Bug Squad

If you've ever been shoulder to shoulder with a redshouldered stink bug--or nose to antennae--you know this is a bug to boot out of your garden. It's a pest. Behind that shield-shaped body is a pest.

Mother's Day, insect-style, dawned like any other day. In our back yard, golden honey bees foraged in the lavender and those ever-so-tiny sweat bees visited the rock purslane. The honey bees? Those gorgeous Italians.

First the buds, then the blossoms, then the bees. The Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre, bee-friendly garden planted in the fall of 2009 next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, is, in one wordspectacular.

Sunday, May 8 is Mother's Day. Saturday, May 7 is Moth-er's Day. Yes, that's Moth-er's Day, Lepidopteran style. That's when the Bohart Museum of Entomology will showcase moths at a special weekend opening from 1 to 4 p.m.

Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology is known as "The Fly Man of Alcatraz." When he's not teaching classes, advising students and graduate students, or heading out on homicide cases, you can usually find him on "The Rock"--researching flies.