Bug Squad

What's better than a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) on yellow mustard? Not much. Both are signs of early spring. Mustard is popping up all over, along with oxalyis and wild radish. The earth is warming. Spring is here. Get ready.

Congratulations to Hoang Danh Derrick Nguyen, a graduate student in the Christian Nansen lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, for his recent publication in the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

Think spring. Think ceanothus. Think salvia. Think pollinators. Despite the rain forecast, the open house and plant sale at the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the University of California, Davis, will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, April 7.

Yes, you do eat insects! Maybe not deliberately, as in those who engage in entomophagy, the technical term for eating insects. Think of chocolate chirp cookies! Think of cricket flour! Think of making a meal out of mealworms.

Several years ago you probably read about the Stanford researchers who discovered that mealworms--larvae of darkling beetles--eat Styrofoam. And if you attended the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Dec.