Bug Squad

If you love to watch pollinators at work in your garden--especially the honey bees and the bumble bees--first you have to provide the plants. Promise yourself to plant pollinator plants periodically. But which ones? The UC Davis Arboretum staff gets asked that question a lot.

It's a fantastic project. The UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) has decided to provide travel funds to entomology undergraduates who want to present their research at entomological associations.

It will be like "old home week" when professor Kelli Hoover of Pennsylvania State University presents a seminar on Tuesday, March 5 on the UC Davis campus. Hoover, who received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1997, will discuss Co-Evolution in a Host Baculovirus System from noon to 1 p.

Honey bees can't get enough of the New Zealand tea tree, which, as its name implies, is a native of New Zealand. Our favorite New Zealand tea tree is Leptospermum scoparium keatleyi. It's the tallest and rangiest variety of the Leptospermum scopariums--that's one of the reasons we like it.

Symphony in the almond blossoms... There's a wild almond tree planted in a field off Bee Biology Road at the University of California, Davis, that's incredibly beautiful. Honey bees from the nearby apiary at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.