Bug Squad

Dec. 22 marked the winter solstice, the first day of winter. But don't tell that to the western yellowjacket, Vespula pensylvanica. It's supposed to be hibernating, not flying. But there it is flying around--and sipping nectar--from flowering Algerian ivy climbing a fence in Vacaville, Calif.

Our unseasonably warm temperatures in November yielded 12 unexpected surprises: 12 monarch caterpillars munching away on the tropical milkweed in our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.

It's a bugworthy kind of Christmas.

When you enter the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, on Crocker Lane, University of California, Davis, be sure to look up. Way up! Way up? Where? Up there, on your left! See them? Above the shelved books. What are they? Insects? Right, they're insects.

Folks are asking how to donate to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, the world-renowned insect museum that's part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. There's a donate button on its website. All gifts are tax-deductible.