This photo of a flameskimmer dragonfly, the work of Rachel Dalmas of Fairfield, won best of division. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

These displays inform, educate and entertain.

The California State Fair, Sacramento, traditionally features an Insect Pavilion, which includes exotic and invasive species. This year's state fair also showcased UC Davis displays: insect specimens (and live ones, too) from the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a bee observation hive from the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.

For the last several years, the Dixon May Fair's Floriculture Building has housed Bohart specimens and a Laidlaw bee observation hive.

The 63rd annual Solano County Fair, Vallejo, now under way, is also bee-and-bug friendly. If you head over to McCormack Hall, the first thing you see is a skep or dome-shaped bee hive. (Beekeepers in many parts of the world still use skeps, commonly made of twisted straw.) 

The McCormack Hall skep symbolizes "Home, Sweet Home," the theme of the fair.

Last Sunday we watched McCormack Hall superintendent Elisa Seppa and assistant superintendent Gloria Gonzalez prepare the ceramic skep/bees/bears display (on loan from the California State Fair), as another Solano County Fair employee Deborah Miller lent her artistic touch to the exhibitor displays.

The fair, which opened Wednesday, Aug. 1 and continues through Sunday, Aug. 5, also includes a number of insect-themed work from exhibitors. This is sort of like BYOB (Bring Your Own Bug.)

Rachel Dalmas, 15, of Fairfield is exhibiting a close-up image (and a best-of-division winner) of a flameskimmer dragonfly. Desirae Rivas, 8, of the Travis Youth Center, painted a ladybug and titled it quite succinctly: "Lady Bug Painting." It won a blue ribbon.

Is there a (future) entomologist in the house?