Bug Squad

Sometimes you hear about bored teenagers trashing bee hives by deliberately throwing rocks at them or gleefully tipping them over. But a truck driver who deliberately plows through a bee yard on private property and crushes 40 colonies? That's unreal.

Hello there, little leafcutter bee! Yes, you, foraging on the sky-blue Chinese Forget-Me-Nots! You're just in time for National Pollinator Week! Leafcutter bees, family Megachilidae, are so named because the females cut leaves and petals (perfectly round holes!) to line their nests.

How many of us can trace our childhood interest in insects back to lady beetles, aka ladybugs? They're among the most recognizable of insects.

Mortarboards are really "wizard hats." Just ask Griffin Alberts, 3, whose mother, Charlotte Herbert Alberts, received her doctorate in entomology June 15 at the UC Davis Graduate Studies Program commencement ceremony in the University Credit Union Center.

It's 3:47 p.m., on Sunday, June 4. I am watching a honey bee nectaring on a zinnia in our pollinator garden. She collects, lingers and then leaves. It was like (A) Apis mellifera to (Z) zinnia.