Latest News

Join us for an informative webinar about the Spotted Lanternfly and ways to manage the spread of this invasive insect.

With the prospect of quarantine measures slowly being lifted across the state in the coming weeks, many Pennsylvanians are relishing the prospect of getting outside and enjoying warming spring weather.

Wide-scale use of insecticide-treated bed nets has led to substantial declines in global incidence of malaria in recent years. As a result, mosquitoes have been shifting their biting times to earlier in the evening and later in the morning.

People have been buzzing about an insect nicknamed the ‘’Murder Hornet’’ over the last few days.

Michael Skvarla says the emails have been coming in fast and furious with questions about a newly infamous type of wasp, and they all have “murder hornet” in the subject line.

As an ecologist, David Bowne has been aware of the destructive spotted lanternfly since it first arrived in Pennsylvania six years ago, but back then, Elizabethtown College was free from the invasive insect.

Learn about the bees in your neighborhood and how to support them by attending this summer’s free pollinator webinar series moderated by Tom Butzler and Dr. Margarita Lopez-Uribe from Penn State Extension. Webinars will cover a broad range of topics including drivers for bee declines, introductions to bee biology and diversity, and a discussion of what we can do as citizens to support local pollinator communities. The first seminar, ‘Pollinator Health Challenges: A bee’s perspective’, will feature Dr. Margarita Lopez-Uribe on Wednesday, June 3rd at 3:00 PM (ET).

In summertime, you can’t walk down the street without squishing a lanternfly.

Even before the recent news of the season’s first confirmed spotted lanternfly hatches in the Philadelphia region, homeowners in many parts of Pennsylvania were gearing up for their annual battle with the destructive pest.

Eggs of the invasive spotted lanternfly have started hatching in Pennsylvania.

The first hatches of the spotted lanternfly have been detected in West Philadelphia, but an expert on the pest said there’s still time to stop them.

The first spotted lanternflies of 2020 have hatched in Pennsylvania, kicking off a season where we could see large populations of the bug.

Assessing the potential spread of the spotted lanternfly in the Altoona, Pennsylvania, area is the focus of a study underway by scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Asian giant hornets, which are sometimes called sparrow wasps and murder hornets, are a potentially invasive wasp from eastern Asia. A colony was found on Vancouver Island in 2019 and destroyed.

Hardworking honeybees may not be your favorite houseguests, but their threatened populations and critical environmental role in pollinating crops mean you should never exterminate a thriving colony.

Can Pennsylvania roadsides become canvases for vibrant arrays of wildflowers? The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) hopes so!

Wide-scale use of insecticide-treated bed nets has led to substantial declines in global incidences of malaria in recent years. As a result, mosquitos have been shifting their biting times to earlier in the evening and later in the morning. In a new study, an international team of researchers has found that mosquitoes are most likely to transmit malaria in the early evening, when people are exposed, then at midnight, when people are protected by bed nets, or in the morning. The findings may have implications for malaria prevention initiatives.

This is another entry in our monthly updates from us here at Beescape! As always, we will use this newsletter to share Beescape updates, interesting study results, and other relevant information related to Beescape and associated projects!

Trees, shrubs and woody vines are among the top food sources for honey bees in urban environments, according to an international team of researchers. By using honey bees housed in rooftop apiaries in Philadelphia, the researchers identified the plant species from which the honey bees collected most of their food, and tracked how these food resources changed from spring to fall.

Even before the recent news of the season’s first confirmed spotted lanternfly hatches in the Philadelphia region, homeowners in many parts of Pennsylvania were gearing up for their annual battle with the destructive pest.