- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This is a a story about a spider and a skipper.
Technically, a banded garden spider (Argiope trifasciata) and a fiery skipper butterfly (Hylephila phyleus, family Hesperiida).
The garden spider lies in wait, its head down, clinging to its real estate, an enormous sticky web. A male skipper flits from Tithonia to Tithonia, sipping nectar. Then the skipper makes a fatal mistake; it tries to pass through the nearly invisible web.
If you combine a very sticky web with a very hungry spider and an inattentive butterfly, the results are not good for the butterfly.
It's over within seconds. The spider bites the skipper, paralyzing it with its powerful venom, and then wraps it for a later meal.
The drama all unfolds in our "bee" garden but today it's a "spider" garden. Predator vs. prey. The spider eats today.
On his website, UC Davis butterfly Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, describes the fiery skipper as "California's most urban butterfly, almost limited to places where people mow lawns. Its range extends to Argentina and Chile and it belongs to a large genus which is otherwise entirely Andean. Its North American range may be quite recent. Here in California, the oldest Bay Area record is only from 1937. At any rate, it is multiple-brooded, and appears to experience heavy winter-kill in most places; scarce early in the season, it spreads out from local places where it survived, gradually reoccupying most of its range by midsummer and achieving maximum abundance in September and October.
The fiery skipper "occasionally colonizes upslope to about 3000' in the Gold Country but does not seem to survive the winter; strays have been taken to 7000' and on the East slope," Shapiro says. The butterfly breeds mostly on Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) and "the adults swarm over garden flowers such as lantana, verbena, zinnias, marigolds, buddleia. And in the wild they're quite happy with yellow starthistle."
As for the banded garden spider, BugGuide.net offers this identification: "Pale yellow, carapace has silver hairs, abdomen is striped in silver, yellow, and black...Its legs are spotted."
Yes, they are.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Like to learn how to make mead? You know, transform honey into honey wine?
The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute and the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology are offering a beginners' introduction to mead making on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13-14 at the Mondavi Institute on Old Davis Road.
"Explore the rich history of this fascinating fermented beverage from its ancient origins to its recent rebirth in America," teases Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center. "Taste and learn styles, ingredient selection and steps to making good mead."
Mead is known as the ancestor of all fermented drinks.
This is a hands-on learning experience. "We have about 35 seats left and we would like to fill every one," Harris said. "So far, folks have enrolled from all over the United States and from Canada and India."
Here's a link to the Honey and Pollination Center's website and registration: http://honey.ucdavis.edu/events/introduction-to-mead-making
Or, if you want to chat with Harris and learn how delicious mead is--it's called "the drink of the gods"--contact her at (530) 754-9301 or email her at aharris@ucdavis.edu.
Honey, will you pour me some mead?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
I've always rather liked katydids.
Anyone who is called "Kate" or "Katy" in their childhood usually winds up with "Katydid" as a nickname. And they repeatedly hear "Katy did. Katy didn't" (the sound the insect makes).
So when a katydid appeared on our Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) this morning, yours truly (once a Kate and a Katydid) grabbed a camera.
Up close, they look like prehistoric animals, a mini version of the huge dinosaurs that roamed the earth 245 million years ago.
From the family Tettigoniidae and the order Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets and katydids), they're found throughout the world except in Antarctica. Sometimes katydids are called long-horned grasshoppers or bush crickets.
Fruit growers know the katydids as pests. They scar fruit such as citrus, taking a bite from one and moving onto the next. You can imagine what that does to the market value.
The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) provides information about the forktailed bush katydid: (Scudderia furcata) and the angularwinged katydid (Microcentrum retinerve) in its Citrus Pest Management Guidelines: "Of the two species feeding on citrus, only the forktailed katydid causes economic damage. This species feeds on young fruit at petal fall with subsequent buildup of scar tissue and distortion of expanding fruit. Katydids take a single bite from a fruit and then move to another feeding site on the same or nearby fruit. In this way, a few katydids can damage a large quantity of fruit in a short time. They also eat holes in leaves and maturing fruit, creating injury that resembles damage by citrus cutworm. The angularwinged katydid is less abundant than the forktailed katydid and feeds only on leaves."
Katydids also damage such fruits as pomegranates, pears, peaches, plums and apricots.
"Our" little katydid fed on the petals of the Tithonia, stopping occasionally to look at the photographer.
Katy did and then Katy didn't.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Honey bees sometimes get into little battles with one another.
Here's a case of a tiff over a Tithonia.
Two honey bees wanted the same Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). They each tried to claim the same blossom, bounced one another off, returned, and then battled again.
This particular blossom seemed especially inviting to them, while all around them were other Tithonias.
Sisters from the same hive? Competitors?
It's difficult to say. But at the end, there was only one winner.
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It suits them to a "T."
And the "T" is for Tithonia.
Many species of butterflies frequent our Tithonia, also known as Mexican sunflower. Like its name implies, it's a member of the sunflower family, Asteraceae.
On any given Sunday--not to mention the other days of the week--the butterflies descend on the Mexican sunflower for a quick burst of nectar. Some stay longer than others, often depending on whether the territorial male sunflower bees (Melissodes and Svastra) are engaging in target practice.
Meet the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).
Meet the Anise Swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon).
Meet the Monarch (Danaus plexippus).
Meet the skipper (family Hesperiidae).
The Tithonia belongs in every bee garden!
For more information about butterflies in California's central valley, be sure to check out the butterfly website of Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis.