Bug Squad

You don't want to "get the red out" when a flameskimmer dragonfly visits your garden. You want to let Big Red to stay in. This male flameskimmer hung out in our pollinator garden in Vacaville on July 3 for a little over five hours.

This is not something you see every day.

We're used to admiring street art that showcases such iconic insects as lady beetles, dragonflies and butterflies, but carpenter ants? Carpenter ants? If you walk over the Ulatis Creek Bridge, Vacaville, to enter Andrews Park for the Fourth of July celebration on Sunday, you may be surprised.

Life is not always sunny for the sunflower bee, Svastra obliqua, a native longhorned bee. The gals have trouble foraging when a male longhorned bee, Melissodes agilis, targets them. The male M. agilis are very territorial--and their kamikaze-like maneuvers are spectacular.

Let's have a slumber party! Don't bring a pillow, a night-cap or an attitudeit's Boys' Night Out and we're sleeping outside on the flowers. That's what the male longhorned bees, Melissodes agilis, do while the females return to their underground nests at night.