Test PB Collection: FTE

If you're into composting, chances are you've seen this one. Common name: black soldier fly (BSF). Scientific name: Hermetia illucens. Before you say "yecch"--wait! This is considered a beneficial insect because its larvae are quite desirable in compost piles.

It's time to pop open a bottle of champagne and do a happy dance. Finally, finally, we saw a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) in our yard. After a 20-year absence.

South Sacramento Valley Almond Meeting Announcement Sutter/Yuba/Colusa Walnut Day Announcement...

You've probably seen carpenter bees engage in the practice known as "nectar robbing." Due to their large size, they cannot enter tubelike blossoms such as salvia (sage), so they slit the base of the corolla. They rob the nectar without pollinating the flower.

Pollen-packing honey bees dangling from gaura (Gaura linheimeri) are a joy to photograph. Gaura, native to Louisiana, Texas and Mexico, is a long-stemmed plant with a burst of pinkish-white petals that resemble whirling butterflies.

Don't know if silence is GOLDEN, but Italian honey bees definitely are. Early morning Saturday, I watched a bee the color of liquid gold nectaring the lavender in our yard. A golden opportunity to capture her brilliance. She won't live long.

Carpenter bees (Xylocopata tabaniformis orpifex) can't get enough of the day lilies in our yard. In the early morning, they buzz into the patch of day lilies to forage for nectar and pollen. When they're finished, it's easy to tell where they've been: they're covered with telltale yellow pollen.

Congratulations are in order. Chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, has just been selected a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America, a prestigious honor granted to only 10 or few members of the 6000-member organization each year.

It was delightful hearing UC Davis nutritionist and fitness expert Liz Applegate extol the virtues of honey at the 31st annual Western Apicultural Society (WAS) conference, held recently in Healdsburg. Like many of you, we've always loved honey.

Call it the "Mournful Dusky-Wing" or the "Sad Dusky-Wing." Call it what you will, but the Erynnis tristis, a member of the skipper butterfly family (Hesperiidae), is neither mournful nor sad when it's nectaring lavender.