- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What's better than a bee threading through a flowering artichoke? Two bees, a honey bee and a long-horned sunflower bee.
Flowering 'chokes are big draws for bees. Plant 'em, let 'em flower, and they will come. Sometimes in droves. Sometimes in diversity. Always amazing.
A male sunflower bee, Svastra obliqua expurgata, aka the long-horned sunflower bee, stopped foraging to look at us with his big green eyes.
An Italian honey bee, Apis mellifera, buzzing low and packing white pollen, ignored us.
From their missions they did not stray.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Honey bees are in trouble. They are dying in record numbers.
That's why you should watch "Blossom Buddies," a two-part video segment in the Growing California series, produced by the California Department of Food and Agriculture in partnership with California Grown.
The two-part series explores the honey bee's contributions to California agriculture, their declining population, and why we should be concerned about bee health. California has 800,000 acres of almonds, and each acre requires two hives for pollination. That's 1.6 million colonies. Since California has only 500,000 colonies available for almond pollination, the rest must be trucked here from throughout the country. This means, as the video relates, "the largest annual bee migration in the world" takes place in California during almond pollination season, which begins around Valentine's Day.
In Part 2 of the series, Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, says that about 20 percent of beekeepers in California, as well as throughout the nation, "are suffering significant losses of honey bee populations that we can't explain."
The video series includes interviews with migratory beekeeper John Miller, almond grower/commercial queen breeder Dan Cummings, and Christi Heintz, executive director of Project Apis m. (That stands for Apis mellifera, the scientific name of the honey bee.)
The footage zeroes in on California almond orchards in bloom, beekeepers tending their bees, bees foraging, and Mussen working in the bee lab at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. The series also includes several photos from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Who could forget the look of colony collapse disorder, of a bee antenna poking through a cell of an abandoned frame? Or the blood-sucking varroa mite--the No. 1 enemy of beekeepers--sucking blood from a forager (worker bee) nectaring lavender? Or a mite draining blood from a drone pupa?
You can see Part 1 of the video and Part 2 of the video on the CDFA blog, "Planting Seeds."
Or you can access Part 1 on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZS-jbIEsRYg
And Part 2 on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur1ZFj22K94
It's well-done production that looks at the challenges we face with our declining bee population and the crippling health issues that our bees face.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's appropriate during National Pollinator Week to remember that.
We spotted this newly emerged green bottle fly (below) nectaring on lavender last week in our yard.
It seemed out of place among the honey bees, leafcutter bees and carpenter bees working the blossoms.
We didn't recognize it as a newly emerged green bottle fly, Lucilla sericata. But fly experts Martin Hauser of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and Terry Whitworth of Washington State University, did.
Family Calliphoridae. Genus Lucilla. Species sericata.
"This looks like a Calliphoridae which just emerged, so the wings are still folded," said senior insect biosystematist Hauser.
Said Whitworth, an adjunct professor of entomology at WSU who maintains the websites birdblowfly.com and blowflies.net: "This is a teneral fly, not fully sclerotized. You can see it just emerged and the wings have still not extended so identification can be tough. However, the shot clearly shows three postacrostichals which almost certainly makes it the common, cosmopolitan Lucilia sericata."
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of UC Davis marveled at the newly emerged fly. "Something dead in your yard?" he quipped.
"No," we said. "But the cat caught a rat the other day. We disposed of it quite quickly." Not the cat, the rat.
'Course, flies aren't known for being pollinators. They're better known--and rightfully so--for disposing of carrion and as the key tool in forensic entomology. They're also used in medical science as maggot therapy. And for art: one of Kimsey's former graduate students, forensic entomologist Rebecca O'Flaharty, coined the term "Maggot Art" (trademarked) and that's one of the activities at the annual UC Davis Picnic Day. Graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Entomology and Nematology show youths how to dip a maggot in water-based, non-toxic paint, place it on white paper, and let it crawl. Voila! Maggot Art! Suitable for framing...
Everything in life--and death--has a purpose.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We have long-horned cattle and long-horned grasshoppers. How about long-horned bees?
It's National Pollinator Week and what better time to run some photos of long-horned bees from the genus Melissodes?
These males (below) are probably Melissodes communis, according to native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis.
They were nectaring on salvia (sage) in a front yard in Davis, Calf., and keeping an eye out for the girls. The girls? They were dutifully carrying nectar and pollen back to their underground nests.
Melissodes belong to the family Anthrophoridae, described as a "very large family...found in all parts of the world," according to the book, Bees of the World, written by Christopher O'Toole and Anthony Raw. Melissa is Greek for "honey bee."
These long-horned bees are part of the tribe Eucerini, found all over the world except in Australia, according to O'Toole/Raw. Melissodes is a New World genera.
One thing's for sure: these ground nesting bees are fast-flying. In the blink of an eye, they're gone.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What's that hopping on our patio?
At first we thought it was a grasshopper. Not!
It was a katydid, sometimes called a "long-horned grasshopper," from the family Tettigoniidae (as identified by Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology, and native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis).
"Katydids have long, threadlike antennae," said Kimsey. "Grasshopper antennae are rarely much longer than the head."
Said Thorp: "Note the long slender antennae (as long as or longer than the body); the very long slender jumping hind legs; and the scimitar-like ovipositor at the end of the abdomen."
Scientists tell us that the number of described species in the family Tettigoniidae exceeds 6400. Most katydids are green. They're often perfectly camouflaged in bushes and trees.
A katydid. The name is derived from the "song" it sings by rubbing its wings together. "Katy did." "Katy didn't."
This katydid, a female, responded to our footsteps. (Their "ears" or hearing organs are on their front feet.)
It hopped away, but not before we captured its image.