Bug Squad

Ever seen a honey bee and a butterfly sharing a lavender blossom? Just in time for National Pollinator Week, June 17-23, we saw this today. What could be more pollinator friendly than that? The honey bee, Apis mellifera, and the Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, meet on many a blossom.

Have you ever seen the digger bees on the sandy cliffs of Bodega Head, Sonoma County? if you hike a short distance up a meandering trail, you'll see a landscape of turrets, the work of solitary, ground-nesting digger bees, Anthophora bomboides standfordina. The nests remind us tiny sandcastles.

Internationally known honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page, Jr. is spotlighted in the current issue of American Entomologist in Marlin E. Rice's popular Legends feature. Titled "Robert E. Page, Jr.

How can you interest your children in insects?

Bees, butterflies, beetles, birds and bats. What do they have in common? Skipping the alliteration for a moment, they're all pollinators. Honey bees grab the most attention, of course, and they do the bulk of the work. But so do bumble bees and other native bees.