- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sex. Passion. Passionflower vine.
And by--what else--the "passion butterflies," Gulf Fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae).
We came across the scenario below by accident. We were watching a Western scrub jay (now known as a California scrub jay, Aphelocoma californica) methodically fly over to the passionflower vine (Passiflora), perch on the fence, and dine on multiple caterpillars. See, the scrub jays are nesting in our cherry laurels, and the Passiflora is their supermarket for "grocery" selection, checkout, and take home.
For the last several weeks, the scrub jays have been pigging out like human celebrants at a Thanksgiving feast. Yes, birds can pig out, too. As predators, the jays have dominated and overpowered the vine and snagged almost all of our caterpillars...caterpillars that were just trying to become butterflies.
Then three things happened: (1) Hawks appeared in the neighborhood (2) Western scrub jays began vanishing and (3) the triple-digit weather set in, with dozens of Gulf Frits gathering on the Passiflora. It became a bedroom and nursery of sorts. The jays' supermarket wasn't so "super" anymore. More hawks. Fewer jays. More eggs, caterpillars and chrysalids.
Like many butterfly aficionados, we welcome the orangish-reddish butterfly with silver-spangled underwings. It is as spectacular as it is showy.
Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, has been monitoring the Gulf Frits and other butterflies in Central California (see his website) for more than four decades.
The butterfly, found in many parts of the world, was first documented in Southern California in the 1870s, according to Shapiro.
"It first appeared in the vicinity of San Diego in the 1870s,” he says. “It spread through Southern California in urban settings and was first recorded in the Bay Area about 1908. It became a persistent breeding resident in the East and South Bay in the 1950s and has been there since.”
Shapiro says it “apparently bred in the Sacramento area and possibly in Davis in the 1960s, becoming extinct in the early 1970s, then recolonizing again throughout the area since 2000.”
The history of the scientific name of the species is fascinating. Vanillae? That was an error traced back to German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). She knew butterflies--she reared them--but she took some artistic liberties.
Merian drew the Gulf Frit on a vanilla orchid, and scientists assumed that this was the host plant. Not so. The host plant is Passiflora. "Johannes Fabricius knew that the bug eats Passiflora and tried to rename it passiflorae," wrote Shapiro in a 2008 edition of the Journal of the Lepitoperists Society. It didn't take.
So Agraulis vanillae it is.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Oh, the joy of rearing monarchs...from an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to an adult...
However, the ultimate joy is not in rearing them, but releasing them--from their confined and well-protected indoor habitat to that Spectacular Spacious World Without Boundaries. Some soar majestically 80 feet into the air, never looking back. Some decline to leave your hand and just cling there on your finger. And some leave your hands only to hang around the yard for five hours. Hey, do I have to go? Can't I just stay awhile?
It's been said that in Nature, 97 percent of monarch eggs don't reach adulthood. Or, to put it another way, the survival rate is 3 percent. Conservation, even on a mini-scale (we've reared and released 22 this year) is what it's all about.
Another joy is this: documenting them as they fly off or nectar on nearby flowers. Monarchs may live from minutes to hours to several weeks, depending on predators, diseases, deformities, food supply and migratory mishaps. Some live several months as they overwinter along coastal California and in Central Mexico.
Speaking of life span, we were rather surprised that a video of a monarch being released--and then eaten by a diving bird--emerged as one of three $100,000 America's Funniest Videos. Funniest? Not funny. True, that's what birds do, and do well, but the humor escapes many of us. It was more of an "Oh, No!" moment.
On a more pleasant note, it's good to see an increasing number of citizen scientists planting milkweed. They know that milkweed is the host plant of monarchs; that monarchs will lay their eggs only on milkweed; and caterpillars will eat only milkweed. No milkweed. No monarchs.
For more information on monarchs (Danaus plexippus) and planting milkweed, check out the wealth of information on the Xerces Society's monarch website. And read the news release by the Xerces Society's Emma Pelton on the 74 percent decline in the monarch in the number of monarch butterflies overwintering in coastal California.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Remember the Spruce Goose? Technically known as the Hughes H-4 Hercules, it was built by the Hughes Aircraft Company for transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II. Although it basically couldn't get off the ground, it made aviation history as (1) the largest flying boat ever built, and (2) the largest-ever wingspan. If you want to see it, it's on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, McMinnville, Ore.
Just like the Spruce Goose, the bumble bee doesn't look flight-worthy, either.
But it is.
We saw scores of bumble bees in May of 2015 when we attended a BugShot Macro Photography Workshop, taught by noted insect photographers Alex Wild, John Abbott and Thomas Shahan at the Hastings Natural History Reserve, a biological field station owned by UC Berkeley in the upper Carmel Valley, Monterey County.
While at the four-day workshop, we had plenty of time to capture images of bumble bees in flight--and we did. We especially marveled at the yellow-faced bumble bees (Bombus vosnesenskii) foraging in a lush meadow of vetch and lupine. It was bumble bee heaven! We posted some of the images on Bug Squad.
Enter aerodynamics expert Phillip Burgers of the School of Arts and Sciences, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, San Diego. He asked for--and received--permission to use one of the bumble bee images for his research paper for an aerospace journal.
"Your photograph is perfect, as it shows those wings flapping back-and-forth, highlighting their kinetic energy concept I am introducing in my paper," he wrote. He signed off as "Phillip Burgers, Ph.D., Aerodynamics & Performance Flight Technologies, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc."
You can read his paper, published July 29 in a special issue, Flapping Wings, Aerospace 2016, 3(3), 24; doi:10.3390/aerospace3030024. See http://www.mdpi.com/journal/aerospace/special_issues/flapping_wings#published
His illustration, titled "Evaluating the capability of generating lift by flapping wings during hover & forward flight," points out "lift," "wing reference area," "kinetic energy of wings" and "air density."
It's good to see the focus on bumble bees--whether in flight or in the Aerospace journal.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
- You want to do your part to help the declining bee population.
- You want to learn about the honey bees that pollinate the food you eat, including fruits, vegetables and nuts (especially almonds!).
- You'd love some honey for your table and some wax to make candles.
- You want to learn about the queen bee, drones and worker bees--what they do and how to care for them.
- You want to join your fellow beekeeping friends.
But where do you start?
You're in luck.
The E. L. Nino lab at the University of California, Davis, is offering two back-to-back short courses: the first on Saturday, Aug. 27 on “Planning Ahead for Your First Hives” and the second on Sunday, Aug. 28 on “Working Your Colonies.”
Each will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus.
Participants may register for one or both courses, according to Extension apiculturist Elina Niño, who is coordinating and teaching the courses with Bernardo Niño and colleagues at the Laidlaw facility. The short courses will be limited to 25 people.
Here's some information about each:
Planning Ahead for Your First Hive
The course, “Planning Ahead for Your First Hives,” taught by Elina Niño, Bernardo Niño, Charley Nye and Tricia Bohls, will provide lectures and hands-on exercises. The course is described as “perfect for those who have little or no beekeeping experience and would like to obtain more knowledge and practical skills before moving on to the next step of owning and caring for their own honey bee colonies.”
Lecture modules will cover honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, how to start your colony, and maladies of the hive. Practical modules will zero in on how to build a hive, install a package, inspect a hive and monitor for varroa mites.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and practice many aspects of what is necessary to get the colony started and keep it healthy and thriving. At the end of the course, participants "will be knowledgeable about installing honey bee packages, monitoring their own colonies and taking on possible challenges with maintaining a healthy colony."
The $95 registration fee covers the cost of course materials (including a hive tool), lunch and refreshments.
Working Your Colonies
For the short course, “Working Your Colonies,” instructors are Elina Niño and Bernardo Niño. The course, to include lectures and hands-on exercises, is described as “perfect or those who already have beekeeping experience and would like to obtain more knowledge and practical to move on to the next step of managing and working their own honey bee colonies.”
Lecture modules will include advanced honey bee biology, honey bee integrated pest management and products of the hive. Practical modules will cover queen wrangling, honey extraction, combining colonies, splitting colonies and monitoring for varroa mites. The $150 registration fee covers the cost of course materials, lunch, and refreshments.
For each course, participants are asked to bring a bee suit or veil if they have one (the lab has a limited number). Lodging is not provided. For more information on registering for the short courses, contact Bernardo Niño at elninobeelab@gmail.com or (530) 380-BUZZ (2899). Want to access up-to-date information? See lab's Facebook page.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So here's this newly eclosed male monarch trying to sip a little nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia).
A female longhorned bee, probably Melissodes agilis, seeks to claim it. There's no such thing as sharing, especially when nectar is at stake and it's first-come, first-served. However, the monarch is well positioned. There's no room for both a butterfly and a bee. Not at the same time.
Then a male longhorned bee (probably Melissodes agilis) targets the monarch. Shoo, monarch! Outta here! I'm saving that flower for my girl!
If you look closely at the male bee/male monarch photo, you can see the monarch's wings don't seem quite right. They're not. Greg Kareofelas, associate at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, points out that "the wings are deformed; they did not fully expand and dry straight."
As for the longhorned bee, Melissodes agilis is one of more than 1600 species of undomesticated bees that populate California.
To learn more about bees in California, get a copy of the landmark California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday), the work of bee experts Gordon W. Frankie of UC Berkeley and Robbin W. Thorp of UC Davis, photographer/entomologist Rollin E. Coville, and UC Berkeley botany expert Barbara Ertter.
All have UC Berkeley connections. Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley. Coville, who took the amazing, incredibly detailed photos for the book, also received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley.
The book also includes information on 53 bee friendly plants--like Tithonia!--and how to grow them.
Tithonia, a member of the sunflower family Asteraceae, is a favorite of insects. Pull up a chair at a Tithonia patch near you and observe the diversity of foraging insects. Among them: honey bees, bumble bees, sweat bees, longhorned bees, and assorted butterflies, including monarchs, Western tiger swallowtails, Gulf Fritillaries, skippers, California buckeyes, mournful duskywings, painted ladies, and cabbage whites. And oh, some predators, too, including praying mantids and wasps (insects) and crab spiders and orb weavers (spiders).
There's never a dull moment in the Tithonia patch.