Bug Squad

Another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic: the annual California Honey Festival, which was scheduled May 2 in historic downtown Woodland. This year would have been the fourth annual. But, of course, and rightfully so, the cancellation is for our protection. It needed not to happen.

The wonderful world of insects... Have you ever seen a syrphid, aka hover fly or flower fly, that resembles a bumble bee? Volucella bombylans is a fascinating fly that engages in identify theft. Of a bumble bee. It's a "wanna bee.

Congratulations to Annaliese Wargin and Garrett Keating, two outstanding graduating seniors in entomology at the University of California, Davis. Each will receive a bachelor's degree in entomology in June and each has been singled out for high honors.

Remember the biblical story about David and Goliath? How young David, the underdog, defeats a Philistine giant? Sometimes you think the same kind of battle will occur in nature when a honey bee, Apis mellifera, encounters a much larger carpenter bee, the Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta.

All hail the honey bee! It's an immigrant, like almost all of us, except for the Native Americans. European colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) to what is now the United States in 1622. Specifically, they arrived at the Jamestown colony (Virginia).