Bug Squad

We have a winner! And he wasn't even looking for it. A UC Davis graduate student won the Beer for a Butterfly contest by collecting the first cabbage white butterfly of the year Saturday morning, Jan. 16 outside his home in West Davis.

Would you like to know more about honey? You're in luck. The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center is hosting an educational honey tasting on Wednesday night, Jan. 27 in the Sensory Theater of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science on Old Davis Road.

Ah, rain! It's good for the drought and it's good for the rain beetles. If you've never seen a rain beetle (genus Pleocoma) no worries. Most people haven't, either.

You don't see many honey bee foraging in the winter. They're snuggled deep inside their hives, awaiting spring. But when the temperature hits a sunny 55, look for them. It's winter in the UC Davis Arboretum, 11 weeks until spring.

Elizabeth "Liz" Frost, formerly of the University of California, Davis, is taking her love of honey bees back to Australia. She's the newly hired honey bee development officer, an Extension-like position, in the state of New South Wales. Frost left the States last Sunday, Jan. 10.