Bug Squad

The Sting. (c) Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fork-tailed bush katydid on salvia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

Katydid, Katy Didn't

May 18, 2012
My late father, who called me "Katydid," loved poetry. Decades after he passed, a cousin gave me a set of his books from his childhood home. One was "The Early Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes," published in 1899 by T. Y. Crowell and Company. In it is a poem, "To an Insect," and it's about katydids.
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Honey bee nearly collides with a ladybug, aka ladybeetle. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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A Pomegranate Kind of Day

May 17, 2012
It was a pomegranate kind of day. Red, bright and wonderful. The papery-thin reddish blossoms in our yard draw both beneficial and pestiferous insects. Honey bees are there for the pollen and nectar; ladybugs are there for the pesky aphids.
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Honey bee slides into a a violet trumpet vine blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

Sounding the Trumpet (Vine)

May 15, 2012
If you're looking for a good bee plant that offers a little bit of an obstacle, try the violet trumpet vine (Clytostoma calystegioides). It's one of the UC Davis Arboretum All-Stars.
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Honey bees gather around a hummingbird feeder. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

Red Alert!

May 14, 2012
Our yard is filled with such bee friendly plants as salvia, lavender, catmint and rock purslane. Lately, however, the honey bees have taken a liking to the sugar-water mixture from our hummingbird feeder.
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