Bug Squad

Today is the Fourth of July, and what better time to proclaim: "Hurray for the red, white and blue!" And the yellow. On a camping trip last week to Doran Regional Park, Bodega Bay, we admired our neighbors' display of American flagsbordered with a dozen honey bees. These bees, however, didn't buzz.

A celebration of life for celebrated Cooperative Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen, an internationally known 38-year California Cooperative Extension apiculturist and an invaluable member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, will take place from 4 to 6 p.m.

Have you seen any Checkered White butterflies lately? They're quite common in the southern United States and northern Mexico (they're known as the Southern cabbage butterfly), but one CW fluttered through our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Solano County, Calif., on June 23.

It was Saturday, June 25.

A little yarn, a little glue and a little confetti--and attendees at the recent "Eight-Legged Encounters" open house, co-hosted by the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology and the American Arachnological Society (AAS), learned how spiders have evolved to capture their prey more efficiently.