Ongoing research

A sure sign of spring: trucks loaded with bee hives heading out to the almond orchards. Yes, almond pollination season is almost here. California has approximately 700,000 acres of almonds, and each acre requires two hives for pollination.

To bee or not to bee. When research entomologist Terry Griswold (left) speaks on North American bees on Wednesday, Feb.

Plant it and they will come. The Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, planted last fall, is already attracting a few honey bees. The half-acre bee friendly garden, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.

Let's hear it for the birds and the bees and the flowers and the... No, the bees and butterflies.

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Its a comfortable life. Eat, sleep and mate. And then eat, sleep and mate again. Madagascar hissing cockroaches are a popular attraction at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis.

Country cousins. Honey bees and ants belong to the same order, Hymenoptera, and occasionally you see them together. Such was the case today in the Storer Garden, UC Davis Aboretum, as the closely related honey bees and ants foraged in the red-hot poker (Kniphofia galpinii or "Christmas cheer").

Vern Burton didnt set out to become an entomologist. Home from the World War II battlefields, he enrolled in Compton Community College and then the University of California, Berkeley. A family friend promised him a job in his termite control business once he finished his studies.

If you've ever wondered about the relationship between predator biodiversity and herbivore suppression, that subject is on tap Wednesday, Jan. 27 at UC Davis.

What makes a beekeeper? A research team from the Department of Psychology, Bradley University, Peoria, Ill., wants to know. Led by Wendy Schweigert, Ph.D.