- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Thought for the day...
Every time we see a honey bee "posing perfectly" on a Gaillardia, commonly known as blanket flower, we think of a quote by internationally known honey bee geneticist, Robert E. Page Jr., a UC Davis doctoral alumnus and professor and chair emeritus of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology):
"The impact of bees on our world is immeasurable. Bees are responsible for the evolution of the vast array of brightly-colored flowers and for engineering the niches of multitudes of plants, animals, and microbes. They've painted our landscapes with flowers through their pollination activities and have evolved the most complex societies to aid their exploitation of the environment."
That's a passage from his book, The Art of the Bee.It's also featured on his YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@artofthebee.
Rob obtained his doctorate in entomology in 1980 from UC Davis; joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989; and chaired the Department of Entomology from 1999 to 2004. After retiring from UC Davis in 2004, he accepted an appointment at Arizona State University (ASU) as founding director of the School of Life Sciences. He served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 2011-2013, and provost of ASU from 2013-2015. He is now emeritus. He was recently featured in Legends, American Entomologist. (See UC Davis Department of Entomology website)
Why did Page create the free and accessible-to-all YouTube Channel? Because that's what Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), known as a German geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science, would have done.
It's about making science understandable.
Check out Page's YouTube channel, including:
- Landscape Artists
- Environmental Engineers
- The Social Contract
- Superorganisms
- How to Make a Superorganism
- Song of the Queen
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you've been ignoring your calendar, you may have not realized that autumn began Sept. 23.
We know it as the season between summer and winter, when days grow shorter, when liquidambar leaves turn red, and when the blanket flower lives up to its name.
The blanket flower, Gaillardia (family Asteraceae) has mastered the colors of fall. It's rimmed in gold and glows maroon.
Wikipedia tells us that the school colors of Texas State University are maroon and gold, "a combination inspired by the colors of the Gaillardia."
If you're lucky, you'll see a last-of-the-season Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, hanging from the blossom, its silver-spangled underwings sparkling.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Nothing says National Pollinator Week more than a honey bee coated in pollen.
Make mine yellow. Yellow pollen.
There's plenty of time to prepare. National Pollinator Week is June 21-27.
You can register your activities--make that "socially distant activities" to the official Pollinator Week events map.
You can request local buildings to light up yellow and orange in support of pollinators.
You can sign and mail proclamations to your governor in support of Pollination Week.
And, you can celebrate the week by taking an image of a pollinator.
We ventured over to the UC Davis Ecological Garden, Student Farm, Agricultural Sustainability Institute, to capture these two images of a honey bee blanketed with pollen as she foraged--appropriately--on a blanket flower, Gaillardia. The plant is a member of the sunflower family, Asteraeae, and native to North and South America.
The Pollinator Partnership, which sponsors National Pollinator Week, points out that about 75 percent of all flowering plant species "need the help of animals to move their heavy pollen grains from plant to plant for fertilization."
PP also relates that:
- About 1000 of all pollinators are vertebrates such as birds, bats and small animals.
- Most pollinators (abut 200,000 species) are beneficial insects such as flies, beetles, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths and bees.
- Pollinators are often keystone species, meaning that they are critical to an ecosystem.
Are you ready for National Pollinator Week?
By Jeff Oster, UC Master Gardener of Butte County, October 5, 2018
Composites are mostly herbaceous, but the family also includes shrubs, vines and trees. They have worldwide distribution, but are most common in arid and semiarid regions of subtropical and lower temperate latitudes. Most like full sun and good drainage, but will tolerate a variety of soils.
Economically important composites include safflower (for oil); many edible crops such as artichoke, lettuce, cardoon, and chicory; herbs like stevia, tarragon, coneflower and chamomile; and the humble dandelion, reviled in many quarters, but considered a useful edible in others. This article series will concentrate on ornamental long-flowering perennials adapted to our climate.
Coreopsis
Coreopsis is an old reliable garden favorite, with blooms in shades of yellow, orange, maroon, and red. Some varieties bloom all the way from mid-spring through fall, and make good cut flowers. Coreopsis love sun and are not finicky about soil – they will do fine in average to poor soils, but well-drained garden soils are best. They are drought-tolerant and low-maintenance. Deadhead flowers for longest bloom and divide every few years when overcrowded to re-invigorate them. They are easily propagated by division, stem cuttings, and seed. Coreopsis are deer resistant and attract birds.
C. verticillata tolerates drought and neglect, and blooms from summer through fall. C. verticillata ‘Moonbeam' has pale yellow flowers, while the flowers of ‘Zagreb' are more golden yellow. The bright yellow C. auriculata ‘Nana' is a low-growing form that spreads by underground runners to create a two-foot-wide clump in a year. Useful in front of taller plants, it too has a long blooming season if deadheaded faithfully. Another bright yellow form is C. grandiflora, a tough variety that reaches two feet in height and spreads to three feet wide and blooms throughout the summer.
Gaillardia (blanket flower)
Butterflies and native bees love to visit these flowers, and their seeds provide food for birds. Pest problems are few; deer and rabbits avoid Gaillardia. The taller cultivars of Gaillardia make nice cut flowers.
Other useful more compact cultivars in our area include G. x grandiflora “Arizona Sun” which has stunning mahogany-red rays rimmed in golden yellow. It reaches a height of twelve inches, and blooms sooner than many other cultivars. G. x grandiflora “Mesa Peach” and “Mesa Red” grow a bit taller, to eighteen inches, with peachy-yellow and deep red petals, respectively
Aster
Finally, plants in the genus Aster are perfect plants to think about at the beginning of the fall season because they add spectacular color in the autumn. Aster plants are very durable and long lived. Plant asters in early to mid-spring (or buy them now, in pots, to add fall color to a sunny porch or deck). They should be trimmed back in early spring and again in June to maintain bushiness; deadhead occasionally for more blooms. Divide every two to four years in the spring to maintain vigor and flower quality. The plants can be used in many places: asters work well in borders, rock gardens, or wildflower gardens. As a bonus, asters attract butterflies.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Let's hear it for the honey bees.
Right now they're scrambling to gather nectar and pollen from the blanket flower, Gaillardia. You could say they're blanketing the flower. When resources are scarce in the fall, the blanket flower, in the sunflower family Asteraceae, draws them in. The flower reminds us of Native American Indians' brightly colored and patterned blankets.
Now let's hear it for the California State Beekeepers' Association (CSBA). They're delivering and gathering knowledge at their annual conference, being held Tuesday, Nov. 15 through Wednesday, Nov. 17 in the Kona Kai Resort and Spa, San Diego. They'll discuss the latest research, trade ideas with fellow beekeepers (note that "beekeepers" are "keepers") and they'll explore some of the innovative products at their trade show, a spokesperson said.
Among the speakers are two UC Davis-affiliated specialists: Extension apiculturist Elina Niño, who will key in on the research underway at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, and Extension apiculturist emeritus Eric Mussen, who will offer a glimpse of the present, past and future of beekeeping.
Niño's research interests encompass basic and applied approaches to understanding and improving honey bee health and particularly honey bee queen health. Ongoing research projects include understanding the synergistic effects of pesticides on queen health and adult workers in order to improve beekeeping management practice, as well as testing novel biopesticides for efficacy against varroa mites. Keep up with the Niño lab on its Facebook page. And keep up with CSBA on its Facebook page.
Mussen, who retired in 2014 after 38 years of service--but maintains an office in Briggs Hall--is guaranteed to add some humor to his talk. How do we know? We saw his PowerPoint before he left Davis for San Diego. Hint: replace "dog" food with "bee" food. And the insect in his last slide doesn't look anything like the bee we know and love.
In a way, the CSBA is like the matched pair of honey bees below. There are four bees. If you think about the purposes of the CSBA, each bee can be matched with one of those purposes:
- to educate the public about the beneficial aspects of honey bees
- advance research beneficial to beekeeping practices
- provide a forum for cooperation among beekeepers, and
- to support the economic and political viability of the beekeeping industry.
It's all about "bee-ing" there for the bees.