Bug Squad

If you walk into the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, you might see UC Davis student Ivana Trinh Satre entering moth data on the LepNet database. It's a database but she also has a fan base.

They study bees, ants, fruit flies and spider flies. And that's just a small portion of what they do. And what a difference they're making! Four UC Davis entomologists won awards from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA).

Who doesn't love that "bolt of blue," the pipevine swallowtail, Battus philenor? A black butterfly with iridescent blue hindwings, it's a frequent visitor to our garden, where it nectars on such plants as the butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii, the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia), and sage (Salvia).

We recently posted information about the Bohart Museum of Entomology's upcoming open house on "Eight-Legged Wonders," and several people responded that they absolutely HATE spiders, and that we should have prefaced it with a SPOILER ALERT: "SPIDER PHOTOS! BEWARE!" Spiders--especially jumping spiders...

"Where can kids learn beekeeping for free?" someone asked us last week. One of the ways is through the 4-H Youth Development Program. Who can join 4-H, which stands for head, heart, health and hands and which follows the motto, "making the best better?" It's open to all youths ages 5 to 19.