Bug Squad

As a child, Dennis Price loved to watch the honey bees. I could sit and watch them all day, he said. He still does. Love the honey bees, that is. And he never tires of watching them. If you attended the California State Fair on Sunday, Aug. 17 or Saturday, Aug.

Friday lite. That's what it was. But it was more than that, too. Every year, Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology at UC Davis, wages a water balloon battle for faculty, researchers, graduate students, staff, family and friends.

Beauty isn't skin deep. It's wing deep. The Anise Swallowtail butterfly dazzles you with its yellow stripes and blue dots. If it were a painting, it would be a Michelangelo. If it were music, it would be Vivaldi's "Spring." If it were a car, it would be a sleek Lamborghini.

Hillary Thomas' biological control research on a leaf-eating beetle that targets saltcedar has scored a bullseye. Thomas, a doctoral candidate in entomology at UC Davis, has received a $15,000 Robert and Peggy van den Bosch Memorial Scholarship to support her research.

If she were boarding an airline, she'd be charged double for baggage. But she didn't and she wasn't. She's a pollen-packed sunflower bee enjoying our sunflower. Not a honey bee but a sunflower bee. A native bee.