- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Monarchs and California golden poppies...Color them orange...Color them bold...Color them beautiful...
And color them natives...
The California golden poppy, Eschscholzia californica, California's state flower, is popping up all over, while monarchs, Danaus plexippus, are winging their way inland from their overwintering sites along the California coast.
The overwintering population in California dropped this year by 30 percent as compared to last year, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. The stormy weather didn't help.
"The 27th annual Thanksgiving count ran from November 11 through December 3, 2023, totaling 233,394 butterflies across 256 overwintering sites in the western United States," Xerces reports on its website. "This tally is slightly lower than last year's (330,000), yet similar to the 2021 count. The overwintering population of western monarchs remains at approximately 5% of its size in the 1980s."
Overall, habitat loss and increased use of pesticides and herbicides continue to be key factors in the decline of the monarch population.
Interestingly enough, both monarchs and California golden poppies are toxic. "All parts of the (California golden poppy) plant have toxic properties if ingested," according to the State of California Capitol Museum website. And, as we all know, monarchs are toxic. As caterpillars, monarchs sequester or store toxins from milkweed, and those toxins help protect them from predators. The coloring is also a deterrent.
Two natives, toxic, but beautiful...
To help raise awareness about the declining populations of many pollinating species, in 2017 the US Senate unanimously voted to establish National Pollinator Week. Because pollinators are crucial not only to our human food supply but to the health of all life on the planet, there is good reason to care about them: our lives are intertwined with theirs. This year National Pollinator Week is from June 20 to June 26th.
The Xerces Society also hosts regional events and webinars; a Bee Better Certification Program that provides incentives to conservation-minded farmers and points consumers towards food grown with pollinator-friendly practices; and a beautiful pollinator habitat sign to grace your garden (available as a gift to donors). For more ideas on how you can improve your garden for pollinators and celebrate National Pollinator Week, visit The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Pollinator Partnership.
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area, visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu (preferred) or call (530) 538-7201.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Professor Thorp (1933-2019), a 30-year member of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and a worldwide authority on bees, was a tireless advocate of bumble bee conservation. During his retirement, he co-authored Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014).
And every summer from 2002 to 2018, Thorp volunteered his time and expertise to teach at The Bee Course, an annual workshop sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and held at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz.
Thorp also served as the regional co-chair of the Wild Bee Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and sounded the alarm about bumble bee declines, including Franklin's bumble bee, Bombus franklini, found only in its narrow distribution range of southern Oregon and northern California. Thorp last saw it near Mt. Ashland in 2006 and it is is now feared extinct or at the brink of extinction. The bee inhabits--or did--a 13,300-square-mile area confined to five counties--Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California; and Jackson, Douglas and Josephine counties in Oregon.
Enter the California Bumble Bee Atlas (CBBA), a collaboration of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), Sacramento, and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, headquartered in Portland, Ore. Launched in March 2022, the Atlas is a "collaborative community science effort to track and conserve the state's native bumble bee species," according to Dylan Winkler, bumble bee scientific aide for the CDFW's Wildlife Diversity Program.
Back in September 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the American bumble bee, "whose populations have plummeted by nearly 90 percent, may warrant Endangered Species Act protection." The announcement kicked off a one-year status assessment of the species. (See news story)
If you're interested in bumble bee conservation, take note. Winkler will lead a "Bumble Bee Walk" from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 28 in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. The goal is to teach interested participants how to survey bumble bees. You can pre-register at https://arcg.is/0PDyO4. Organizers plan to cap attendance at 20 people. Details about this Atlas event and several more scheduled in June:
- Saturday, May 28: UC Davis Arboretum, Davis, CA (Yolo County), parking at Putah Creek Lodge Parking Lot, Garrod Drive, Davis, CA 95616. Tour of the native plant gardens and the forest along Putah Creek from 10 a.m. to noon.
- Saturday, June 4: The Gardens at Lake Merritt, 666 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA (Alameda County). Tour of the gardens from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
- Sunday, June 5: College of Marin at Kentfield (Marin County), parking at covered Lots 6/7 off College Ave, Kentfield, CA 94904. Details: Meet at bridge over Corte Madera Creek. Tour of the campus native plants from 10 a.m. to noon.
- Saturday, June 18: Soil Born Farms, Rancho Cordova, CA (Sacramento County), parking at Soil Born Farms: American River Ranch, 2140 Chase Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670. As part of National Pollinator Week, the group will tour the gardens from 10 a.m. to noon. Closed-toed shoes required.
Of the 50 species of bumble bees found in North America, an estimated 25 inhabit California. Overall, a quarter is at risk, according to the Atlas website. The decline is attributed to "loss or fragmentation of habitat, pesticide exposure, climate change, overgrazing, competition with honey bees, low genetic diversity, and perhaps most significant of all, the introduction and distribution of pathogens through commercial honey bee and bumble bee colonies used for crop pollination. All of these factors likely interact, increasing pollinator vulnerability. To support bumble bees, it is critical to protect existing habitat while creating and maintaining new habitat."
Winkler says "we will be using butterfly nets to catch bees, then move them to small vials, and chill them in coolers with ice, so we can take ID'able photographs of them before releasing." The full protocol is at https://www.cabumblebeeatlas.org/point-surveys.html
What bumble bees might you see May 28 in the Arboretum? Bombus vosnesenskii, the yellow-faced bumble bee, and B. melanopygus, the black-tailed bumble bee. "There is a record of B. crotchii at the arboretum from last year around the same date, which is rare and would be amazing to see!" Winkler said.
The project is funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Fund. Funding is also provided by the Bureau of Land Management and several private foundations. Read more about the project and the list of coordinators here.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Picture this during National Pollinator Week: five monarch caterpillars and assorted honey bees sharing tropical milkweed.
It was love at first bite. Or love at first sip.
The 'cats kept munching and the bees kept foraging. Neither species seemed interested in the other.
But the adult monarchs definitely showed more interest in the tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), a non-native, than the other two species, both natives, that we planted: the narrow leaf (A. fascicularis) and showy milkweed (A. speciosa).
They laid eggs only on the tropical milkweed, and so far, have produced five caterpillars.
The score to date:
Tropical milkweed: 5 caterpillars
Narrow leaf milkweed: 0
Showy milkweed: 0
Reminder: Folks planting the tropical milkweed in temperate zones (like here in Vacaville,Calif.) must remove or cut back the tropical milkweed by winter. "A protozoan parasite of monarch butterflies, Ophryocystis elektroscirrha or OE for short, can travel with monarchs visiting the plants and become deposited on leaves," explains the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
Yes, indeed. But meanwhile, we're witnessing untold sharing on the wildly popular tropical milkweed by not only monarch caterpillars but honey bees, syrphid flies, bumble bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees and sweat bees.
We gardeners and photographers are also drawn to the spectacular red, orange and yellow flowers that add both beauty and color to a cherished pollinator patch in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic...and National Pollinator Week.
- Author: Anne E Schellman
I'm excited to announce that we've partnered with Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Xerces Society to bring a class all about pollinators!
You can sign up for our event at http://ucanr.edu/pollinators/2019 It's being held Thursday, September 5, 2019 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in Harvest Hall Rooms D&E at the Stanislaus County Agricultural Center.
Please join us for a fun evening of learning about native pollinators, the plants and habitats they prefer, and the best way to “invite” them to your landscape! Free wildflower seed packets for participants while they last.
We are asking for a voluntary payment of $2 per person to help pay speaker mileage fees.
Resources
Beyond the honey bee: Learn more about California native bees. UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Taken from https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/blog/beyond-honey-bee-learn-more-about-california-native-bees on August 21, 2019.