Bug Blog
Digging the Flowering Artichokes
What's better than a bee threading through a flowering artichoke? Two bees, a honey bee and a long-horned sunflower bee. Flowering 'chokes are big draws for bees. Plant 'em, let 'em flower, and they...
Honey bee packing white pollen. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A male long-horned sunflower bee, Svastra obliqua expurgata. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Blossom Buddies
Honey bees are in trouble. They are dying in record numbers. That's why you should watch "Blossom Buddies," a two-part video segment in the Growing California series, produced by the California...
Colony collapse disorder--the bee antenna tells it all. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Varroa mite on a worker bee foraging in the lavender. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Close-up of varroa mite on drone pupa. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Newly Emerged Green Bottle Fly
Flies are pollinators, too. It's appropriate during National Pollinator Week to remember that. We spotted this newly emerged green bottle fly (below) nectaring on lavender last week in...
Newly emerged green bottle fly nectaring on lavender. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Long-Horned Bee
We have long-horned cattle and long-horned grasshoppers. How about long-horned bees? It's National Pollinator Week and what better time to run some photos of long-horned bees from the...
Male long-horned bee, genus Melissodes, probably Melissodes communis, as identified by Robbin Thorp. It is on salvia (sage). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Close-up of long-horned bee, a male Melissodes. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Up, up and away. Male Melissodes, long-horned bee, over salvia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Hop to It!
What's that hopping on our patio? At first we thought it was a grasshopper. Not! It was a katydid, sometimes called a "long-horned grasshopper," from the family Tettigoniidae (as identified by...
A katydid, or "long-horned grasshopper," from family Tettigonliidae. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)