Bug Squad

When the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, hosted an open house showcasing specimens collected last summer in Belize, attendees came from far and wide, from senior citizens to pre-schoolers.

So here's this gravid praying mantis perched on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) in a Vacaville pollinator garden. She's in a butterfly state-of-mind, a picture of patience and persistence, a predator like no other. She doesn't have long to wait.

It's rare to see a tagged monarch, either when it's migrating to its overwintering site or when it's clustered high in a tree, sheltered from the elements. When we drove to Santa Cruz on Dec.

He may have been born" in an Ashland, Ore., vineyard. But at least we know he hails from Ashland. That's what we learned about the male monarch that fluttered into our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. on Monday, Sept.

It's all the buzz. It's just been announced that the Western Apicultural Society (WAS), founded 40 years ago at UC Davis, will be meeting ...drum roll...Sept. 5-8, 2017 in Davis, Calif. That's the kind of advance notice we like. Fortieth anniversary? Is that possible? It is.