Bug Squad

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.

How do you get your point across if you're trying to explain what a "parasitoid" is? Well, if you're the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, you do it with a family craft activity--inflating a balloon inside a balloon to get a "parasitoid" balloon.

He went from researching pest insects to targeting chronic pain in humankind.