Bug Squad

The Bug Squad blog, by Kathy Keatley Garvey of the University of California, Davis, is a daily (Monday-Friday) blog launched Aug. 6, 2008. It is about the wonderful world of insects and the entomologists who study them. Blog posts are archived at https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/index.cfm. The story behind "The Sting" is here: https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=7735.

A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenkii, heading toward a California golden poppy. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Congratulations to UC Davis Pollinator Ecologist Neal Williams

December 7, 2018

With all the increasing--and alarming--global concern about declining pollinators, it's great to see some good news: pollination ecologist Neal Williams of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology is one of the Highly Cited Researchers in the 2018 list just released by Clarivate Analytic...

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A UC Davis student wrote: "Drones are male bees that contribute only in the perm production for the queen." That inspired Karissa Merritt to create this for the newly published Bohart Museum of Entomology calendar, now available for purchase.

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When Queen Bees Get Permanents: Calendar That!

December 6, 2018

"Drones are male bees that contribute only in the perm production for the queen." So wrote an undergraduate student in one of Lynn Kimsey's entomology classes at the University of California, Davis. The student meant "sperm." But it came out "perm.

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A parasitic wasp, Microplitis demolitor, laying an egg (ovipositing) in larva of soybean looper moth. (Photo by Jena Johnson of the Michael Strand lab, University of Georgia)

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Scientists Reveal New Method to Characterize Physiological Responses to Parasitism

December 5, 2018

Have you ever seen a wasp oviposit or lay its eggs inside a caterpillar? Or the egg of a moth? it's not always easy to tell what's going on without destroying both species.

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The three-cornered alfalfa hopper, Spissistilus festinus. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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About That Three-Cornered Alfalfa Hopper...

December 4, 2018

It's green, it's tiny, and everyone is hoping it doesn't wreak any havoc in the vineyards. "It" is the three-cornered alfalfa hopper, Spissistilus festinus, a lear-winged, wedge-shaped (thus the name "three-cornered") insect that's about a quarter of an inch long.

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"The honey bee genome,” Robert Page Jr. explained, “is composed of about 15,000 genes, each of which operates within a complex network of genes, doing its small, or large, share of work in building the bee, keeping its internal functions operating, or helping it function and behave in its environment. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Shedding New Light on Honey Bee Chromosomes

December 3, 2018

Honey bee geneticists with long ties to UC Davis are putting together those missing pieces of the puzzle involving bee chromosomes. Newly published research by a team of Germany-based honey bee geneticists, collaborating with Robert Eugene (Rob) Page Jr.

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