- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Campus Buzzway, a quarter-acre field of wildflowers planted last fall near the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis, is brilliant in gold and blue, the UC Davis colors.
The gold: California poppies. The blue (blue/purple): lupine.
There's also coreopsis or tickseed planted there but it just finished blooming last fall.
The Buzzway, funded by Häagen-Dazs, is located next to the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden designed by the Sausalito team of landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki.
The public opening of the two bee friendly gardens, initially slated for June, is expected to take place in the fall, probably in September, but no date has officially been set.
Spring, summer, fall and winter--expect great things in these two gardens. They will be a year-around food source for the honey bees at the Laidlaw Facility and surrounding area; a food source for various other insects, including native bees and butterflies; and an educational experience for visitors. Folks can glean information on what to plant in their own yards or create a bee friendly garden.
There's an old saying that "All that glitters is not gold." As for as the bees and the bee scientists at UC Davis, are concerned, this IS gold.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It didn't take long.
Last year at this time the field next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road at the University of California, Davis stood bleak and barren.
Nothing there but scattered patches of grass and a few pocket gophers and ground squirrels.
Last fall, after an international design competition, the site morphed into the truly beautiful Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden designed as a year-around food source for the bees in the Laidlaw apiary and as educational opportunities for visitors. Visitors will learn all about honey bees and what to plant in their own gardens to attract pollinators. (Folks can also download the 21-page design, which includes the list of plants.)
Next to crop up: The quarter-acre Campus Buzzway, planted with California poppies, lupines and coreopsis (tickseed). Blue and gold? Those are the university colors. The Buzzway sprawls on land once occupied by the Baxter House.
Fast forward to today, Feb. 26. The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven and its neighbor, the Campus Buzzway, are beginning to take off, just like the beginning pilots that practice their take-offs and landings at the nearby University Airport.
Among the first to bloom: the salvias, lupines, and almond trees. Next: the Teucrium fruticans, cultivar "Azureum."
The Teucrium fruticans, or bush germanders, are in the mint family, Lamiaceae. They're evergreen perennial shrubs native to the Mediterranean and produce strikingly brilliant blue flowers.
And you know how much bees like the color, blue.
It's pure bee bliss.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Plant it and they will come.
The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, planted last fall, is already attracting a few honey bees.
The half-acre bee friendly garden, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, includes vegetables, fruit trees and nut trees (almonds).
Today a honey bee sipped water from the folds of a cabbage leaf as another honey bee landed on a visitor. Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, manager of the Laidlaw facility, gently plucked her off.
The almond trees at the haven are just about ready to burst into bloom.
Make way for the bees!
Plans are under way for a public opening at the haven and the nearby Campus Buzzway, which is planted with coreopsis, golden poppies and perennial lupine. The event is tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2010. More details will be announced soon.
The two gardens will provide bees with a year-around food source and an educational opportunity for visitors, who can learn about bees and glean what to plant in their own yards.
Make way for the bees!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's not just the honey bees that will be foraging in the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.
Scores of native bees and other insects will be there, too.
They already are.
A weekend visit to the haven, a bee friendly garden being developed next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, revealed assorted insects, including a dragonfly and a hover fly.
A sage attracted the dragonfly, a Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corrugatum, family Libellulidae), while a strawberry blossom drew the hover fly (Syrphidae, probably genus Paragus sp.).
The UC Davis Department of Entomology, chaired by Michael Parrella with vice chair Lynn Kimsey, is justifiably proud of this exciting new addition.
Emeritus professor and pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, who maintains an office in the Laidlaw facility, is monitoring the level of bee activity at the site. He began establishing baseline data (for bees only) in March.
For two sample days (March 20 and April 19) he found a total of 21 species of bees. As of this week, the number has now reached: 41.
The haven will be a year-around food source for bees and an educational experience for two-legged visitors, who will not only learn about honey bees and native bees but learn what to plant to attract them.
A public celebration of the haven is planned in the fall of 2010 when the haven will be bursting with blossoms. And next to the haven will be the Campus Buzzway, a wildflower garden filled with California poppies, lupine and coreopsis.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Don't know if silence is GOLDEN, but Italian honey bees definitely are.
Early morning Saturday, I watched a bee the color of liquid gold nectaring the lavender in our yard.
A golden opportunity to capture her brilliance. She won't live long. Field bees live only four to six weeks in the peak season, so in a few weeks she'll be gone. Others will take her place.
A click of the shutter and a moment preserved in time.
Meanwhile, work is progressing on the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden situated next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis.
By mid-October it will be finished and ready for golden moments--for the honey bees and the visitors. The haven will be a year-around food source for bees. Plus, it is expected to increase public awareness about the plight of bees AND help visitors glean ideas about what to plant in their own gardens.
Lavender is one of them.