Bug Squad

Kathy Kellison is on a mission: to encourage winegrape growers to plant Bee-Helpful Cover Crops. This would include mustards, clover and buckwheat, plants that honey bees love. Kellison, the executive director of the Santa Rosa-based Partners for Sustainable Pollination, will speak Thursday, Aug.

The purple trailing lantana (Lantana montevidensis) is a butterfly magnet. In our yard, it draws gulf fritillaries, Western tiger swallowtails, cabbage whites, and fiery skippers. Lately, fiery skippers (Hylephila phyleus) are the main draw.

Robbin Thorp saw it first. Talk about an eagle eye. Thorp, a native pollinator specialist and emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, was monitoring the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, on July 23 when something caught his eye.

It's a glorious summer day and butterflies are fluttering in the breeze. They are Nature's flying flowers, Nature's stained glass windows, and Nature's sunny smiles.

Watching honey bees zero in on the zinnias: Zounds! Zinnias, known throughout the world as showy and easy-to-grow flowers, are as colorful as they are attractive to bees. Last week we watched a honey bee head toward a zinnia, grab some nectar, buzz around the blossom, and return again and again.