Bug Squad

The conversation usually starts like this: "I saw this huge, huge bumble bee with yellow on its back. It was buzzing like crazy." Often it's not a bumble bee, but the Valley carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta, that's been foraging on the blooms of the passionflower vine (Passiflora).

It's surprising what the microbes in nectar can reveal. Take the nectar of the sticky monkeyflower, Mimulus auranticus.

So, here we are, a couple of stink bugs hidden in the lavender. Unnoticed. Undetected. Undisturbed. We're loving the lavender, and we're in the process of providing the world with more stink bugs. "Okay, we know, we know. We're red-shouldered stink bugs (Thyanta pallidovirens).

It's no fun having a "hole in one." No, not golf. A hole in your butterfly habitat. So, here it is September of 2016 and we're at home rearing monarch butterflies as part of our small-scale conservation project to help the declining population.

Ready for those June weddings? Coming to an altar near you...a bride and a groom. "When you marry in June, you're a bride all your life."--Anonymous. "Look happy," say the wedding photographers as they focus on the bridal couple, and then single out the bride who will be a bride all of her life.