Bug Squad

If you want to attract insects to your garden, plant an artichoke and let it flower. You'll get honey bees, syrphid flies, butterflies, carpenter bees and leafcutter bees. (And well, a few predators, such as spiders and wasps.) Today we saw leafcutter bees (Megachile spp.

Since this is National Pollinator Week, you're probably out celebrating the bees--maybe doing hand stands, cartwheels and pirouettes. But have you ever thought about beetles as pollinators? They are. We spotted this little critter on a California golden poppy at the Sonoma Mission in Sonoma, Calif.

Sometimes you see honey bees "making a beeline." Such was the case when this honey bee (below) encountered a native wildflower, blue lupine (Lupinus). Lupines are known more as pollen plants than nectar plants, according to Frank Pellett's book, American Honey Plants, a Dadant publication.

It won't be lock, stock and barrel, but it will be stock. A team of scientists from UC Davis and Washington State University will be heading for Italy tomorrow (June 19) to gather germplasm (sperm) of Old World/Italian honey bee stock.

Let's have a pause--and applause--for the pollinators. Next week, June 18-24, is National Pollinator Week, as designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).