Bug Blog
Good News for the Bees!
Good news for the honey bees! And none too soon. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today (Oct. 29) in a press release that "more than $4 million in technical and...
Honey bee foraging on mustard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Anthony Cornel Knows Mosquitoes
Medical entomologist Anthony “Anton” Cornel knows his mosquitoes--and a few snakes, too. When he was doing research in Brazil in September, he draped a snake around his neck and posed...
Medical entomologist Anthony Cornel with a snake in Brazil.
UC Davis medical entomologists Anthony Cornel (foreground) and Gregory Lanzaro make annual trips to Mali to study malaria mosquitoes.
Unraveling the Mystery of DEET
You spray DEET on your arms, and those pesky mosquitoes leave you alone. It works. However, not everyone wants to use DEET, a synthetic insect repellent. There's that smell, for one thing....
UC Davis scientists in the Walter Leal lab have discovered the odorant receptor in the Culex mosquito that repels DEET. From left are project scientist Pingxi Xu; postdoctoral scholar Young-Moo Choo; AgChem graduate student Alyssa De La Rosa; and Professor Leal. (Photo credit: Academic Technology Services/Mediaworks)
UC Davis Arboretum Plant Sale!
If you missed the first fall plant sale at the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery on Garrod Drive, you're in luck. The next public sale is Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We attended the...
Honey bee heading toward a bulbine (Bulbine frutesens). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Honey bee foraging on a blanket flower (Gallardia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
These are some of the bee condos that bee enthusiast/UC Master Gardener Tom Tucker displayed at the Oct. 11 fall sale. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Plant enthusiasts attending the Oct. 11 fall sale. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Seeing Eye-to-Eye on a Sedum
If you've ever watched a Gray Hairstreak butterfly (Strymon melinus) nectaring a sedum, and then watched a honey bee (Apis mellifera) land on the same flower, it's a study in sharing. "I was here...
Honey bee sharing a sedum blossom with a Gray Hairstreak. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A little closer...the honey bee edges toward the Gray Hairstreak. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Too close for comfort. The Gray Hairstreak takes off. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)