- (Focus Area) Natural Resources
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Blister beetles (family Meloidae) are so named because they emit a poisonous chemical, cantharidin, that can blister your skin. Don't even think about touching them!
Blister beetles can infest alfalfa hay, and are toxic--even deadly--to livestock. See "Blister Beetles" published by the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station.
But did you know that...
Blister beetles are pollinators!
We recently saw a blister beetle eating pollen on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. We've also seen this insect transferring pollen.
But we have...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When you venture into your pollinator garden, look for the beauty, color, diversity and the intensity that surrounds you. You will be astounded.
- A honey bee nectaring on lavender in a soft-pastel scenario.
- A katydid nymph crawling (backlit) on a blanketflower, Gaillardia.
- A Gulf Fritillary butterfly, Agraulis vanillae, nectaring on Lantana
- A praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, perched on a Cosmo
- A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, exiting a lavender patch.
You're the gardener, and you'll be using your...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Meet "The Moth Man."
If you attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual Moth Night celebration, affiliated with National Moth Week, you'll meet John De Benedictis, better known as “The Moth Man.”
The indoor-outdoor event, free and open to the public, is set from 7 to 11 p.m., Saturday, July 20 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane.
De Benedictis and his colleagues annually set up a blacklighting display, using UV lighting to attract moths and other night-flying insects. He has blacklighted for 37 years.
His moth collection of some 600 species from the
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ettamarie Peterson, fondly known as "The Queen Bee of Sonoma County," will be displaying a bee observation hive at the Vacaville Museum's Children's Party on Thursday, Aug. 8 but the life of a queen bee is not for her.
"I have decided I do not want to be the queen bee because she never ever gets to smell the flowers!" the Petaluma resident said. "I would much rather be a worker bee! The queen bee has a short life which I have already avoided, of course, and plan on many more years in the garden."
Ettamarie, in her eighth decade, is a retired teacher who taught school for 37 years, has kept bees for 30 years, and has volunteered as the leader of a 4-H beekeeping project for the past 25...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
One potato, two potato, three potato, four...
You never know what will pop up in a pollinator garden.
Meet Mr. Potato Capsid, Closterotomus norvegicus, often found on nettle, potato, clover and cannabis.
We spotted him (or her) in a Vacaville pollinator garden, where there is no nettle, potato, clover or cannabis. But it also feeds on chrysanthemum, carrots and members of the sunflower family, Asteraceae.
It popped up on a chrysanthemum blossom. The insect is green and probably a nymph as the color changes, when it's an adult, to reddish brown.
It belongs to the family Miridae. Entomologists point out that this family is the largest of true bugs belonging...