Bug Squad

You can meet the scientists, examine the collections, look through microscopes, hold walking sticks, and participate in a family arts-and-crafts activity. Those are some of the activities planned at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Saturday, Jan. 11 from 1 to 4 p.m.

You won't want to miss this UC Davis Entomology and Nematology seminar by postdoctoral scholar Angie Lenard of the University of Nevada, Reno. She'll speak on "Insects in Human-Modified Environments" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar, set for 4:10 p.m.

It's like Old Home Week or Old Home Day when Michelle Monheit visits the UC Davis Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road. I visit the garden whenever I'm in the area, she said, as she headed over to the six-foot-long ceramic-mosaic bee sculpture, Miss Bee Haven, that anchors the half-acre bee garden.

Hear that buzz? The long-awaited update of the landmark UC Davis-authored book, Queen Bee Rearing and Bee Breeding by Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003), the father of bee genetics, and his former doctoral research mentee Robert E. Page Jr.

We're so accustomed to seeing the non-native European paper wasp, Polistes dominula, that it's quite a surprise to encounter a native, the golden paper wasp, P. aurifer, and especially in the winter. It was--and is--sheltering at the UC Davis Bee Haven.