Facebook
X (Twitter)
Reddit
Pinterest
Tumblr
LinkedInPosts Tagged: hover flies
Umm, Where's the Bee?
If there's one thing that entomologists hate, it's journalists who mistake a fly for a bee. To entomologists, it's like mistaking a referee for a football player (well, they are on the same playing field) or a model airplane for a Lear jet (well, they do share the same sky) or a Volkswagen for a...
A drone fly, Eristalis tenax (left), and a syrphid fly. They're from the same family, Syrphidae, and are often mistaken for honey bees.. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A honey bee collecting pollen. Lower right: a freeloader fly.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Close-up of a honey bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Close-up of a syrphid fly, aka flower fly or hover fly. Note the setae or bristle on the head. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Good Guys--and Girls!
Think of them as "the good guys" and "the good girls." Insects such as lacewings, lady beetles and flower flies. We're delighted to see that the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has just published a 250-page book on "Farming with Native Beneficial Insects." The book advocates the use...
A syrphid fly, aka flower fly or hover fly, nectaring on a tower of jewels. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A lacewing glows in the afternoon sun. Larvae eat such soft-bodied insects as mealybugs, psyllids, thrips, mites, whiteflies, aphids, small caterpillars, leafhoppers, and insect eggs, according to the UC IPM website. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The lady beetle, aka ladybug, is well known for its voracious appetite of aphids. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Seeing Red--On Buckwheat
Butterflies, honey bees and hover flies can't get enough of red buckwheat. Tight clusters of pink blossoms, coupled with gray-green foliage, grace red buckwheat (Eriogonum grande rubescens), a California native. It's good for the insects and good for the gardener. It's drought-tolerant. We...
Hover Fly
Looking for Nectar
Caught on the Cosmos
Cosmos flowers are somewhat like Libras. They balance. In fact, the word, "cosmos," means "harmony" or "ordered universe" in Greek. Plant cosmos and you'll soon be enjoying colorful flowers that belong to the Asteraceae family, which also includes...
Syrphid on Cosmos
Close-Up
Just Hovering
It's often mistaken for a honey bee. It's not a honey bee. It's a hover fly or flower fly. And this one, hovering around the plants last Saturday in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis, looked like a Syrphus opinator to me. So I asked UC Davis entomologist Robert...
Hover Fly
Head of Hover Fly
