Those dratted mites. UC Davis entomologist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor and a native bee pollinator specialist, sent us a BBC report linking a varroa mite infestation to a devastating honey production loss in the UK. It's the worst honey crisis ever to hit the UK.
Okay, what are the answers? In a prior blog, we listed several questions asked at the Linnaean Games, a college-bowl type of quiz thats a traditional part of the Entomological Society of Americas annual meeting. You have to know insect facts and figures and ESA history to win.
In football lingo, a curl is a spin on a football, which makes it swerve when it's kicked. Honey bees can also "curl." I took this photo today of a lone bee curled on purple sage. The worker bee was gathering nectar in the summerlike weather.
He knows his ants. Michael Branstetter, a doctoral candidate in entomology at the University of California, Davis, won a coveted Presidents Prize for his oral presentation on ants at the 56th annual Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting in Reno.
The movie, "Sideways," has nothing on a spotted cucumber beetle climbing up, down and sideways on a rock purslane. The spotted cucumber beetle is a pest, while the rock purslane has to be among the world's most beautiful flowers. (And also very attractive to insects.
Quick! Name three states that have no official state insect. That was one of the questions at the Linnaean Games, a traditional part of the Entomological Society of America's annual meeting. This year's meeting, the 56th annual, is now under way in Reno. The Linnaean Games have begun.
Last Saturday the rock purslane in our bee friendly garden drew a honey bee, several hover flies and one spotted cucumber beetle. A hover fly landed on a blossom, only to find a spotted cucumber beetle there first.
Honey isn't always amber-colored. It can range from white to dark brown, depending on the flowers the bees visit. Back in 1971, a group of UC Davis bee specialists wrote a booklet, Fundamentals of California Beekeeping, published by the "University of California College of Agriculture.
When the Entomological Society of America's 56th annual meeting takes place Nov. 16-19 in Reno, UC Davis entomologists will be out in force. And they'll be highly honored.
You may not know it, but you've eaten insects. Oh, yes, you have. The other day I meandered over to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis campus, and a sign told me that. There it was--plain as day (as if a day can be plain).
