Bug Squad

So we purchased a sky blue Penstemon cultivar with a tag labeled "Penstemon Margarita BOP." BOP? Bureau of Prisons? Bottom of the Pyramid? Business Owner's Policy? Basic Operation Plan? Breach of Peace? No, none of the above. It's an acronym for "Bottom of the Porch.

Just call it "Fire and Fury in a Pollinator Garden." That would be the firecracker red flameskimmer dragonfly, Libellula saturata. They fly into our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif., attracted by the lily-padded pond and the all-you-can-eat buffet of flying insects.

Meet the pollinators, And meet the UC Davis researchers, UC Master Gardeners, students and community members who study them or promote them. That's what's planned on Sunday, May 20 at an event sponsored by the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden and the UC Master Gardeners from 1 to 4 p.m.

If you attended the second annual California Honey Festival, held recently in downtown Woodland, you probably heard the buzz. Or at least you saw the crowd circling Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Nio of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a UC Davis doctoral student researching mosquitoes? Meet Olivia Winokur, an enthusiastic, dedicated and multi-talented medical entomologist whose childhood curiosity about a yellow fever vaccination sparked her interest in 'skeeters.