Ongoing research

Robbin Thorp's many areas of expertise include the amazing diversity of native bees. He'll discuss their diversity, nesting habits and nest site requirements when he addresses the 2010 Bee Symposium, sponsored by the Santa Rosa-based Partners for Sustainable Pollination (PFSP).

It's not spring, but don't tell that to the folks at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis. Today bee breeder-geneticist Michael "Kim" Fondrk mowed the lush green grass around the apiary.

Have you seen the little syrphid flies, aka flower flies and hover flies, hovering around the early spring blossoms? We saw half a dozen of them Monday, Feb. 15 nectaring a white ceanothus at the Marshall Post Office in Marin County. The ceanothus is a shrub from the buckhorn family, Rhamnaceae.

It's Presidents' Day today, a holiday for most of us but not for the honey bees. The bees are buzzing in and around the almond blossoms, collecting nectar and pollen for their hives. Nectar provides the carbohydrates for the hive, and pollen provides the proteins.

There's nothing like a steaming hot cup of coffee to jump-start the day. If there's anything better than one cup, it's TWO cups. Well, honey bees like a little caffeine, too. And nicotine.

The first time I met Alexandra "Alex" Klein, she was perched in the arms of an almond tree in the Capay Valley, Yolo County. It was Feb. 27, 2008.

The Tidy Tips are a'blooming and the bees are a'buzzing. The Tidy Tips, a native California wildflower (Layia platyglossa, family Asteraceae) is a welcome addition to flower beds.

Let's go buggy at the Bohart! The Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses more than seven million insect specimens at its facility on the University of California, Davis campus, has extended its hours to include several weekends. The first will be Saturday, Feb. 13 from 1 to 5 p.m.

The Insects are coming. The Insects are coming. That would be the fourth edition of The Insects: An Outline of Entomology, the newly published work of professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston (at right) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.

A nice prize! Evolutionary ecologist Anurag Agrawal (right), who received his doctorate in population biology from the University of California, Davis in 1999 under major professor Richard Rick Karban, has just received the sixth David Starr Jordan Prize for his innovative research inolving plant-an...