If you're interested in insects--the good, the bad and the ugly--don't miss the Northern California Entomology Society meeting on Thursday, Nov. 6 in Contra Costa County.

You don't have to be a member. No one is going to ask you "What are you doing here?" or comment "I guess they let just about anybody in now, huh?"

Fact is, this organization meets three times a year and the meetings are open to the public. You just have to express an interest in bugs--because they express an interest in you. (Especially mosquitoes!)

Insects have been on this earth about 400 million years and they've got this "live-life-for-all-it's-worth" down pat. Odds are, some insects will be at the meeting or just outside the door. Let me in!

The meeting begins at  9:15 a.m. with registration and coffee in the Contra Costa Mosquito Control and Vector District conference room, 155 Mason Circle, Concord.

Speakers will discuss  the light brown apple moth, Asian citrus psyllid and other quarantined pests, announced president Susan Sawyer, area manager of Pest Detection/Emergency Projects, California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Also planned: the election of officers. 

Native pollinators--the good insects--also will be on the list of topics.

The agenda: 

9:30 a.m.: “Biocontrol of Light Brown Apple Moth, a Quarantine Pest in California” by William Roltsch of the CDFA’s Biocontrol Branch 

10:15 a.m.: “Madagascar: People and Nature on the Eighth Continent” by Martin Hauser, CDFA’s Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch

11 a.m.: “Native California Bees Looking for Cheap Urban Real Estate” by professor Gordon Frankie (or assistant), UC Berkeley 

11:45 a.m.: Annual business meeting

12 Noon: Catered lunch by Kinder’s Custom Meats: Barbecued marinated ball tip and chicken quarters with barbecued beans; tossed green, potato and fruit salad; assorted soft drinks and cookie ($15) 

1:15 p.m.: “Update on Asian Citrus Psyllid, a Quarantine Pest in California” by Kris Godfrey of CDFA’s Biocontrol Branch 

2 p.m.: “Overview of CDFA Pests, with Emphasis on Quarantine Pest”  (CDFA speaker, to be announced)

The Northern California Entomoogy Society is comprised of university faculty, researchers, pest abatement professionals, students and other interested persons.

The group meets the first Thursday of February at the Hungry Hunter, Fairfield; the first Thursday of May at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility; UC Davis; and the first Thursday of November at the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District headquarters,  Concord. Membership dues are $10 year.

 For more information, contact society president Susan Sawyer, CDFA, (916) 262-0855,  or  SSawyer@cdfa.ca.gov. Or contact society  treasurer Eric Mussen, UC Davis Department of Entomology,  (530) 752-0472, ecmussen@ucdavis.edu.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

That inductive reasoning (known as "the duck test") doesn't hold true for yellow bugs with black spots.

A yellow ladybug (ladybird beetle)  and a cucumber beetle look a little alike--at first glance. They're both yellow. They both have black spots.

But they're worlds apart. One is a beneficial insect. The other is a pest.

We spotted a spotted cucumber beetle (family Cerambycidae)  on our sunflower plant last summer. It's a common insect in California. It eats all kinds of flowers and leaves. It's often seen on plants in the squash family.  Figures. We had a squash plant in our garden. (Notice the "had.")

Ladybugs (family Coccinellidae) aren't always the classic reddish-orange color and they don't always have spots. They can be mellow yellow! But they're your buddies.  They feast on aphids, mealybugs, mites, and other soft-bodied insects.

I figure that between these two insects, the ladybugs are the bright spots in the garden.

The red-pigmented white pitcher plant we purchased at the UC Davis Arboretum Plant Faire looks like a flamboyant coral reef. Like a hat askew, its ruffled “lid” hangs over the trumpet-shaped “pitcher.” The pitcher is actually a long, hollow tubular leaf.
 

But looks are deceiving. 

Sarracenia leucophylla is a carnivorous plant. It draws insects and then devours them. In the few weeks we’ve had it, it’s gobbled blow flies, snagged tachinid (parasitic) flies, and horrors, it ate two of our beloved honey bees. 

I do not think I like this plant.

Our bee friendly garden is no longer friendly.  There’s war in our garden of peace. We have a weapon of mass destruction right in our own backyard. And you think Dracula is scary on Halloween! 

Ernesto Sandoval, curator of the College of Biological Sciences Greenhouses at UC Davis, knows the plant well.

“Ah, yes, the horrors of indiscriminate insectivity!” he says. “The Sarracenia, especially S. leucophylla are really good indicators of the relative abundance of insects and unfortunately, even honey bees are convinced to visit the flower-mimicking leaves.” 

Sandoval says Sarracenia grow up and down the east coast of North America from Florida to Canada.

"The well-known Venus Fly Trap is native to North Carolina and just a little bit of South Carolina," he says. "They grow in places where nutrient poor sandy soils cannot sustain trees and instead give way to these insectivores as well as grasses and other low-nutrient-tolerant plants."

Meanwhile, I think I heard the plant burb.

Pull up a lawn chair and watch the honey bees.

They're buzzing around the Russian sage, gathering nectar. So focused are they that they don't seeem to mind the photographer sharing their space. So dedicated. So committed. So industrious.

Wait, a honey bee is wearing a new hat. Wait, another is playing peek-a-bee.

It's a great time to be in the garden.