Posts Tagged: pollinator
Our Buddies in the Garden
When you venture into your pollinator garden, look for the beauty, color, diversity and the intensity that surrounds you. You will be astounded. A honey bee nectaring on lavender in a soft-pastel scenario. A katydid nymph crawling (backlit) on a...
A honey bee nectars on lavender in a Vacaville garden. The soft pastel colors almost resemble a painting. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A katydid nymph crawls on a blanketflower, Gaillaria. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Gulf Fritillary butterfly, Agraulis vanillae, nectaring on lantana. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, perched on a Cosmo and looking for prey. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Goodbye! A yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, exits a lavender patch. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Bee and a Butterfly: Sharing a Lavender Blossom
Ever seen a honey bee and a butterfly sharing a lavender blossom? Just in time for National Pollinator Week, June 17-23, we saw this today. What could be more pollinator friendly than that? The honey bee, Apis mellifera, and the Gulf...
A Gulf Fritillary and a honey bee sharing the same lavender blossom in a Vacaville garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Applause for the Pollinators
Bees, butterflies, beetles, birds and bats. What do they have in common? Skipping the alliteration for a moment, they're all pollinators. Honey bees grab the most attention, of course, and they do the bulk of the work. But so do bumble bees and other...
A Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, touches down on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The soldier beetle (family Cantharida) is also a pollinator. This insect resembles the uniforms of the British soldiers of the American Revolution. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A honey bee, Apis mellifera, and a Western yellowjacket, Vespula penslvanica, sharing a rose. Both are pollinators. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A honey bee, Apis mellifera, and a bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, sharing a purple cone flower, Echinacea purpurea. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Finding Pollen on Echium During National Pollinator Month
It's National Pollinator Month, and what better time to find a tiny speck of a bee on a seven-foot tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii? This is a sweat bee of the family Halictidae, the second largest family of bees, comprised of some...
A sweat bee, possibly Halictus tripartitus, foraging on pollen on a tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii, in a Vacaville garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
It's Pollinator Month: No Sweat?
In the sweltering heat of Solano County (100 degrees) during National Pollinator Month, how about an image of a sweat bee, genus Halictus, a tiny bee that's often overlooked in the world of pollinators. It's a social bee that nests in the soil....
A sweat bee, genus Halictus, sailing over a Coreopsis in a Vacaville pollinator garden. June is National Pollinator Month. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)