Bug Squad

Sometimes the red flameskimmer dragonfly (Libellula saturata) will let you approach it. Sometimes it's having a bad hair day or a bad predator/prey day or a just-leave-me-alone day and won't let you near it. This one (below) let me approach it. "Hey," I told my new flame, "I'm not going to hurt you.

It's so blond that all you can say is "Wow!" It's sort of like the Reese Witherspoon of bumble bees. But then the gender doesn't match. Okay, the Owen Wilson of bumble bees.

The saga of the defensive honey bees--or what journalists labeled "aggressive" honey bees--in Concord continues. Although Extension apicuturist emeritus Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, retired in 2014 after 38 years of service, he continues his Extension work.

Africanized honey bees arrived in southern California in 1994 and are expanding north.

Remember the massive "buzz kill" in Wilsonville, Oregon back in June 2013 when more than 50,000 bumble bees died in a Target parking lot after coming into contact with pesticide-treated flowering linden trees? Ironically, it occurred the first day of National Pollinator Week.