Bug Squad

We saw her touch down in our nectarine tree last weekend. Big green compound eyes glowed at us. She moved up and down a branch, foraging for food, and then took off. A wasp. The carnivore cousin of the vegetarian honey bee. They belong to the same order, Hymenoptera.

When I last met up with a pipevine swallowtail, it wasn't faring well. In fact, I didn't recognize it as a pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor), no thanks to it being in the clutches of a hungry praying mantis.

Training for the Olympics? If you step into your garden in the early morning, you might see a male bumble bee sleeping on one of your plants. The females return to their nests at night, but the males don't. They stage slumber parties, aka sleepovers, on your plants.

An anise swallowtail fluttered in and out of the tall anise bordering the banks of the Benicia Marina. A beautiful sight.

When you visit the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden planted next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, don't expect to see just pollinators. There are predators there, too.