Bug Squad

It's nice to remember the honey bee on Valentine's Day. You'll see many Valentine cards inscribed with "Bee My Valentine" and featuring a photo of a bee. Many of those photos depict a queen bee, the mother of all bees in the hive. To be a queen, she'll need to be fed royal jelly as a larva.

Plants communicate. They do. Ecologist Richard Karban, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology, points out that one of the simplest forms of communication involves shade. When a plant is shaded, it grows away from the plant or other object that's shading it.

Thrips, those tiny little critters about a millimeter long or less that wreak economic havoc to U.S. agricultural crops--not to mention crops worldwide--may have met their match. They're under attack by entomologist Diane Ullman of UC Davis and her team of eight other investigators.

Everyone recognizes the mighty monarch butterfly.

California almond growers are worried--and rightfully so--about the honey bee shortage. Honey bee guru Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, said today that almond growers may not have enough bees to pollinate this year's crop of 800,000 acres. We need 1.