Backyard Orchard News
Why Turning 40 Is a Bee-Boggling Event: Western Apicultural Society's Big Conference
Turning 40 can be mind-boggling. But it will be bee-boggling--all bee-boggling--when the Western...
Pointing out the queen bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Professor emeritus Norm Gary, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, kneels by his bee wrangling cluster. He spearheaded the founding of the Western Apicultural Society. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Let Us Prey!
Everybody eats in the pollinator garden. Everybody. The pollinators in our garden in Vacaville,...
A praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata (as identified by Andrew Pfeifer) clings to a showy milkweed leaf as she dines on a longhorn bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Praying mantis is a cunning predator. The score: praying mantis: 1. Longhorn bee: 0. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Nature's way; praying mantis devours her meal. The longhorn bee, probably a Melissodes agilis, erred in flying too close to the predator. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
After her meal, the praying mantis climbs toward the top of the milkweed to look for more "meal movement." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Beetle Boys Meet at the Bohart
The Beatle Boys made their mark in Liverpool, but across the pond, specifically at the Bohart...
The Beetle Boys, both recipinets of Coleoperists Society Youth Inventive Awards: Noah Crockette (left) of Sacramento, and Quincy Hansen of Arvada, Colo. (Photo by Tabatha Yang)
The Bee and the Tiger
Talk about a butterfly ballet... A large Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, with a...
A male longhorn bee, probably a Melisoddes agilis, targets a Western tiger swallowtail nectaring on Tithonia in Vacavile, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Butterfly ballet--The startled Western tiger swallowtail takes flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Western tiger swallowtail, interrupted by a male territorial longhorn bee, decides the Mexican sunflower is not "big enough for both of us." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Persistent Western tiger swallowtail selects another blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Ever Seen a Snakefly?
Have you ever seen a snakefly? Not a snake. Not a fly. A snakefly! They're predators but rarely...
A snakefly, genus Agulla, snared in a spider web in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The snakefly, a predator, struggles in the spider web. The spider is out of sight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
In the end, the score was: Spider, 1; snakefly, 0. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)