Bug Squad

You could call it a slacker, a deadbeat, a moocher, a sponger, or a loafer. Or you could call it a cuckoo bee. Take the cuckoo bee, Xeromelecta californica, a parasite of the digger bee, Anthophora.

There's a flurry of pink at the Gold Ridge. That would be the Luther Burbank Gold Ridge Experiment Farm in Sebastopol. "Luther Burbank bought his 15-acre farm on Gold Ridge in 1885 in Sebastopol," says the Western Sonoma Historical Society on its website.

Are western monarch butterflies heading for extinction? A Sept.

We have bright faces in our Vacaville, Calif., pollinator garden. The bright faces are usually that of assorted bees and butterflies nectaring on members of the sunflower family: Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) and blanketflowers (Gaillardia).

Just as all lady bugs aren't ladies, all widow skimmer dragonflies aren't female.