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.

Bed bug. (Photo by Piotr Naskrecki, courtesty of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

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Bring on the Bed Bugs at the Bohart

January 8, 2014

They're the bugs you love to hate. Bed bugs, lice, ticks, mites, fleas and mosquitoes. If you want to see and/or learn more about them, attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology's "Snuggle Bugs" open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Jan.

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Bee breeder-geneticist Michael "Kim" Fondrk works the Page bees in a Dixon almond orchard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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It All Began at UC Davis

January 7, 2014

It all began at UC Davis. The highly acclaimed research published in Current Biology that cracked the 200-year secret of complementary sex determination in honey bees is rooted right here, right here at UC Davis. Arizona State University Provost Robert E. Page, Jr.

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A solo almond blossom blooming Jan. 5, 2014 in Benicia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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An Early Bloomer

January 6, 2014

You've heard of late bloomers. How about early bloomers? A trip to the Benica (Calif.) State Recreational Park on Sunday yielded quite a surprise: a solo blossom on a bare almond tree. Almonds don't usually start blooming until around Valentine's Day. Almonds are big business in California.

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Bee on honey. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Taste of Honey--and Mead....and That's Not All...

January 3, 2014

It's not just the taste of honey. It's the taste of honey AND mead--coupled with a gourmet dinner on the UC Davis campus. The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center is sponsoring the Mid-Winter Beekeepers Feast: A Taste of Mead and Honey on Saturday, Feb. 8 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

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Brian Fishback shows his daughter, Emily, a bee observation hive. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Why Keep Bees?

January 2, 2014

Why become a beekeeper? Why keep bees? Beekeeper Brian Fishback of Wilton is quick to answer that. Bees, he says, teach us core family values. Bees have to take care of each other and work together for the success of the colony, just as people do for the success of their families.

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