Posts Tagged: bee
UC Davis Apiculturist: Apivectoring Defined
Do you know what apivectoring is? Bee scientist Elina Lastro Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension, Apiculture, and a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT) faculty, defines it in a recent edition of Bee Culture....
A honey bee heading toward almond blossoms. Managed bees such as bumble bees and honey bees are used to transfer a powder form of a biological control agent from flower to flower. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, foraging on almond blossoms. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
U.S. Honey Bee Losses Highest Since 2010-11
The American Bee Journal (ABJ) and Bee Culture just released the preliminary results of the annual U.S. Beekeeping Survey and the news is not good. "U.S. beekeepers lost an estimated 55.1 percent of their managed bee colonies in 2023-24--14.8 percentage...
A honey bee today (Dec. 5) forms the centerpiece of a mallow, Anisodontea sp. "Strybing Beauty." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Side view of a honey bee foraging ona winter blossom, Anisodontea sp. "Strybing Beauty." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The honey bee buzzes off to find another blossom in the dead of winter. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
It's Friday Fly Day!
It's Friday Fly Day and what an appropriate day to honor a syrphid fly. This syrphid, caught in flight, was seeking nectar from a Gaura, a genus of flowering plants in the family Onagraceae, native to North America. Syrphid flies, also known as flower flies or hover flies, belong...
A syrphid fly heads for a Gaura in a Vacaville garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The syrphid fly (above image) resembles this wasp. Here a yellowjacket and a honey bee share a rose in a UC Davis garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
It's Friday Fly Day!
It's Friday Fly Day, and time to post an image of a fly that masquerades as a bee. That would be "the bee fly," a fly so named because it resembles a beeOrder: Diptera. Family: Bombyliidae. In its adult stage, it's a pollinator that feeds on nectar and pollen. In its larval stage,...
A bee fly, family Bombyliidae, foraging on sedum in a UC Davis garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Monarch Kind of Day
What we've been waiting for all season... A migratory monarch butterfly fluttered into our Vacaville garden at noon today (Tuesday, Sept. 17) and nectared on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. Then she treated us to a butterfly ballet. The Danaus...
A female monarch nectaring on Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotunifola, in a Vacaville garden at noon, Sept. 17, 2024. At left is a territorial male longhorned bee, probably Melissodes agilis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The female monarch butterfly lifts off the Tithonia. This image was taken with a Nikon D500 with a 200mm macro lens. Settings: 1/4000 of a second; f-stop, 5.6; ISO 640.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The monarch descends, ready to head to another blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
She lifts up and away she goes. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)