Bug Squad

Poet Gertrude Stein wrote in her 1913 poem, "Sacred Emily," that "a rose is a rose is a rose." Things are what they are. The laws of identity. No matter where I go, there I am. When I captured this photo last Sunday of a fly on a rose petal, I immediately thought "A fly is a fly is a fly.

If you attend the 95th annual UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 18 and stop by Briggs Hall between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., you'll get a taste of honey. In fact, six tastes of honey.

If you're accustomed to seeing ants crawl, wait a minute...some can actually jump. Ants? Jump? Like leaping lizards? True. Harpegnathos saltator, aka Jerdon's jumping ant, a species found in India, can indeed jump. It can leap a distance of about 10 centimeters (about 3.9 inches).

In a matter of days, the aphids discovered our newly purchased rose bushes. They clustered around the buds and unfolding leaves, piercing the tender stems and sucking the plant juices as if there were no tomorrow. For some of them, there would be no tomorrow.

With the opening of baseball season, it's "peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jacks!" But to beekeepers, it's peanuts. Or rather, peanut-like shells. Immature queen bees grow to maturity in cells that resemble peanut shells. When UC Davis bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, manager of the Harry H.