GreenMethods.com
Bug Blog Archives for Industry News

Due to the plight of honeybees the demand for bumblebees for greenhouse- and field-crop pollination has been consistently high for several years now. This high demand used to mean one had to order our four-hive “quad” bumblebee hives — for outdoors use — months in advance. This has changed, one only needs to allow a couple of weeks of lead time now. That said, to ensure you have your quad hives when you need them, we still recommend ordering your next year’s hives now. We don’t want to see people disappointed they can’t have their bees immediately, and you don’t want to lose out on any crop pollination when the time is right.

Continue reading “Pre-Order 2012 Quad Bumblebee Hives Now” »

Dave Simser, 57, entomologist, mentor, writer, and family friend, passed away on November 26th, 2010, of prostate cancer complications. We’re late in getting this news to our readers as the news was late coming to us (both being busy we sadly only spoke only once or twice per year). He was known to keep his contact information in his head, instead of writing it down or putting it on a computer. His wife was unable to contact us when appropriate. We weren’t the only ones. Dave’s memorial isn’t going to take place until September of this year as finally people are learning about this tragic loss.

Continue reading “Memorial Fund in Honor of Dave Simser” »

As of the time of publication, summer starts tomorrow (what, already, where was spring?!) and we have a few mildly important announcements. A few tidbits ranging from the availability of new summer ladybugs, to a new status for Aphidius matricariae, and ending on a word or two about our annual summer quasi-vacation.

Continue reading “Some Timely Summer Announcements” »

Every once in a while a good bug goes in for a name overhaul. Some folks, taxonomists specifically, make a living doing this. Well, we’re just kidding on that front. Name changes are the result of myriad things ranging from oversight to discovery. Sometimes these changes rage back and forth, flip-flopping, while others cannot be agreed upon by the worldwide community, defeating the very purpose of the binomial nomenclature — a Latin name we can all agree on. But in any case, we’ve been informed that the predatory mite, Hypoaspis miles has been changed to Stratiolaelaps scimitus.

Continue reading “The Mite Formally Known As Hypoaspis” »