Bug Squad

Honey bees are wild about the wild radish. It's not an invasive weed to them. You'll see bees foraging among stands of wild radish along roadsides, pastures and other disturbed areas.

When the Antioch Charter Academy, a middle school in Contra Costa County, toured the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis on Tuesday, May 4, they learned all about honey bees and native bees.

It's not the prettiest of plants. It looks somewhat like a thistle. No matter. The honey bees love it. Lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), a leggy three-foot plant with clusters of light blue to purple flowers, attracts not only honey bees but syrphid flies, bumbles bees and other pollinators.

If youre a first-year graduate student in entomology, you spend much of your time buried in books or conferring with your major professor. Emily Bzdyk, who is pursuing her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis, does that, too--and more. She's heavily involved in art.

The female silkworm moth releases a sex pheromone, bombykol, that's very enticing to the male. He can detect it from miles away.