Posts Tagged: Robbin Thorp
Robbin Thorp: Chasing Franklin's Bumble Bee
It may be extinct, but don't say the "E" word to Robbin Thorp. Thorp, a noted bumble bee expert,...
Robbin Thorp and his computer screen showing his image of Franklin's bumble bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp next to an almond tree on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Landmark Book Addresses California Bees, Blooms
If you're looking for a holiday gift for family and friends--or maybe yourself--think bees and...
This is a native bumble bee, Bombus californicus, on blanketflower (Gaillardia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Often mistakenly "identified" as a "golden bumble bee," this is the male Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta, on flowering milkweed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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)