Bug Squad

The sky darkens. The temperature drops several degrees. A breeze rustles the leaves of the African blue basil. Dogs bark. And off in the distance, a hawk shrills. A partial solar eclipse is about to happen in Vacaville, Calif.

Saturday, Aug. 19 promises to be a honey of a day--in more ways than one! And it gets better! It's National Honey Bee Day or National Honey Bee Awareness Day, launched in 2009 by newly appointed U.S.

Are top-bar beekeeping hives for you? What are their advantages and disadvantages as compared to the traditional Langstroth hives?

A fly, oh, my! On the approval scale, they don't rank nearly as high as honey bees, but some are often mistaken for them. Take the Eristalis stipator, which belongs to the family Syrphidae, the hover flies. It's about the same size as a honey bee and it's a pollinator.

Varroa mites--considered the No. 1 enemy of beekeepers--will be among the topics discussed when Gene Brandi of Los Banos, Calif., president of the American Beekeeping Federation, speaks at the 40th annual conference of the Western Apicultural Society, to be held Sept.