Originally published by UC Davis Dateline staff

	Photographer Kathy Keatley Garvey asks: "Who says flies aren't pretty?" This one, a hover fly, aka flower fly, from the order Diptera, is pictured on a Tower of Jewels plant in Garvey's back yard. (Kathy Keatley Garvey/UC Davis)

Trying to think of a weekend outing for yourself or your family? Consider visiting the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology, which has scheduled special hours on Saturday, Dec. 11.

The museum welcomes weekend visitors several times a year, for people who cannot get there during regular hours Tuesday through Friday. Admission is free during the week and for the weekend openings, too.

The museum’s hours Dec. 11 will be 1 to 4 p.m., according to a news release, which further stated that the museum that day will showcase the Diptera order (flies).

But you need not limit your visit to the flies. After all, the museum houses more than 7 million insect specimens from around the world. The collection, the seventh largest collection in North America, includes the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of California's Central Valley, as well as the mountains, coast and deserts.

Not all the museum’s critters are dead. A "petting zoo” features Madagascar hissing cockroaches, tarantulas, scorpions, a millipede and six kinds of walking sticks, including Vietnamese walking sticks and one that the Bohart staff has nicknamed "Avatar" (“It’s long, skinny and blue," said Professor Lynn Kimsey, museum director).

A gift shop offers t-shirts, sweatshirts, jewelry, note cards, books, posters and insect candy such as chocolate-covered ants and crickets and this visitor favorite: scorpions in lollipops.

“Many visitors purchase holiday gifts here," Kimsey said.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology is in 1124 Academic Surge. Regular hours: 8:30 a.m.-noon and 1-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday. Closed on major holidays.

More information is available online or by contacting Tabatha Yang, (530) 752-9464 or tabyang@ucdavis.edu.

Missing Halloween already?  Looking for some good creepy crawly shows to watch late at night … in the dark … all alone?  Shows that  … let you earn CE hours?!  Then head to the UC Davis Entomology Seminars website and watch archived webcasts of their fall seminars.  The website address is http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/courses/deptseminar/seminars.cfm. 

Topics include My Neighbors Drive Me Cannibalistic: Mechanisms of Density-Dependent Cannibalistic Behavior and its Effects on Population Dynamics and Aromatherapy for Pest Management? Pesticides Based on Plant Essential Oils for Agriculture, Industry and as Consumer Products.

Listen live on November 10 (And the Beak Shall Inherit: Contemporary Local and Reverse Evolution in Morphology and Life History in American and Australian Soapberry Bugs) and November 17 (How Can Theoretical Ecology Guide Management of Plant and Insect Populations?). 

Visit their archived seminars and choose from 30 more webcasts.  There are lots of topics that can help you answer questions from the public in the office and in classes, and just increase your general entomology knowledge.  You may find an interesting topic that inspires you to write an article for the newsletter to extend your outreach even more.  Get clicking on the creepy crawlies!

On Oct 5, Gail Fulbert, Paul Brink and I attended the Asian Citrus Psyllid presentation in Yuba City. We learned that the tiny little Asian Citrus Psyllid is the vector for the Huanglongbing (HLB) citrus disease that is helping destroy the Florida citrus industry. There is no cure for the bacterial disease and it is always fatal to citrus trees and closely related plants in the Rutaceae family.

The Asian Citrus Psyllid is in California, Huanglongbing is not … yet. Master Gardeners have been asked to educate our communities about how to prevent the spread of the insect and the disease. I’ve posted the presentation in the CE Documents folder of the Newsletters/Documents section in VMS.

An interesting approach recommended when teaching about Huanglongbing is to refer to it as HLB instead of Huanglongbing or Citrus Greening, as it’s also known. The reason? Greening sounds like a good thing, Huanglongbing sounds funny, but HLB sounds like HIV, which everyone knows is bad.

Please review the presentation which lists suggestions to share with our community about how to prevent the spread. And when you teach classes and work at information booths, take the time to explain why it’s important to all Californians to be aware of the source of imported plants. Taking a cutting from a friend’s backyard orange tree that’s newly infected with HLB and grafting it to a tree in your yard could be the catalyst that starts the epidemic.

Spread the word. We have flyers available to us in multiple languages. You can count the time you spend reviewing the presentation as Continuing Education hours.

Sue Mosbacher

No more California Citrus? The Asian citrus psyllid and huanglongbing disease are causing severe problems for both commercial citrus growers and home gardeners.  The Sutter/Yuba County Farm Advisor has invited us to attend a special presentation by Beth Grafton-Cardwell, IPM Specialist and Research Entomologist with the Department of Entomology, UC Riverside, stationed at the Kearney Ag Center.  The presentation is on Tuesday, October 5, 2010, from 10 am – Noon, at the Sutter/Yuba UCCE Meeting Room, 142A Garden Hwy, Yuba City, 95991.  The event is listed in VMS in the Continuing Education Calendar. Please sign up on VMS by the end of September so I can give their Farm Advisor a head count of the number of people planning to attend from our county.

Sometimes MGs get questions about preserving garden vegetables that are interesting and easy to answer without forwarding to the Master Food Preservers.  Here’s one such question.  "I pickled some of my home grown peppers and garlic, and the garlic turned blue!  What did I do wrong, and is it safe to eat?"  No need for him to panic; garlic often turns blue when pickled, especially young garlic. "Smurf" garlic is safe to eat.

Sue Mosbacher