Bug Squad

It's raining bumble bees in our pool. Yellow-faced bumble bees (Bombus vosnesenskii). And honey bees (Apis mellifera), too. While nectaring lavender, catmint, tower of jewels, sedum and other plants, some of the foragers land in our pool. Talk about no depth perception.

It's not often you see a ladybug and a honey bee sharing the same plant. The ladybug, a predator in disguise, devours aphids like a kid does M&Ms. The honey bee, all buzziness, works furiously to collect nectar or pollen for her hive. Sometimes a lavender patch can bring them together.

The garden is lookin' good. That would be the half-acre Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a bee friendly garden planted last fall next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.

Honey bee research at the University of California, Davis, recently received a $900 boost, thanks to artists with a honey of hearta honey of a heart for the plight of honey bees.

It's good to see so much interest in bees. When folks think of bees, they usually think "honey bees." However, our European or western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is one of a total of seven species of honey bees found throughout the world. Worldwide, there are some 20,000 described species of bees.