- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Two 'streaks on a sedum.
Sounds like a song, doesn't it?
Actually there were two gray hairstreaks (Strymon melinus) on a sedum today in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.
Make that two 'streaks and a honey bee.
In a way, the butterflies, with their sails up, looked like the America's Cup contestants. Yes, Oracle Team USA streaked by Emirates Team New Zealand by 44 seconds today to win the 34th America's Cup.
Sports enthusiasts called it the greatest comeback in 162 years of competition. The Oracle was down by 8-2 and then won eight consecutive races to win The Cup.
Meanwhile, the gray hairstreaks just kept foraging on the sedum, while the honey bee cast a wary eye.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So patient, so passionate.
The praying mantis looked hungry last Thursday when it perched on a coneflower in the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.
Where's breakfast? Where's lunch? Where's dinner?
Nowhere to be found.
A few honey bees and sweat bees buzzed around the predator, but didn't land.
The praying mantis changed positions, much like a fisherman who feels "skunked" in one place will try his luck at another site.
It crawled up, down and around the flower.
Nothing.
Half an hour later, it slid beneath the coneflower, out of the hot sun. An umbrella for shade, a place to rest, a place to prey...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Robbin Thorp saw it first.
Talk about an eagle eye.
Thorp, a native pollinator specialist and emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, was monitoring the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, on July 23 when something caught his eye.
The California buckwheat was waving at him.
"While looking closely at the California buckwheat flower heads, I noticed a piece of one waving but there was no wind," recalled Thorp. "I watched a linear group of florets march across to another head. I tried to get a close-up on a flower head as background, but could not get the focus right."
So he placed the "unusual life form" on his finger to capture a better image. He captured it all right: a larva covered with buckwheat florets.
Later insect photographer Allan Jones of Davis, a regular visitor at the haven, obtained a spectacular photo of the camouflage.
Thorp identified the "unusual life form" as the larva of an emerald moth Synchlora (see http://bugguide.net/node/view/747823/bgimage). "The larva pupates with its camouflage still on then turns into a delicate green geometrid adult," he said. (See http://bugguide.net/node/view/316178/bgimage for the life cycle: caterpillar to moth).
Maybe it was serendipity, but Thorp found the larva during National Moth Week, July 23-29.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Watching honey bees zero in on the zinnias: Zounds!
Zinnias, known throughout the world as showy and easy-to-grow flowers, are as colorful as they are attractive to bees.
Last week we watched a honey bee head toward a zinnia, grab some nectar, buzz around the blossom, and return again and again.
The site: the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, which is quite attractive to people as well as to pollinators. The half-acre garden, open from dawn to dusk, is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey bee Research Facility, west of the central UC Davis campus. Admission is free for self-guided tours. Those interested in guided tours can contact Christine Casey at cacasey@ucdavis.edu for more information. Several interns are working in the garden this summer: Danielle Wishon, Nick McMurray and Eric Xu. Wishon just received her bachelor's degree in entomology from UC Davis, and both McMurray and Wu are undergrads at UC Davis: McMurray is studying entomology, and Xu, landscape architecture.
At the haven, you'll find plants from "A" to "Z"--from almonds to zinnias, and lots in between. It's a year-around food source for the Laidlaw bees and other pollinators and serves as an educational resource for visitors.
Want to know what's planted in the garden right now? Check out the plant list posted on the Laidlaw facility website.
Just a few of them: apples, basil, catmint, deergrass, eggplant, elderberry, fruity germander, Greek myrtle, hummingbird sage, lamb's ear, Mexican daisy, naked buckwheat, oregano, pomegranate, raspberry,Santa Barbara daisy, St. Catherine's lace, toyon, Western columbine, yarrow, and yes, zinnia!
Yes, the haven also has a Facebook presence!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You never know what you'll see on a purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).
Honey bees. Check.
Sweat bees. Check.
Hummingbirds. Check.
But sometimes these rough-and-tumble blossoms are graced with a Western tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio rutulus).
This gorgeous yellow-and-black butterfly glides so delicately and so freely in our gardens that we want it to stay forever.
We spotted this one this morning in the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a bee friendly garden on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis. The garden, owned and operated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.
The garden is open from dawn to dusk. Bring a camera, a hat, some sunscreen, and enjoy lunch at one of the picnic tables in the garden.
Maybe, just maybe, a Western tiger swallowtail, will flutter by.
It's one of the little pleasures of life.