Bug Squad

It was not a good day to be a honey bee. But it was a good day to be a spider. For days we watched honey bees, sweat bees and syrphid flies visit a patch of alyssum and African daisies in our yard. Their floral visits did not go unnoticed.

That's one gigantic wasp! The new species that Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi measures a whopping two and a half inches long. That's the male "warrior wasp.

Collembola! Watch the springtails spring! Over the last several days, Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of Caifornia, Davis, has patrolled a UC Davis sidewalk checking out a huge volume of springtails.

Noted butterfly expert Art Shapiro of UC Davis sees about 40 yellow sulphur butterflies, aka alfalfa butterflies, during alfalfa-cutting time. We saw one yesterday. It was fluttering over by the tennis courts, corner of Russell Boulevard and Howard Way, on the University of California, Davis campus.

A field of green ribboned in yellow. Anyone who drives down Pedrick Road in Dixon, Calif., and sees the spectacular sunflower fields can't help but smile. Yellow sunflowers do that to you. They make you smile.