Bug Squad

Officials at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the Bohart Museum of Entomology are saving the bees--one T-shirt at a time.

The dull brown moth may be dull-looking but as noctuid cutworms they're not. We spotted this noctuid cutworm, soon to be a dull brown moth, last week on a yarrow in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis.

Dianne DiBlasi did it. Back in January, we wrote a Bug Squad blog about Dianne DiBlasis three-year effort to overturn an Allendale, N.J. ban on backyard beekeeping. DiBlasi, who leads a group of teen environmentalists known as Team B.E.E.S.

Honey bees are involved in a unique "sting operation" utilizing their sense of keen smell to detect explosives and narcotics. And now a scientist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, will talk about the project on Wednesday, Oct. 21 on the UC Davis campus.

Drones--remotely piloted aircraft used in reconnaissance and target attacks--are in the news, but so are the other drones--male bees. This time of year drones are as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth.