Bug Squad

For years we've been taught that wasps are carnivores while bees (which evolved from wasps), are vegetarians. Don't bees forage only for pollen and nectar (as well as water and propolis)? Not always so.

When you go to Bodega Bay, you may see giggling young beachgoers playfully bury one another in the sand.

There's "Beatlemania" and then there's "Beetle Mania." One involved the fanaticism directed at the English rock band, The Beatles. The other? It's taking place Sunday, Jan. 22 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis.

If you've ever been bitten by a pesky mosquito--who hasn't?--you're hoping researchers will some day be able to control them better and reduce the spread of the deadly diseases they transmit.

Congratulations to UC Davis alumna and pollinator enthusiast Ria de Grassi of Davis, who spotted and photographed the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano to win the third annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest.