Bug Squad

Youre not going to be able to jump on the pomegranate bandwagon with your pockets bulging with gold without a lot of hard work, Kevin Day, farm advisor with UC Cooperative Extension Tulare County, told a reporter for a news story published May 14 in the Western Farm Press. Yes, hard work.

The competition was fierce. We're talking 800 postdoctoral scholars on the UC Davis campus, 12 finalists and two winners.

Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. is in good company. Good company, indeed. Think scientists Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. Page, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1980 and then became a noted geneticist at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.

UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey loves flies. So, every chance I get, I shoot an image for him. Many of the images wind up in his classroom PowerPoint presentations. "Keep 'em coming," he says. So, I shoot flies. Yes, indeed. I shoot flies. No, I am not a candidate for a 12-step program.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD), the mysterious phenomonen characterized by honey bees abandoning their hives, is still with is, and the cause is still mysterious.