Posts Tagged: drone flies

Umm, Where's the Bee?

If there's one thing that entomologists hate, it's journalists who mistake a fly for a bee. To entomologists, it's like mistaking a referee for a football player (well, they are on the same playing field) or a model airplane for a Lear jet (well, they...

A drone fly, Eristalis tenax (left), and a syrphid fly. They're from the same family, Syrphidae, and are often mistaken for honey bees.. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A drone fly, Eristalis tenax (left), and a syrphid fly. They're from the same family, Syrphidae and are often mistaken for honey bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A honey bee collecting pollen. Lower right: a freeloader fly.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A honey bee collecting pollen. Lower right: a freeloader fly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of a honey bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of a honey bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of a syrphid fly, aka flower fly or hover fly. Note the setae or bristle on the head. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Close-up of a syrphid fly, aka flower fly or hover fly. Note the setae or bristle on the head. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A Fly Is a Fly Is a Fly

A bee is a bee is a bee is a bee. 'Cept when it's a fly. Lately we've been seeing lots of images on social media (including Facebook and Twitter), news media websites, and stock photo sites of "honey bees."  But they're actually...

Drone fly, Eristalis tenax, sipping nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Drone fly, Eristalis tenax, sipping nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The "H" is easily seen on the drone fly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The "H" is easily seen on the drone fly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Drone fly heads for another blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Drone fly heads for another blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

To Bee or Not to Bee

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...

Like a hovering helicopter, the hover fly lingers over flowers in the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, UC Davis Arboretum. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The hover fly, from the syrphid family, works the flowers in the Storer Garden, part of the UC Davis Arboretum. The syphrids, in their larval stage, eat plant-sucking pests or decaying matter, and in their adult stage, they pollinate flowers as they go after the nectar and pollen. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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