Bug Squad

Take a photo of a bee--any bee--and then look it up in the newly published California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday).

It's cool how honey bees and syrphid flies gravitate toward the Iceland Poppy. It's a winter plant, and frankly, there isn't much to eat out there. The Iceland Poppy (Papaver nudicaule), a bowl-shaped, papery flower, fills the bill. The name is a misnomer. It's not native to Iceland.

You can make a meal out of mealworms. It's cricket to eat Cambodian crickets. And who wouldn't want a plate of teriyaki grasshopper kebobs paired with Rubicon Angus Scottish Ale? "Don't worry, be hoppy," said celebrity bug chef David George Gordon, author of the award-winning Eat-a-Bug cookbook.

Former UC Davis Chancellor James Henry Meyer (1922-2002) would have been proud.

Here's a good reason why you should not clean the fixtures around your porch lights--if you need a reason. The lights attract all kinds of nocturnal flying insects. It's like the proverbial draw of a moth to a flame. Spiders weave their webs on the light fixtures to trap their prey.