Bug Squad

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.

If you want to know about the molecular neurobiology of feeding behavior in insects, then the University of California, Davis campus is the place to be on Wednesday, Feb. 27.

'Tis the season for the return of the insects. Many a honey bee foraged in the flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) last weekend. But wait, what's that? A spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) tucked inside a blossom.