squad: Article

The Queen Bee

September 11, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you were a queen bee, you'd be laying about 1500 to 2000 eggs today. It's your busy season. "She's an egg-laying machine," said bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. "And she's the mother of all the bees in the hive.
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A male gray hairstreak butterfly (Strymon melinus) nectars on sage. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bug Squad: Article

Gray Hairstreak

September 10, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Omigosh, what's that? A gray hairstreak?" If it's in your hair, you consult a mirror, your favorite salon, or just ignore it. If you're an entomologist or a lepidopterist, a gray hairstreak is delightful.
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This is a bee nesting block built to attract native pollinators. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Build It And They Will Come

September 9, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Build it and they will come. Baseball's Field of Dreams? No, a bee nesting block. Think "bee condo." It's an artificial nesting site made of wood and drilled with different-sized holes and depths to accommodate the diversity of native pollinators. Often the bee block is nailed to a fence post.
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This floral visitor is a cuckoo bee, "probably the genus Triepeolus (maybe Epeolus) and probably a male," said UC Davis emeritus professor Robbin Thorp. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

September 8, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
We've all heard of the cuckoo clock. And most of us have heard of the cuckoo bird (Cuculus canorus), which lays its eggs in the nest of birds of other species. But the cuckoo bee? Yes, there is a cuckoo bee. The female lays her eggs in the nests of other solitary nesting bees. They resemble wasps.
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A female carpenter bee (Xylocopa tabaniformis orpifex) pierces the corolla of salvia to rob the nectar. (Identified by Robbin Thorp, UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology.) (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

I've Been Robbed!

September 5, 2008
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Robber at work. No, this isn't a bank heist or a gas station hold-up or a home invasion. A carpenter bee is slitting the sides of salvia (sage) to steal the nectar. Floral larceny! Book 'em, Danno! Carpenter bees are nectar robbers.
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