Author Archives: saraguitiprado
New Species in Puerto Rico: Sphecodes and Ceratina
I have yet to identify the species, but I believe this genus is new to island. It may have come in from neighboring islands, or it may be a new species altogether. Fingers crossed that it’s new! While at the … Continue reading
Super fancy Puerto Rican bee pictures
Super fancy Puerto Rican bee pictures Sam Droege from USGS Bee inventory and Monitoring Lab has taken some gorgeous pictures of my beautiful bees. I’ve added the pictures to my “Carribean Bee ID” section, but if you want to look … Continue reading
The adventures of Puerto Rican bee hunters
Wowza! What a day! Everything bad that could happen, happened. My friend and colleague, Loreli and I were out surveying one farm with one crop (pumpkin) and two river sites today and I now have a story to tell! All … Continue reading
Bee’s on fire!
During my last farm survey in St-Croix, the trees and shrubs in the peripheries of the farm were on fire. I don’t know what caused the fire…maybe some hooligans intentionally started it, maybe the land owners did, or maybe it was just … Continue reading
Flying high
This trip to St-Croix was pretty incredible. Concerning my research project, we found a good number of new bees (some new records, and some maybe entirely new species), and this was just by surveying the center and SE of the … Continue reading
Three new bees in St-Croix
Good afternoon everyone, as my island friends would say. I have good news to report from St-Croix! Just from surveying two farms, yesterday, we found two new bees, previously unrecorded to the island. One, the large, extremely conspicuous Xylocopa mordax … Continue reading
Can you see what I see?
There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing something amazing, being able to record it (video and picture) and then having technology fail you. You know how I know that? Because that’s what happened to me today. I was surveying two river … Continue reading
Honeybees aren’t good enough
Overall, wild insects pollinated crops more effectively, because increase in their visitation enhanced fruit set by twice as much as an equivalent increase in honey bee visitation. Further, visitation by wild insects and honey bees promoted fruit set independently, so … Continue reading
Exploring St-Croix
Since I was only in St-Croix for 2 days, I didn’t get to see much…but I did have time to walk around the small, but beautiful campus. This is a picture of the Research and Extension Center’s building. Inside, there … Continue reading
Island hopping in the Caribbean
After surveying the bees in Puerto Rico, I flew to St-Croix to find agricultural fields to survey. Although the trip was just a couple of days long, it was quite an experience! First, flying from SJU to STX was probably … Continue reading
-Sara Guiti Prado- Ph.D. 