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StumbleUponPosts Tagged: Sonoma County
Bee-Helpful Cover Crops in Vineyards
This would include mustards, clover and buckwheat, plants that honey bees love.
Kellison, the executive director of the Santa Rosa-based Partners for Sustainable Pollination, will speak Thursday, Aug. 8 at the 13th annual Sustainable Winegrowing Field Day, to be held at the Shone Farm at 7350 Steve Olson Lane, Forestville.
The field day is sponsored by the Sonoma County Winegrowers, Santa Rosa Junior College Agriculture/Natural Resources Department and the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance.
There is no cost to attend but pre-registration (online only) is required by Aug. 2. The event begins with registration at 7:30 a.m. and concludes with a courtesy lunch. (Agenda is online.)
Kellison, to speak at 11:30 a.m., will cover bee-friendly farming, agricultural practices to improve bee health, and why it’s important to plant bee friendly landscapes, including bee gardens. "One major factor in the decline of all bees is the lack of food plants," she says.
Wine growers and beekeepers can work together to make better bee nutrition a reality, Kellison says.
Natural forage and nutrition are essential to good honey bee health and to their ability to cope with pests, pathogens and other stressors, she points out. "Special consideration must be given to encouraging plantings of late summer and fall blooming plants to help hives survive through the winter to the next blooming season."
Among the half-dozen speakers at the field day will be Doug Gubler of UC Davis, who will discuss “Fungicide Resistance Management and Prevention for Grapevine Diseases." Lucia Varela, UC Cooperative Extension pest advisor, will provide a display on how to identify the adult Virginia creeper leafhopper.
Partners for Sustainable Pollination (PSP), founded in 2007, aims to work with farmers and beekeepers to improve the health of honey bees and support native pollinators. "We foster awareness and support for providing increased availability of flowering plants to honey bees and native pollinators," Kellison says.
Partners include local conservation districts, growers, beekeeping and farm groups, and other stakeholders.
One of the PSP advisors is Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Honey bee foraging on mustard, a good cover crop for bees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Upside down honey bee on mustard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Squatters' Rights
Squatters' rights.
A dandelion poking through the rocks near Nick's Cove on Tomales Bay, in Marshall, Sonoma County, seemed an unlikely host for squatters' rights.
It first drew a tiny bee, barely a quarter-inch long. It was a female sweat bee, family Halictidae, genus Lasioglossum, subgenus Dialictus.
She claimed the dandelion all to herself.
Not for long.
Another insect shadowed the dandelion and swooped down to feed.
It was a hover fly, family Syrphidae. (Probably a Eristalinus aeneus, observed UC Davis pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis.)
So on one dandelion: a fly and a bee.
The fly is bigger. But the bee can sting. The sting, however, is rated only 1.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index compiled by (now retired) entomologist Justin O. Schmidt at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, Tucson, Ariz.
Fight or flight?
Flight.
The dandelion blossom belongs to the fly.
Fly-In
Two's Company
On the Rim
Alone
