Backyard Orchard News
Nobody Said Mother Nature Is Perfect

Some people are born good-looking. Some have the gift of gab. And some are lucky enough to be born...
A Gulf Fritillary butterfly that never eclosed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A newly eclosed Gulf Fritillary. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Gulf Fritillary, one of Mother Nature's perfect specimens, covers a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Good Day on the UC Davis Campus

Today was a good day on the University of California, Davis, campus. The National Academy of...
Culex quinquefasciatus, the Southern house mosquito, one of the insects that Walter Leal studies. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Jackson Audley: Targeting the Walnut Twig Beetle

Doctoral candidate and forest entomologist Jackson Audley of the UC Davis Department of Entomology...
The walnut twig beetle is about the size of a grain of rice. In association with the fungus, Geosmithia morbida, it causes the insect-pathogen complex known as "thousand cankers disease." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis Mead Course: From Honey to Bottle in One Day

Rome wasn't built in a day. But learning how to make mead? You can learn the process from "honey...
Winemaker Chik Brenneman leads a group at the 2017 UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center's Mead Making Bootcamp. (Honey and Pollination Center Photo)
What Are You Thankful for? Insects on the List?

So you're seated at the Thanksgiving dinner table listening to what people are thankful for, what...
A native bee, Melissodes agilis targets a monarch on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A lady beetle, aka ladybug, targeting aphids. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The honey bee is responsible for pollinating about one-third of the food in our diet. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)