Backyard Orchard News
Know Your Native Bees: Here's How!
Do you know your native bees? Can you distinguish a sweat bee from a leafcutting bee from a cuckoo...
Female sweat bee, Svastra obliqua expurgate, on purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A leafcutter bee, Megachile sp., heading for a broadleaf milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A male cuckoo bee, Triepeolus concavusm, on a blanket flower, Gaillardia. Female cuckoo bees are cleptoparasites; they lay their eggs inside the nests of native bees, including Svastra. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Andrena (mining) bee on meadowfoam, Limnanthes. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
From Caterpillars to Butterflies to Chronic Pain Research
"Science is full of surprises." Bruce Hammock, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology who...
This photo of Gulf Fritillary adults and a caterpillar helps illustrate the article on the Medical College of Wisconsin website. Bruce Hammock's basic research on how caterpillars become butterflies led to discoveries on chronic pain. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Pretty in Pink--And in Other Colors, Too!
They're pretty in pink. Well, not just pink. All other colors, too. It's National Honey Bee...
A honey bee heads toward rock purslane. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Honey bee foraging on zinnia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This bee took a liking to a nectarine blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Rachael Long: A Boy, a Bat, a Coyote and a Crow
It doesn't get more real. Yolo County Farm Advisor and children's book author Rachael Freeman Long...
Pallid bats, shown here hanging upside down, were featured at Rachael Long's presentation on her second book, "Valley of Fire,"at the Avid Reader, Davis. She will speak on her latest and last book in the trilogy, "River of No Return," at 1 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 20 at the Avid Reader. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Rachael Long, in a presentation at the Avid Reader, shows a bat house. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Everybody Eats in the Pollinator Garden
Everybody eats in the pollinator garden. That includes crab spiders that sprawl atop a flower,...
A crab spider, on a Mexican sunflower, eating a green bottle fly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A crab spider, on a blanketflower, eating a female Halictus tripartitus, as identified by Robbin Thorp, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A crab spider, on a spent blanketflower (Gaillardia) eating a honey bee. It is joined by "freeloader flies," family Milichildae. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)