Bug Squad

It was bound to happen. As soon as New York City lifted its ban on backyard (and rooftop) beekeeping, scores of folks began making a beeline to take classes from the New York City Beekeepers' Association.

Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, writes an interesting bimonthly newsletter. He's been writing from the UC Apiaries since he joined the department's faculty in 1976. Never missed an edition. Not one.

Last weekend we spotted a San Francisco-bound car sporting a bumper sticker that read simply: "I brake for bugs." Indeed. Bugs rule. Bugs are cool. Bugs are definitely worth stopping for (especially if it's the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis which houses seven million specimens).

We can learn a lot from insects, especially when a predator ambushes its prey. An ambush, as defined by Wikipedia "is a long-established military tactic in which the aggressors (the ambushing force) use concealment to attack a passing enemy.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. --Nathaniel Hawthorne Maybe not "alight upon you," but stay long enough for you to admire it.