Bug Squad

Honey! Today at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis, we borrowed a plastic spoon and offered a taste of honey to newly emerged honey bees. It was their sisters' making and now it was theirs. And soon, they will be making their own.

At the entrance, the recent California Agriculture Day celebration on the west lawn of the State Capitol looked like the land of milk and honey. The first booth, operated by the Dairy Council of California, handed out milk.

Bee swarms are absolutely fascinating. Several years ago, when bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey was teaching a queen- rearing class at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis, her students received an extra bonus: they witnessed a bee swarm.

Two ladybugs, aka lady beetles, circled their little house, a 1.5-inch plastic container punctured with air holes. Up. Down. Down. Up. In a way, they seemed like hamsters on a treadmill. I don't know how long they'd been in the container, but they were anxious to leave.

The first day of spring--Tuesday, March 20--yielded a diversity of insects in the fava beans planted in the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden adjacent to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California,Davis.