Bug Squad

"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble, it's the things we do know that just ain't so."--American humorist Artemus Ward (1834-1867).

It was billed as the second annual Butterfly Summit, hosted last Saturday by Annie's Annuals and Perennials in Richmond. But a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, foraging on Anchusa azurea (a member of the borage family), apparently didn't like the focus on butterflies.

Timing is everything. Especially when it comes to bumble bee colonies. Postdoctoral scholar Rosemary Malfi of the Neal Williams lab, University of California, Davis, will speak on Timing Is Everything: Bumble Bee Colony Performance in Response to Seasonal Variation in Resources at 4:10 p.m.

Let's hear it for the tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii. Native to the island of Tenerife and belonging to the family Boraginaceae, it can tower as high as a 10-foot Christmas tree. It's a biennial, meaning that it takes two growing seasons to complete its life cycle.

How's the butterfly population faring in north-central California? What do you plant to attract and sustain them? You can find out at the second annual Butterfly Summit, a free event hosted by Annie's Annuals and Perennials in Richmond. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.