Bug Squad

I've been asked how I did it. How did I manage to capture that rare image of a honey bee sting that won the feature photo award presented June 11 by the international Association for Communication Excellence (ACE)? The bee is tugging a long strand of abdominal tissue as it tries to pull away.

It's sad to see and say, but like honey bees, the bumble bee population is declining, and that decline is alarming. Public awareness can help turn this around. That's why we're glad to see that the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, based in Portland, Ore.

Picture a pollinator paradise right where nature intended it to be--near an apiary. Staff research associate/beekeeper Elizabeth Frost of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.

All winter long my bee condo housed 16 tenants...and one earwig. And quite comfortably, too, thank you. It all began last fall when the leafcutting bees laid their eggs, provisioned each nest with a nectar/pollen ball, and plugged it with leaves. Just about every morning, I did a bed check.

Entomologists at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, want you to know your sticks.