Bug Squad

Ants, bees, flies and other insects--and people--ought to scatter from the Briggs Hall lawn on the UC Davis campus, on Friday afternoon, July 16. That's the date of the eighth annual Bruce Hammock Lab Water Balloon Battle, aka Bruce's Big Balloon Battle at Briggs.

As a child growing up in Washington state, I received an entomological nickname. "Katydid." My father, in a take-off of the name, Kate, affectionately called me "Katydid." Katy did. Katy didn't. Maybe Katy did. Maybe Katy didn't.

It was bound to happen. As soon as New York City lifted its ban on backyard (and rooftop) beekeeping, scores of folks began making a beeline to take classes from the New York City Beekeepers' Association.

Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, writes an interesting bimonthly newsletter. He's been writing from the UC Apiaries since he joined the department's faculty in 1976. Never missed an edition. Not one.

Last weekend we spotted a San Francisco-bound car sporting a bumper sticker that read simply: "I brake for bugs." Indeed. Bugs rule. Bugs are cool. Bugs are definitely worth stopping for (especially if it's the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis which houses seven million specimens).