- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This weekend will be somewhat like "The Days of Bees and Roses."
On Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3, the California Center for Urban Horticulture (CCHU) and the Foundation Plant Services, two entities within the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, will sponsor their annual Rose Days at 655 Hopkins Road, Davis, west of the central UC Davis campus. The event, open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., is free and open to the public.
The May 2-3 event includes tours, information booths and a rose sale. Saturday's speakers are three of the most talented Rosarians in the Sacramento area, according to CCHU program manager Anne Schellman. Linda Knowles and Charlotte Owendyk are Consulting Rosarians and will present Easy Care Roses in the Landscape at 10 a.m. Baldo Villegas, a Master Consulting Rosarian, will present Baldo's Rose-Growing Secrets at 11 a.m. Their talks will be in the Trinchero Building, a newly built facility located next to the Foundation Plant Services.
Bus tours held from 12:30-3 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday will showcase the Foundation Plant Services' eight acres of roses. In addition, UC Master Gardeners and rosarians will be present both days to answer questions.
Many of the roses offered for sale will beckon you with their enticing names. You'll see the Carefree Spirit (red), New Dawn (pink) and Limoncello (yellow), among others.
And you may just find a honey bee on a rose, although honey bees generally don't forage on today's modern commercial roses. When it comes to roses, bees are more likely to head for the heirlooms, especially those that have single blossoms. They seem especially attracted to the California wild rose, Rosa californica.
But for sure, you'll find bees at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee garden located on Bee Biology Road next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. You'll not only see bees and other pollinators in the haven, but a bee observation hive from the Laidlaw facility on Saturday, May 2, which is the fifth anniversary of the haven. The bee garden is open daily from dawn to dusk but this is a special celebration that will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will begin with several speakers at a short ceremony from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, which operates the haven, will welcome the crowd at 10 and talk about the history.
Raj Brahmbhatt, associate brand manager of Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream at Nestle USA, Dreyer's Ice Cream company, will speak at 10:50 a.m. on “What the Haven Means to Us.” Christine Casey, manager of the haven, will discuss “What Your Donations Mean to the Haven” at 11:15.
Also during the fifth anniversary celebration at the haven, folks can learn about honey bees and native bees, take a guided tour of the garden, and buy bee condos (bee houses made for leafcutter bees and mason bees). See more about the history of the garden and the fifth anniversary celebration here. It's free and open to the public.
Then the following Saturday, May 9, will be the UC Davis Bee Symposium on "Keeping Bees Healthy," from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the UC Davis Conference Center. The event, presented by the Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, and the Department of Entomology and Nematology, will feature keynote speaker Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight Professor, University of Minnesota and a 2010 MacArthur Fellow. Spivak will speak on "Helping Bees Stand on Their Own Six Feet." One of the UC Davis speakers will be pollination ecologist Neal Williams, associate professor of entomology at UC Davis, who will discuss "Enhancing Forage for Bees." See more information here.
Everything's coming up roses--and bees! It doesn't get much better than that!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Departmentof Entomology and Nematology has scheduled a fifth anniversary celebration of its bee garden on Saturday, May 2.
It's difficult to believe that the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is five years old. But it is, and the event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The half-acre bee garden, planted in the fall of 2009, is located on Bee Biology Road next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus. A public ceremony will be held from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the department, will welcome the crowd at 10:30 a.m. Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology, was the interim chair of the department and directed and organized the installation of the garden. It was planted in 2009, thanks to a generous donation from Häagen-Dazs. More than 50 percent of their ice cream flavors depend on pollination.
Raj Brahmbhatt, associate brand manager of Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream at Nestle USA, Dreyer's Ice Cream company, will speak at 10:50 a.m. on “What the Haven Means to Us.”
Christine Casey, manager of the haven, will discuss “What Your Donations Mean to the Haven” at 11:15.
What can you do in the bee garden? Walk the paths. Admire the flowers. Admire the pollinators. Learn how to observe and identify bees, what to plant to help bees, and how to use native bee houses. There also will be beekeeping demonstrations and garden tours.
The garden is open to the public from dawn to dusk every day. Admission is free. Tours (a nominal fee is charged) can be arranged with Casey at cacasey@ucdavis.edu. To book a tour, access the website and click on "Visit Us."
The design is the work of a Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotak--the winners of the international design competition.
Read more about the garden here! How it all began, who the founding manager was and the honor she and the 19 volunteer gardeners received, and who built the state-of-the-art fence around the garden.
We remember when it was an open field with jack rabbits bounding through the tall grass and red-tailed hawks circling above. The rabbits still bound (but not inside the garden) and the hawks still circle looking for prey.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
She's a butterfly magnet.
When Oakland parks supervisor Tora Rocha, known as "The Monarch Queen" and "The Butterfly Whisperer," (she rears monarchs and encourages everyone to do so), visited the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the University of California, Davis, on Thursday, butterflies seemed to float in from everywhere!
The Western Tiger Swallowtail, Painted Lady, Gulf Fritillary and even the Cabbage White fluttered around her head.
But that Western Tiger Swallowtail...that newly emerged Western Tiger Swallowtail...
Aglow in yellow and fringed with black, it headed over to the Verbena to sip some flight fuel: sweet nectar. A brisk wind threatened to dislodge its hold but it refused to budge from its buffet.
The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's half-acre bee friendly garden on Bee Biology Road. Planted in the fall of 2009, it is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus. (See history of the bee garden.)
And on Saturday, May 2 there will be a fifth anniversary celebration from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. You're invited! (Yes, it's free and open to the public.) You'll see bee observation hives and beekeeping demonstrations. You'll learn what to plant for bees. Bee scientists will show you how to observe and identify bees, and show you native bee condos, also called "bee hotels" or "bee houses."
Besides the honey bees, bumble bees, sweat bees, carpenter bees and other pollinators, there's a good chance you'll see such butterflies as the Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) sailing over the state-of-the-art fence that Eagle Scout Derek Tully and his assistants crafted.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven's grand opening celebration takes place on Saturday, Sept. 11, visitors can expect to see scores of flowers, including the ever-popular catmint (Nepeta).
Honey bees love the mints. So do bumble bees, carpenter bees, butterflies and assorted other insects.
The event, sponsored by Wells Fargo and co-sponsored by Annie's Homegrown, takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The half-acre bee friendly garden is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis.
What else is in the garden?
Well, among the plant growth: acacia, almond, apple, artichoke, basil, blackberry, blueberry, broccoli, cape mallow, eggplant, elderberry, hawthorn, honeysuckle, Mexican hat flower, oregano, peppers, persimmon, plum, purple coneflower, redbud, salvia, Santa Barbara daisy, seaside daisy, strawberry, watermelon, wild roses and scores of other plants.
The key goals of the garden, a gift to the UC Davis Department of Entomology, are to provide bees with a year-around food source for the Laidlaw facility bees, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees, and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own. It's also a research site.
The grand opening celebration will include speeches (to start at 10:30 a.m.); rotating garden tours; children's activities; and a bee observation hive. Experts on honey bees, native bees, plants and the beautiful art work in the garden will be there to answer your questions.
You'll want to see the fabulous 6-foot-long honey bee, "Miss Bee Haven," sculpted by noted artist Donna Billick and funded by Wells Fargo. You'll marvel at the the colorful ceramic tiles beneath the sculpture and the two bee hive sculptures that grace the entrance, all by the UC Davis Art-Science Fusion Program, directed by Donna Billick and Diane Ullman.
The winning design team, from the Sausalito area, will be represented. The design is the work of landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki.
Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors installed the garden, which was planted last fall. Häagen-Dazs will serve free ice cream, and Gimbal's Fine Candies will provide free samples of their popular candy.
Joining Wells Fargo as the main sponsor of the grand opening celebration is Annie's Homegrown, maker of Honey Bunny Grahams.
Check out the website for more information. You can download the PDF of the design plan, which includes the concept, plant list and layout.
More information? Contact Chris Akins, coordinator of the grand opening celebration at (530) 752-2120 or crakins@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No honey bees. Let them bee.
This week we watched a praying mantis slide beneath a purple coneflower (Echinacea pupurea) at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility of University of California, Davis.
Its body camouflaged, the mantid looked like one of the coneflower petals.
Not!
Within minutes, it seized an unsuspecting honey bee.
Death beneath the purple coneflower.