Bug Blog
Why This Is Bee Is Cuckoo
When you visit the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a bee friendly garden on Bee Biology Road at the University of California, Davis, you might just see a cuckoo bee. The cuckoo bee...
A male cuckoo bee, Triepeolus concavus, on a blanket flower (Gaillardia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Male cuckoo bee sipping nectar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
An Admiral at the Marina
There's nothing like seeing an admiral at a marina. That would be the Red Admiral butterfly, Vanessa atalanta, at the Berkeley marina. It's often very common in the urban Bay Area, says butterfly...
A West Coast Lady at the Berkeley Marina. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Red Admiral at the Berkeley Marina. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Bad Day for a Butterfly
It was a bad day for a butterfly. We stopped by the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, part of the UC Davis Arboretum, at noon today as triple-digit temperatures climbed to a scorching 103. We spotted a...
Crab spider with its kill, a cabbage white butterly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This one got away. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Bee Fly!
Have you ever seen a bee fly, a member of the family Bombylidae? It's about the size of some bees. It buzzes like a bee. But you can quickly tell it's not a bee by its behavior. It's a fast-moving,...
Bee fly, a bombyliid, hovers like a helicopter. Note the long tongue. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) 2800 copy
Bee fly foraging for nectar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Now That's a Wasp Waist!
You've heard the expression, "wasp waist," in reference to someone's tiny waist? Well, all you need do is look at the waist of the mud dauber wasp, Sceliphron caementarium, and you'll see where that...
Mud dauber wasp, Sceliphron caementarium. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Note the thin waist of the mud dauber, Sceliphron caementarium. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Off to find a spider. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)