Test PB Collection: FTE

Ponce Denis couchard Lebrun compared the butterfly to a flying flower: The butterfly is a flying flower, The flower a tethered butterfly. At the recent Entomological Society of America meeting in Reno, a blue butterfly drew the attention of lepidopterists and photographers alike.

Right out of Champaign, Ill., comes a research story about honey bees on coke. Cocaine. University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson and his colleagues have found that honey bees on cocaine dance more.

'Tis the season for brotherly love, but not in the bee hive. As the honey-gathering season ends and the weather turns colder, the worker bees (infertile females) push their brothers--the drones--out of the hive. Drones are of no use to the colony in the winter. They're another mouth to feed.

I always thought the red-hot poker was primarily red. Not. This one in the Storer Gardens at the University of California, Davis, was mostly yellow. It was Saturday, Dec.

If there ever were a Christmas bug, it would be the ladybug, aka lady beetle. The insects (family Coccinellidae) are brightly colored and spread joy in the garden when they feast on aphids. Last summer we enjoyed watching them hanging out and hooking up.

You're sitting around discussing the importance of honey bees. The points include: they give us honey, they pollinate agricultural crops, and they serve as an example of a well-organized society. But wait, there's more. They scare off plant predators.

Seen any cabbage whites lately? If you capture one before UC Davis professor Arthur Shapiro does, he'll trade you a beer for your butterfly. Actually, a pitcher of beer or its cash equivalent. Yes, it's time for Shapiro's 38th annual Butterfly-for-Beer contest.

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.

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.

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.