Light My Fire

There they sat, a row of jack o'lanterns ready for a light.

Undergraduate students at the University of California, Davis, created them for the "Happy Halloween" open house, held Oct. 23 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, 1124 Academic Surge, UC Davis.

All that the oranges globes needed: someone with a match.

Outreach education program coordinator Brian Turner obliged, lighting the three jack o'lanterns: a butterfly, a dragonfly and a bee. (Me thinks the honey-bee jack o'lantern was really a jill o'lantern.)

Honey bees--the queen bee, workers and drones--drew eager interest at the open house. Visitors admired a honey bee observation hive, learned about bees, and tasted honey. Even royal jelly. So, what does royal jelly taste like, this food of queen bees? It tastes like you want another taste of clover honey. Quick.

Visitors also checked out the Madagascar hissing cockroaches, giant New Guinea walking sticks and assorted spiders as they sampled chicken wings, shrimp, fruit and cookies.

The museum, named for prominent entomologist Richard Bohart (1913-2007), was founded in 1946. Directed by Lynn Kimsey (who also serves as chair of the Department of Entomology), the museum is known for having the seventh largest insect collection in North America. It houses some seven million insect specimens.

And now, three jack o'lanterns.