Bug Squad

Have you ever seen butterflies on jackrabbits? No? Well, if you attended the recent "We Know Jack" public art exhibit at the Vacaville Museum on Buck Avenue, you saw jackrabbits. Plenty of jack rabbits. And butterflies. Plenty of butterflies.

The most common dragonfly in our little family bee garden is the red flameskimmer, Libellula saturata.

It's National Pollinator Week and there's exciting news on the horizon. Staff research associate Billy Synk of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis, has been named director of Pollination Programs for Project Apis m.

It's good to see all the focus on National Pollinator Week, as typified by UC Davis graduate student/native bee ecologist Margaret "Rei" Scampavia (at right) focusing on a male Valley carpenter bee. This is Xylocopa varipuncta, also known as "the teddy bear bee.

This is National Pollinator Week and what better time to post some bee wisdom from Cooperative Extension apiculturist (now emeritus) Eric Mussen?