Bug Squad

Bee ready! This is the week of the 40th annual Western Apicultural Society's conference, set Sept. 5-8 at the University of California, Davis.

Who isn't fascinated by a praying mantis, that pre-historic looking predator that lurks on a plant and snags honey bees, butterflies and other insects in lightening-quick lunges? And who isn't fascinated by those who study them, rear them and share their knowledge with others?

Migratory monarch alert! They're on their way. Camera ready? Check. Notebook ready? Check! Entomologist David James of Washington State University, Pullman, Wash., who studies the migration routes and overwintering sites of the Pacific Northwest monarch population, told us last Friday, Aug.

If you're a beekeeper and varroa mites are bugging you--to the point whether you wonder if you're keeping bees or the varroa mites are keeping you-- there's hope.

"Girls, where's your mother? It's August, 2007 and bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, manager of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis, is opening a hive in the apiary. "Girls, where's your mother? she asks again, pulling out another frame.