Thursday, May 2 is a good day to learn about butterflies. That's when butterfly expert Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, will be speak at the Northern California Entomology Society meeting, to be held at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.
It doesn't usually make the 6 o'clock news--or even the 10 o'clock news--but it's trouble. Trouble, indeed. The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha hales), a native of Asia, was first discovered in the United States in Allentown, Penn., in 2000. Since then, it's been making a big stink.
When there's so much pain, grief and sorrow in the world, it's time to shut off the TV, log off the computer, exit the house, and photograph honey bees. Watching honey bees foraging in the tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii, is therapy enough.
The first thing you notice when you walk up to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, are the natives. Native plants, that is. California golden poppies and phacelia are among the plants sharing the "Pollination Habitat" bed.
