Bug Squad

Thars gold in them thar hills. And also bumble bees. If you visit the Sonoma County coastal town of Bodega Bay, and drive up to Bodega Head overlooking the ocean, youll see a carpet of gold flowers known as coastal goldfields or Lasthenia minor.

Oh, to be a queen bee... Her Royal Highness (HRH) is quite pampered. She's always surrounded by her royal attendants, called the retinue. They tend to her every need. They feed and groom her. They keep her warm or cool, depending on the temperature inside the hive.

The cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) looks like a Lady in White when she perches on catmint. The colors are striking: A long, flowing white gown nestled among the rich lavender blossoms and earthy green leaves.

Chemical ecologist Zain Syed of the Walter Leal lab, University of California, Davis, knows just where to find mosquitoes for his research. Rice fields. He's been collecting up to 3000 mosquitoes a night along the Yolo Causeway, located on Interstate 80 between Davis and West Sacramento.

Amazing. An article posted on the ScienceNews Web site today indicates that North America did, too, have a honey bee. For nearly 400 years, we've been told that the honey bee (genus Apis) did not exist on this continent until 1622. That's when the colonists brought it over from Europe.