Bug Squad

Honey bee insurance buzzed into the news Feb. 1 when Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared on the CBS Show, "Face the Nation" and blasted the state of the economy and President Obama's economic stimulus plan.

Its Friday, so it must be Friday lite When youre hosting a birthday party for an entomologist, you have to think bugs. Thats the rule. Its written right there in the Entomological Society of Americas official guidebook, Chapter 10, Page 387, Line 38. (OK, I made that up.

It's often mistaken for a honey bee. It's not a honey bee. It's a hover fly or flower fly. And this one, hovering around the plants last Saturday in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis, looked like a Syrphus opinator to me.

UC Davis bee specialists were well represented in a recent edition of The IPM Practitioner, which landed on our desk last week. The edition, devoted to Pesticides and Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, includes four photos from the UC Davis Department of Entomology.

It blooms in winter and the bees love it. Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), a rambling vine with trumpetlike yellow flowers, is charming visitors in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis. The plant originates from western China.