You CAN have your cake and eat it, too.

You can also "have your BUG and eat it, too."

Even if you're not into entomophagy.

When Randy Veirs, executive assistant to Lynn Kimsey, chair of the Department of Entomology, brought cupcakes into the office that wife Faye made, atop each cupcake perched a little ladybug.

Little as in "M&M" size. Little as in a real "M&M." Little as in "Wow! How creative!"

Faye is a marketing and development assistant at the UC Davis School of Law. A native of Hawaii, she moved to California in 2000.  She plays clarinet and ukulele. In fact, as teenager, she taught ukulele at the Roy Sakuma Studios in Hawaii. Husband Randy plays the trumpet in the UC Davis Symphony.

They both like insects.

Lately Faye has been reading a fun-filled book, "Hello, Cupcake!"  

"Hello, Ladybug!"

Who put the “killer” in “killer bees?”

Someone named “B. Melon” asked that question on the “Strange but True” segment of the Web site, readthehook.com.

To answer the bee question, Bill Sones and Rich Sones did what many do. They asked UC Davis apiculturist Eric Mussen, a Cooperative Extension specialist and UC Davis faculty member for the past 32 years.

The answer, printed today:

A single Africanized honeybee releases no more venom than other bees but does react more vigorously to the "alarm pheromone" released, staying agitated longer, says University of California-Davis entomologist Eric Mussen.

So instead of a dozen frenzied bees pursuing a victim for 100 yards, thousands from the colony of 30,000 may pursue, some up to a quarter mile. Yikes.

Even a world class sprinter couldn't outrun them at 20+ miles per hour, though fortunately most of the bees won't pursue very far. But one University of Miami grad student on a field trip to Costa Rica reportedly stepped on a colony in a cave crack, caught his foot, and died of 2,000 stings.

Scary, but true. The Africanized bees are the pit bulls of the bee world. With pit bulls, it's this scenario: Guy and his dog out for a walk, pit bull charges them, pit bull rips open the throat of the dog and/or man, police respond and kill the pit bull and/or pit bull is euthanized. Pit bull owner maintains dog is so gentle that it "wouldn't hurt a fly." Or a baby...

With Africanized bees, it’s this scenario: Guy out for a walk, bees attack him, guy moves fast, bees move faster, guy in serious condition. Guy says he never thought the swarm of bees would follow him that long. Or that there would be that many.

Which reminds me of the email I received about 10 years ago about two hunters walking through the woods when they encounter a bear.  One hunger unlaces his boots and slides on a pair of running shoes.

“What are you doing? You can’t outrun that bear!”

“No, but I can outrun you.”

But back to Eric Mussen and Africanized bees. Mussen served as the content advisor for a children's book, Africanized Honey Bees by Barbara A. Somervill, published this year by Cherry Lake Publishing, Ann Arbor, Mich.

The book starts out: "In Copperas Cove, Texas, a couple is recovering from stings from hundreds of bees. Doctors stopped counting stings on the woman after they reached 500. Her husband has more than 100 stings--on each arm. Both had bees in their mouths and all over their faces. They were just getting into their car when they got the first stings. Neaby was a hollow tree that served as the bees' nest."

The bees, Somervill continues, were Africanized bees, an invasive species that breeds with our honey bees.

It's an interesting book. The cover features an image of an Africanized bee (which looks about like any other bee). Fact is, the only way you can tell an Africanized bee from the common European or Western honey bee is through a microscope.

Run for cover.

American humorist-entertainer Will Rogers said  "I never met a man I didn't like."

I wonder if he would have said the same thing about insects.

Oh, sure, he probably liked--and appreciated--the butterflies, the honey bees and the ladybugs.

But cockroaches? I bet not.

Cockroaches just don't give you that fuzzy-wuzzy-lovey-dovey feeling--unless you're another cockroach.

Enter Catherine Chalmers, a New York-based multi-media artist who centers much of her work on cockroaches, their place on the planet, and people's reaction to them.

Chalmers, who explores the lives of cockroaches and other creatures that  the general public disdains, will speak on “Sex, Food Chains and Cockroaches” from 6:30 to 8 p.m.,  Wednesday, Jan. 7 at the Wyatt Pavilion, University of California, Davis.

Her presentation is the second in a series of four lectures on “The Consilience of Art and Science,” a centennial colloquium sponsored by the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion experimental learning program. The lectures are free and open to the public. 

“Catherine Chalmers investigates the natural world, from food chains to insect sex, revealing new points of view about our place in the ecosystem,” said Art/Science Fusion co-director Diane Ullman, associate dean of Undergraduate Academic Programs, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and professor of entomology.

Chalmers specializes in photography, sculpture, drawing and video, preferring to let the subject matter dictate the particular media. She displays her art-science work throughout the country. The Boise (Idaho) Art Museum showcased her most recent show, “The American Cockroach.” She’s been featured in the New York Times, Kansas City Star,  The Idaho Statesman and others.

Chalmers possesses this incredible talent of combining humor with biology to make people think. She paints cockroaches to resemble other insects, camouflages them in garden settings, and even “executes” them, strapping one to an “electric chair” or “burning” another at the stake. You can see her videos on her Web site.

Chalmers  is quick to point out, however, that no animals are harmed in the making of her art. (Whew! For a minute there i thought the twitching cockroach was actually burning at the stake.)

Chalmers lives with her artist-husband in Rensselaerville, N.Y., where she buys, rears and poses insects for her art work. A native of San Mateo, she received a bachelor of science degree in engineering from Stanford University, and a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art, London.

She said "American Cockroach" grew out of an earlier piece, "Food Chain," which shows animals mating, eating one another, or in the case of the praying mantis, both. (An insect's gotta do what an insect's gotta do.)

I told Catherine Chalmers she should expect a standing-room only crowd.

 "Sex, Food Chains and Cockroaches."

The title alone should draw folks in.

Maybe a few cockroaches, too.

What has five eyes, six legs, two pairs of wings and can fly about 20 miles per hour?

Got to be an insect, right?

Right. But which one?

More hints: It’s been around for 30 million years.  Its primary form of communication is a chemical called a pheromone. 

Well, that could be…

Okay, now it gets easier.

The queen lays about 2000 eggs per day during the peak season. The males are called drones. The workers carry pollen on their hand legs in a pollen basket or corbicula.

Well, that could BEE…

Right. The mystery insect is the honey bee.

UC Davis apiculturist Eric Mussen says bees must collect nectar from 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey. The average forager makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

Bees are important not just for their honey but for pollination. They pollinate about 100 agricultural crops in the United States. The average person in the United States eats about 1.3 pounds of honey per year.

No wonder “honey” is a term of endearment.