Posts Tagged: Robbin Thorp

Sorry, This Blossom Is Taken

So here's this male longhorned bee (Svastra) sipping a little nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). As the late Mr. Rogers (1928-2003), star of the TV show, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," so often proclaimed:  "It's a beautiful day in the...

National Pollinator Week: Visit the UC Davis Bee Garden

Let's celebrate National Pollinator Week. And what better time for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology to host an open house than during National Pollinator Week? It's from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, June 23 at its bee...

Word of the Day: Nototribic

The black-tailed bumble bee wasn't flying very well. You wouldn't, either, if you were trying to fly with a backpack on your back. Except this wasn't a backpack but sticky pollen. The bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, was foraging in our Spanish...

A Bumble Bee on Mustard in the Golden State

What's better than a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) on yellow mustard? Not much. Both are signs of early spring. Mustard is popping up all over, along with oxalyis and wild radish. The earth is warming. Spring is here. Get ready. In the...

Here Come the Carpenter Bees!

It's spring and it's loud in the Spanish lavender patch. The girls--the honey bees--are buzzing furiously as they forage among the blossoms, but so are the boys, in this case the mountain carpenter bee, Xyclocopa tabaniformis orpifex. The girls are...

Next 5 stories | Last story