Webinar Date: July 21, 2026
Speakers: Dr. Jason Schmidt, Associate Professor, University of Georgia (Tifton campus); Dr. Scott Clem, Assistant Professor of Insect Ecology, Illinois State University; Gabrielle LaTora, Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent, UGA Extension, Fulton County
Moderator: Becky Griffin, UGA Extension, course host
Duration: 1:20:45
Series: Great Southeast Pollinator Course
Credit at a Glance
| Educator PLU | 1 PLU for educators who attended the live session. |
| Applicator CEU | None. This session carries no Georgia pesticide applicator CEU categories. |
| Archive viewing | The recording is for education and census preparation. PLU credit was tied to live attendance and does not transfer to asynchronous viewing. |
This is a Great Southeast Pollinator Course session for home gardeners, school and community gardens, growers, county agents, and census volunteers, not a licensed-applicator program. No pesticide or control recommendations appear in the session. Frame it accordingly when you share it.
Who This Is For
Use this one with anyone getting ready for the Great Southeast Pollinator Census (August 21–22, 2026). Flies and wasps are the two groups volunteers most often misname on a flower, and this is the strongest identification session the course has produced: Clem and LaTora each give a field rule, and LaTora’s closing segment puts a wasp and a fly side by side. Master Gardener groups, school garden coordinators, county pollinator volunteers, and anyone hosting a counting event in August are the natural audiences. Schmidt’s opening half also works on its own for a general “why insect diversity matters” audience.
What the Session Covers
Dr. Jason Schmidt (UGA Tifton) opens on biodiversity and how his lab measures it: soil and field samples, DNA extraction and PCR, and from that, which species are present, whose pollen is on which pollinator, and what is eating what. He shows habitat plantings done with solar producers, blueberry growers, and Mercier Orchards, pulls two figures from the Insect Atlas (roughly 90% of animal species are insects; pollinator richness tracks with pollination success), and then makes diversity concrete: Georgia lady beetles down to two millimeters, and a Geocoris punctipes nymph that cannot fly or reproduce until its last molt.
Dr. Scott Clem (Illinois State University) takes the fly half and leads with the field rule: two wings, large eyes, short antennae, no pollen basket. He works through five groups: the midges that pollinate cacao, the bee flies and mydas fly, blow and flesh flies at pawpaw blooms, thick-headed flies that parasitize bumblebees, and hoverflies. Syrphine larvae eat several hundred aphids apiece; eristalines, about 65% of species, develop in dead wood and water-filled tree holes. Flies visit at least 72% of the world’s crops. He has found 158 hoverfly species in Georgia, and his fly-friendly planting list runs mountain mint, Virginia pepperweed, smartweeds, asters, and blue mistflower.
Gabrielle LaTora (UGA Extension, Fulton County) closes on wasps: the petiole, the smooth hairless body, long thread-like antennae, four hooked wings, and a hammerhead-shaped head against a fly’s dome and “pancake eyes.” The ovipositor is the stinger, so anything that stings is female. Social wasps are a small fraction of species and the only aggressive ones; the solitary majority provision a cell and leave. Parasitoids run 60 to 80% of wasp species, and their hosts die. She ends on the hornworm covered in Cotesia congregata cocoons that gardeners should leave alone.
Viewing Notes for Asynchronous Use
- Total runtime is 1:20:45, with two clean handoffs: Schmidt to Clem at 18:33, Clem to LaTora at 53:06. Any of the three blocks stands alone.
- For census identification, start here. LaTora’s wasp-versus-fly comparison at 1:12:29 is the single best census-prep segment the course has produced. Pair it with Clem’s count-the-wings rule at 20:59. Together that is under ten minutes and covers what a volunteer needs at a flower.
- For a fly overview, Clem’s block from 20:59 through 49:57 (flies visit 72% of the world’s crops) walks all five groups with a memorable example apiece.
- For a habitat or garden-club audience, use 42:58–45:46 on eristaline hoverflies and dead wood, then 50:55 for the fly-friendly native plant list. Both are actions a gardener can take without buying anything.
- For a wasp-fear audience, LaTora’s run from 1:00:40 (social wasps) through 1:05:30 (nest types) explains why the wasps on a flower are almost never the ones that sting, which is the reassurance most volunteers need before a count.
- The closing Q&A runs from 1:14:57 to the end and covers parasitized hornworms still feeding, hornets, hooked wings, and where pollen sticks on a wasp. Two exchanges in it were left unresolved on-air (worker sterility and why wasps hook their wings) so treat those as open questions rather than answers to repeat. The full chapter list is in the website archive version for this session.
Pull These for Discussion
- Count the wings. Two for a fly, four for a bee or wasp, plus large eyes, short antennae, and no scopa. The one rule every volunteer should carry into the census.
- When the wings won’t hold still, read the head. Fly: dome-shaped with “pancake eyes” and two stubby antennae between them. Wasp: hammerhead-shaped with small eyes at the ends. This is the fallback that actually works in the field.
- Chocolate depends on midges. Cacao is pollinated mainly by flies two to three millimeters long, under a $120 billion industry. The fastest way to get a room to take flies seriously.
- Anything that stings you is female. The ovipositor doubles as the stinger. Reliable hook, and it holds for bees as well as wasps.
- Leave the dead wood. About 65% of hoverfly species develop in dead wood and water-filled tree holes. Clean up every rotting log and the pollinators go with it.
- Leave the cocoon-covered hornworm. Those cocoons are Cotesia congregata pupae, and 30 or 40 wasps will emerge hunting more hornworms. The most actionable single item in the session for vegetable gardeners.
- Georgia has at least 158 hoverfly species, probably more than 200. Useful for making the point that “a fly” is not one thing.
Resources to Share
- Great Southeast Pollinator Census: August 21–22, 2026. Fulton County Extension is hosting counting events with Master Gardener volunteers on Saturday, August 22.
- Common Hoverflies of Georgia: Dr. Scott Clem’s recently published guide, shared by QR code during the session; he said it covers most surrounding southeastern states.
- Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Northeastern North America: Clem’s recommended identification guide, which he said largely covers southeastern species despite the title.
- Pollinator Partnership (pollinator.org): free regional pollinator posters, the ones Schmidt displayed. Released roughly annually, and the organization sent him a large-format file on request.
- “The Unsung Heroes: The Importance of Flies in Wild and Domesticated Pollination”: Clem’s forthcoming chapter in Threats to Pollinator Abundance and Diversity, expected before the end of 2026.
- Dr. Clem’s lab, Illinois State University: QR code shared at the close of his talk.
- Georgia Museum of Natural History, Athens: the collection behind Clem’s Georgia hoverfly biodiversity project.
Processed for UGA Center for Urban Agriculture / Great Southeast Pollinator Course · gsepc.org
Source: Stage 2 Archive Package, GTBOP_Archive_Summary_2026-07-21_FliesAndWasps.md