Bug Squad

An anise swallowtail fluttered in and out of the tall anise bordering the banks of the Benicia Marina. A beautiful sight.

When you visit the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden planted next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, don't expect to see just pollinators. There are predators there, too.

So you're poking around in your garden and you see a bee on a flowering artichoke that you've never seen foraging there before. On sunflowers, yes. On artichokes, no. A closer look--and huge green eyes stare back at you. Definitely not a honey bee (Apis mellifera), although its size is comparable.

Gotta love those flame skimmers. It's a joy to watch these firecracker-red dragonflies (Libellula saturata) make their presence known. They dart over our fish pond, snatch an insect, and then perch on a tomato-plant stake to eat it. Last year another generation did the same thing.

If you want to attract insects to your garden, plant an artichoke and let it flower. You'll get honey bees, syrphid flies, butterflies, carpenter bees and leafcutter bees. (And well, a few predators, such as spiders and wasps.) Today we saw leafcutter bees (Megachile spp.