Insect

In Joe Tornatore's world, every bee is a potential killer. The sting or bite of any venomous insect, for that matter, is capable of sending the 39-year-old newlywed to his grave. Since twice being hospitalized with stings during the summer, Tornatore does not go outside to play with his children, stroll with his wife, or even visit the mailbox without putting on a beekeeper's protective suit. "I'm anxious to go outside," he said in the living room of his Blackwood house, which came with three acres of wooded land when he bought it in May. "It's crazy to think that something so small could take you out. " Tornatore has a rare skin disease, urticaria pigmentosa.

When it comes to household pests, termites, it seems, are just the tip of the iceberg. Bugs of every description - and some not so easy to identify - can occupy every nook and cranny of houses old and new. Being bugged by bugs isn't a sign that a house and its inhabitants are less than tidy. How many times have we cleaned a bathroom thoroughly only to be surprised by a silverfish climbing the wall, or by a spider creating a web in recently vacuumed corner? Consider the cockroach.

Long before Yugoslavia's landscape was ravaged by U.S. cruise missiles in 1999, the country was attacked by another American menace: a black-striped, corn-munching, tough little beetle from Chicago. The western corn rootworm, the scourge of Midwest farmers since the 1950s, arrived on the southern plains of Europe about 15 years ago. Somehow - and this is where conspiracy theorists have a ball - the beetle hopped a plane from Chicago to Belgrade, and buzzed unnoticed into the cornfields along the runway.

Paul J. Stankard, a glass artist of international repute, idolizes the American poet Walt Whitman. "He's my spiritual mentor, his work informs mine," Stankard commented in his Mantua, N.J., studio. But it was an English poet, William Blake, who first described the essence of Stankard's remarkable glass sculptures, examples of which go on display in Old City today. And that was about 160 years before Stankard first fired up a bench burner. Blake began the long poem "Auguries of Innocence" with a quatrain that students have memorized for generations: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Bugs in wells can cause problems, especially earwigs.Fresh from a visit to the local garbage can, earwigs, attracted to a damp and dark well, can squeeze under a well's cap and pollute the water with their droppings. Their bodies also do pollute if they fall to the bottom and drown. But new regulations in Chester County aim to provide a partial solution to the earwig problem by requiring insect-resistant caps on all new wells or those opened for repairs. "In the past, we used to write this bacterial contamination off to things we can't control," said Ralph DeFazio, environmental health supervisor for the Chester County Health Department.

The West Nile virus has been found in four mosquito breeding pools at Philadelphia International Airport, state and city health officials said yesterday. The health officials said the information, which was released a day after authorities announced the discovery of birds killed by the virus in Philadelphia, was not unexpected. City officials said action would be taken to kill mosquitoes and their larvae. "We know that birds and animals can only get West Nile virus from an infected mosquito," said Robert Muscalus, Pennsylvania's physician general.

One of the bugs that Dave Funk studies spends two years underwater as a hairy, leggy, tube-shaped critter burrowing in the sand and eating worms. Then, on one of only three nights of the year that these bugs do this, in the predawn gloaming, it breaks the surface of the water, a diver in reverse. It spreads its new wings and flies off in search of a mate. The courtship is brief. In its final metamorphosis, the adult has no mouth parts and cannot eat. Within two hours - by dawn - it is dead.

Growing up in Collingswood, John DiOrio was different from other children. "While other kids were out playing football and baseball, I was out in the field catching butterflies and box turtles," he said. "The Newton Creek River system - that was my playground. " Not much has changed in more than three decades. DiOrio now has a wife, three children, and a job as a corrections officer at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Delmont, Cumberland County, but, at 45, he still views nature as his playground.

They're swarming to Detroit's new Comerica Park, but that's not what the Tigers hoped for. Juan Encarnacion hit a two-run triple in a five-run seventh inning that rallied the Tigers past Seattle, 6-5, last night, as swarms of flying insects descended on the ballpark. Fans began running up the aisles as Seattle's Edgar Martinez batted in the first inning, swatting at the insects as they moved. Those who remained in their seats were constantly swatting at the bugs on themselves or others.

What: Personal Bug Zapper Manufacturer: Made in China for the Companion Group, Oakland, Calif. Where: China Outlet and Gourmet Garage, Marlton Price: $8.90 I had wanted to try one of these hand-held bug zappers even before the Housefly That Refused to Die invaded my kitchen. This tennis-racquet-shaped product is priced at $14.99 and $12.95 in various kitchen catalogs, and is widely available on the Internet; the China Outlet and Gourmet Garage sells it at a deep discount.