Posts Tagged: Robbin Thorp
How Climate Change Affects Bees
Have you ever wondered how climate change affects bees? Honey bees and native bees? You can find...
This ceramic-mosaic sculpture of a worker bee, by self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick of Davis, anchors the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Know Your Native Bees: Here's How!
Do you know your native bees? Can you distinguish a sweat bee from a leafcutting bee from a cuckoo...
Female sweat bee, Svastra obliqua expurgate, on purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A leafcutter bee, Megachile sp., heading for a broadleaf milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A male cuckoo bee, Triepeolus concavusm, on a blanket flower, Gaillardia. Female cuckoo bees are cleptoparasites; they lay their eggs inside the nests of native bees, including Svastra. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Andrena (mining) bee on meadowfoam, Limnanthes. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Drama in the Pollinator Patch
So here's this newly eclosed male monarch trying to sip a little nectar from a Mexican sunflower...
A pollen-packing female longhorned bee, probably Melissodes agilis (as identified by Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis) wants the same flower that the male monarch has claimed. This is a Mexican sunflower, genus Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Just a blur, a male longhorned bee, probably Meliossodes agilis, targets a monarch. The monarch's wings are deformed; they did not fully expand. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
What's Better than Sighting a Bumble Bee?
What's better than sighting a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii? Well, a newly emerged...
A newly emerged yellow-faced bumble bee queen, Bombus vosnesenskii, eyes the photographer as it forages on blanket flower (Gaillardia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Yellow-faced bumble bee shows its distinguishing marks. This is a queen Bombus vosnesenskii, about 21mm long. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Up and away! A distinguishing feature of Bombus vosnesenskii is the yellow stripe, T4 segment of its thorax. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
That Cuddly Teddy Bear Bee
Oh, that cuddly teddy bear. The male Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta, also known as...
A male Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta, sipping nectar from a broadleaf milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A male Valley carpenter bee, aka teddy bear bee, claims a blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Sweet stuff! A male Valley carpenter bee curls to grab some nectar from a broadleaf milkweed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A monarch butterfly flutters in, but the male Valley carpenter bee refuses to budge. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)