Test PB Collection: FTE

What's that caterpillar? This little fellow (or gal) was munching--quite contentedly, thank you--on the leaves of an aspen tree. The homeowner didn't take too kindly to the critter defoliating his prized tree, newly purchased in Oregon and newly planted in Vacaville, Calif.

Want to learn more about weeds? Attend the... Salinas Valley Weed School 2012 Tuesday, 11/13/2012 8 AM-12 noon Agricultural Center Conference Room 1432 Abbott Street, Salinas, CA It's free... there's no fee. For more information call Richard Smith (831) 759-7357. CLICK HERE for the agenda.

It's not often you see a monarch butterfly and a digger bee in the same photo. Such was the case on a recent visit to a lantana patch at a west Vacaville home.

Good things come to those that wait. Well, when it came to getting a registration for prometryn for use on cilantro, wait we did. I recall doing the first trials on prometryn for use on cilantro in 1999.

The folks at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis,call them "jungle gems." And "gems" they are. They're New World orchid bees (Euglossine bees), which museum director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, describes as "the most beautiful bees in the world.

Honey bees on blanket flowers (Gaillardia). Honey bees on Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia). The Girls of Autumn....not unlike The Boys of Summer...

Small smutgrass (Sporobolus indicus) is a grass that grows well in irrigated pastures but is not palatable to livestock. So what happens if it grows well and it doesn't get eaten? It takes over the pasture! Learn some simple control measures that will keep this weed in check.

We're accustomed to seeing a solitary monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) flitting around a garden. But millions of them? It was interesting to read the National Public Radio piece (Oct. 4) on Flight: A Few Million Little Creatures That Could.

Superorganisms, mimicry and aphids... Those are some of the topics to be covered at the UC Davis Department of Entomology's fall noonhour seminars, to begin Wednesday, Oct. 17 and continue through Wednesday, Nov. 28 in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Building.

Small, but damaging pest. Female (top), male and female in copulation (middle), and mature nymph (bottom) of Bagrada bug.