Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts

Two workshops at Sky Saturday: Mason Bees and Winterize your veggie garden

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Saturday, September 7, 2019 from 11am to 12:30pm (previously 9/28)

Winterize Your Veggie Garden with Hannah Madrone

Winter is coming. But don’t worry – with the right care, your veggie garden can power right through our coldest months. 

Learn how to care for your overwintering veggies so that you can harvest them all winter long or keep them happy until spring. Any beds or pots that won’t be put to work until next spring also need a little fall love. 

We’ll discuss cover crops, mulch, and other ways of protecting your soil so that it can stay in tip-top shape until spring.


Mason bee

Saturday, September 7, 2019 from 1pm to 2:30pm; repeated from 3pm to 4:30pm
PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED (see below)

Hands-On Mason Bee Fall Care Seminar with Ray Strelecki
Our gentle native Mason Bees have a much better survival and reproduction rate if given a little TLC in the fall. Ray will bring in actual bee houses with live (dormant) Mason Bees and first demonstrate, then let you practice, basic fall Mason bee care. Learn how to remove cocoons from the bee houses without harming the dormant bees, how to clean the blocks, and how to clean the cocoons. Ray will also talk about how to deal with insect invaders (such as hornets) that sometimes like to try overwintering in bee houses. 

Free, but class size is limited to allow everyone opportunity to practice. 

Please pre-register in the store, by calling 206-546-4851, or by emailing sky@skynursery.com

Sky Nursery 18528 Aurora Ave. N. Shoreline 98133,  206-546-4851 



Read more...

Sid posed for many portrait shots, but settled on these two...

Photo by Gloria Z Nagler

(Ed is a stink bug aka shield bug. And yes, they apparently do stink, when they're threatened or squished. And no, dear reader, I neither threatened nor squished Sid -- criminy, he was my model!)

Photo by Gloria Z Nagler


...he's inordinately proud of his shield!




Read more...

Tête à tête, honeybee-style...

Friday, August 30, 2019

Photo by Gloria Z Nagler


(remarkable how unterritorial sister bees are - in the garden this week)




Read more...

Photo: Sharing a beer

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Sharing a beer
Photo by Mike Remarcke


Sharing a beer - although I suspect the human is doing the sharing and this particular creature is doing the drinking.

Never argue with things with stings.



Read more...

Photo: Curlicue!

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Photo by Gloria Z Nagler


Woodland Skipper in the garden the other day. Quite a talented proboscis!



Read more...

Photo: Signs of fall

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Rainbow web. Fall approaches. Richmond Beach, Washington
Photo by Frank Kleyn

Spiders and spider webs are a definite sign of fall - although they don't usually come in rainbow colors.

I had a largish black spider running down my wall last night - not the giant European house spiders - my cats murdered all of those long ago by bouncing them like basketballs.

I was annoyed with my spider because she's not supposed to be on my wall - she's supposed to be at the front door, keeping the porch light bugs away from the house.

For the first time in years, I don't have a porch light spider. There is usually one who moves in next to the door and feasts on all those little flying things that are attracted by the light. We usually have a few conversations about where the web can be located, then we settle in to a comfortable routine. I don't swipe down the web and she gets to eat all the bugs in peace.

My porch light is recessed flat into the soffit over the porch steps. One year the porch spider created a web like a fishing net. The edges were in a circle around the metal rim of the light and the web hung down about five inches in a sack.

It was astonishingly effective. Nothing flew by the light more than once.

We did have some tiny baby spiders - so small that they looked like specks of dust. So there's hope for a guardian for next year.

DKH

Correction: all the visible spiders in the fall are female. Happy to give them credit!

Read more...

Photo: Shade

Friday, August 2, 2019

Photo by Gloria Z Nagler


Even yellow jackets need to beat the heat. 
This one is sheltering in the shade of a lily pad.



Read more...

Photo: Purple lavender and bee

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Photo by Wayne Pridemore



Summer breeze

blows through the

purple lavender,

calling bees

to partake the view

    

by Joseph Kushnir 2017



Read more...

Photo: Snuggling bees

Saturday, April 27, 2019

Taking a break together from the hard labor of foraging.
Photo by Gloria Z. Nagler


So, I read the other day that bees often sleep 5 to 6 hours per day, often on or in flowers, and often together. They lock legs and snooze.

And glory bee:), my first bees of the season, as far as I can tell, were doing just that, while covered in pollen! They weren’t fighting, were very still. At the community garden today. (Had I not read the article I probably wouldn't have spotted the two nappers)

--Gloria Z. Nagler



Read more...

Gloria Nagler: Shield bugs stink!

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Juvenile shield bug looking wistfully out into the cosmos



Text and photos (copyrighted) by Gloria Zmuda Nagler
Edited by John Wiley Lewis


Yep, shield bugs stink. That’s why the insects pictured in this article are commonly called shield bugs OR stink bugs! One way the four families of shield bugs are similar is that they have glands that produce foul-smelling liquid used to defend against predators (including humans when we touch them, so be forewarned:).

The photo of the smaller bug (looking wistfully out into the cosmos) is, according to my friend who belongs to a local entomology club, a juvenile who will lose much of its colorful design upon reaching adulthood. Found this shield bug on our garbage can lid (never know where you’re gonna find photo ops).

Adult shield bug


The other photo is of an adult shield bug I found on our car hood (The different tones of the background are because I shaded the bug in order to shoot it effectively). Their shield designs are, as far as bugs go, breathtaking (at least to photogs) — and I’ve notice more of them this season than I have before. Shield bugs suck the sap from various plants and also eat small insects. By the way, neither bug was harmed in the making of the photos.

A recent article in The New Yorker goes into detail as to how these insects can be overwhelming — truly overwhelming as in tens of thousands showing up inside people’s houses (the author talks specifically about a couple’s overrun home in South Carolina). The article says that the brown marmorated stinkbug profiled therein is not native, but has spread to almost all states in the continental U.S. They also found thirty thousand (30,000!!) stinkbugs living in a small shed in Virginia. 

The author of The New Yorker article, Kathryn Schulz, rightfully concludes that, although the offending stinkbugs may rouse us to get rid of them them as quickly as we may also act to save the beloved polar bears, we should keep in mind that “…the most troubling thing about the natural world today is not all the things we have to live with. It is all the things we have to live without.” Amen to that.

Sources:

Kathryn Schulz, author of “When Twenty-six Thousand Stink Bugs Invade Your Home” in The New Yorker, March 12, 2018 issue

Wikipedia on “Pentatomoidea”

GardenSafari.com on Shieldbugs


Read more...

Gloria Nagler: Slackers need not apply

Monday, October 1, 2018

Oughta be plenty of pollen in this one, she figures...


By Gloria Zmuda Nagler
Photos (copyrighted) by Gloria Zmuda Nagler


Scanning these photos on my desktop, the things I first noticed were the swollen orange-yellow balls on the rear legs of the bees: pollen baskets (corbiculae), I learned. And these ladies had surely maximized their storage space (no slackers here)!

Good-sized basket already, but she’s determined to pack a little more in


The corbicula, according to Wikipedia, is “a polished cavity surrounded by a fringe of hairs” which the bees use for storage of pollen. Not all bees have pollen baskets, but honey bees and bumblebees do. A 1771 encyclopedia, says Wikipedia, described the structure but gave it no name. In 1802 the name corbicula was introduced into English. 

I often spot bees entangled in the stamens, rubbing off pollen for all they’re worth


Bees, of course, do not pollinate flowers out of the goodness of their tiny hearts — pollination is incidental to the bees’ collection of pollen as food for the hive. When a bee crawls around in flowers (see the photo here of a bee wrapped around a stamen) and rubs pollen off anthers, the pollen adheres to the bee’s hair and body. The bee then licks and moistens her forelegs, then pushing the pollen into the baskets in a grooming manner. The bee then transports her load to the hive. 

Bumblebees have pollen baskets, too — and formidable proboscises
 (hers in this pic is fully extended and ready for nectar


Now for the pollination part: What doesn’t make its way into the corbicula is likely to pollinate the stigma of another flower of identical species. Indeed, according to Wilson-Rich’s excellent book on bees (see below), they tend to gather the pollen from one kind of flower at a time — which has certainly seemed to be the situation when I watch the bees. They appear to work most of the flowers of one species before moving on to a different kind of blossom. 

And here’s an example of a beige pollen basket… not a color I often see.


I’ve seen yellow pollen baskets, orange, and even beige (yellow/orange and beige are pictured here). Wikipedia says the color of the pollen indicates the source, which makes sense.

Sources used for this article:

The Bee, A Natural History, by Noah Wilson-Rich, 2014
Wikipedia on Pollen Baskets



Read more...

Hands-On Mason Bee Fall Care seminar Saturday at Sky

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Mason bee covered in pollen
Photo by Gloria Z. Nagler
Hands-On Mason Bee Fall Care Seminar
with Ray Strelecki

Two sessions Saturday,
September 15, 2018
1pm to 2:30pm;
and again from 3 to 4:30pm


Our gentle native Mason Bees have a much better survival and reproduction rate if given a little TLC in the fall. 

Ray will bring in actual bee houses with live (dormant) Mason Bees and first demonstrate, then let you practice, basic fall Mason bee care.

Learn how to remove cocoons from the bee houses without harming the dormant bees, how to clean the blocks, and how to clean the cocoons.

Ray will also talk about how to deal with insect invaders (such as hornets) that sometimes like to try overwintering in bee houses.

Free, but class size is limited to allow everyone opportunity to practice.

Pre-register in the store, by calling 206-546-4851, or by emailing sky@skynursery.com. Sky Nursery 18528 Aurora Ave N Shoreline 98133 206-546-4851



Read more...

Photo: Teamwork

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

The honeybee works the inside, the tiny fly sits on the outside. Not sure what kind of arrangement they have but they both look content.




Read more...

Insects: Size isn’t Everything - just ask the Wool Carder bee

Monday, September 3, 2018

What the heck is that big guy doing on my flower!

Text by Gloria Z. Nagler and John W. Lewis
Photos by Gloria Z. Nagler


I had never heard of the European Wool Carder Bee (though I had seen them often, in retrospect) until a couple of weeks ago when I got home and saw, on my desktop, what I had captured with my camera: a small bee badgering a larger honey bee. Turns out there’s a back story, and thanks to the resources cited below, I can report that story to you.

I'm gonna get him!

Honey Bees and Wool Carder Bees were both originally Old World bees. Honey bees came to us in the early 17th century from southern Europe. Wool carder bees also originated in southern Europe, but didn’t make their way here until approximately the mid-20th century. The wool carder bee is so-called because the female gathers, and cards, plant fibers for her nest. She scrapes the hairs from leaves (a fave is Lamb’s Ears) and carries them to her nest bundled under her body.

Get outta here! Go! Go! Go!

Male wool carder bees, larger than the females but still only about half an inch long at most, are very aggressive about defending their territory, hence my photo opportunity!

He will attack other male wool carder bees as well as other pollinators. The wool carder bee has armature on the end of its abdomen (spiky protuberances), and the male can even body slam trespassers, as he appears to be doing here — in the third photo here you can see the wool carder bee on the back of the honey bee — useful strategy, for, as we see in the next photo, the honeybee flew away!

You'd better run - and don't you come back!

According to the U.C. Davis article, when the wool carder bees were first noticed in California, rumors went viral that the wool carder bees were decimating the honey bee population. Not so, report the university’s experts. The wool carder bees kill no more honey bees than any other rival of the honey bees.

Mine! Yum
 
Although I found the wool carder bee in Merrill Peterson’s new Pacific Northwest Insects guide, I have not yet been able to locate the bees in some other local guides — perhaps the wool carders are relative newcomers to our region. According to one source (Wikipedia) the bees are now found in New Zealand, too!

Sources: "Wool Carder Bee Not the Terrorist Some Folks Think It Is”, Ms. Kathy Keatley Garvey and the Department of Entomology and Nematology at University of California, Davis, 2011;

“Pacific Northwest Insects” by Merrill A. Peterson, 2018

Wikipedia on European Wool Carder Bees



Read more...

Insects: Guarded oviposition - damselflies

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Damselflies mating
Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler


Text and photos by Gloria Z. Nagler


I happened upon these two bluets (damselflies) at a local pond the other day. According to Merrill Peterson in his oh-so-useful “Pacific Northwest Insects” book (hot off the press), there are 6,000 species of damselflies and dragonflies in the world — and we in the Pacific Northwest have 117 of those species. Lucky us, indeed — damselflies are both attractive and alien.

As we can see from first photo, the male attaches to the female's head with "claspers" which are located near his abdomen. They then copulate, the female next ovipositing the fertilized eggs into the water (or vegetation in the water). The male stands guard above her during the process, to pull her out if danger comes, and, perhaps more critical to his interests, to defend against other males.

The female's head is underwater
Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

In the second photo, her head is underwater... he pulls her up and out, if she's lucky: and, as is seen in the third photo, sometimes he forgets to detach from her and they fly off in tandem (or he perhaps wants to remove her from the competition — while I watched this pair, at least one other bluet flew by a few times, presumably checking out the female).

They fly off, still attached
Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

Having spent two years as aquatic larvae, or nymphs, some damselflies live only a few weeks as winged adults. Reproduction is now their top priority. Mating lasts less than five minutes in some species, though can take longer in others. The pair I photographed (and thank you to those bluets:), mated for less than five minutes. I had to change position and shoot like crazy to get the shots! Some stay connected up to 7 hours -- phew!

Sources: Pacific Northwest Insects, by Merrill A. Peterson; and Discover Wildlife, from BBC Wildlife Magazine (“Understanding damselfly behavior”).



Read more...

Photo: Outlined in pollen

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Photo by Gloria Z. Nagler

Mason Bee outlined in pollen (I’m 85% sure it’s a mason bee, but if you, reader, have a different opinion, let me know!):  These little bees don't have pollen sacks like honeybees and some bumblebees do.

Instead, the females have hairs (“pollen brush”) below their abdomen to collect pollen. And some mason bees nest in abandoned snail shells! So kind of them to recycle:)

Judging from this bee’s pollen load, these little guys are pollinating like crazy. My thanks to the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Insects and Spiders.

--Gloria Nagler



Read more...

Photo: Baby spiders

Monday, June 4, 2018

Charlotte's babies
Photo by Seattle Poppy

I don't know what kind of spiders these are or how big they get. I suspect they will prefer to be outside, munching on all those annoying flying things that cluster around the lights and fly into your house.

One year in particular there were a huge number of babies spiders that hatched. As far as I can tell, the nest was in my neighbor's tall tree. When the babies left the nest, they floated down at an angle on individual strands of silk. They were tiny, tiny brown creatures - so small that I thought I was seeing spots in my eyes! I had to get a magnifying glass to see what they were.

We have a recessed porch light and it attracts an annoying number of bugs. Therefore, I was happy when a spider took up residence by the light. Last year the spider got innovative and built a hanging basket net around the light. It hung down about four inches and covered the entire area of the light. Very few bugs got into the house that year.

DKH

Read more...

Bumblebee Code!

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Photo and text by Gloria Z. Nagler 

When I processed this photo of a bumblebee (found her in my neighbor’s tree) first thing I noticed were her feet — had to see what the internet had to say!

Turns out her feet are in the news: last Spring Dr. Richard Pearce (University of Bristol) and his colleagues published their research in “Scientific Reports” explaining that bumblebees’ smelly feet constitute a code that, among other things, helps lead others to lunch.

The scientists' experiments showed that the bees leave a scent wherever their feet touch a surface, and that other bees can distinguish their own nest mates from stranger bees, and their own scent from their sister bees’ scents.

Perhaps in this way they “tell” other bees which flowers they’ve found visit-worthy, and also can use the code to avoid flowers they’ve already visited. Just another reason to be amazed by our bees:)



Read more...

Celebration of Winged Things on Saturday

Tuesday, October 31, 2017



​Coming Saturday: A Celebration of Winged Things!
Free Community Movie
DisneyNature’s: Wings of Life
Saturday, November 4
1:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Shoreline City Hall, 17500 Midvale Ave N (98133)

Diggin’ Shoreline wraps up its year of pollinator discovery with a FREE celebration of winged things—honeybees, native bees, hummingbirds, moths, and more with two showings of the DisneyNature movie, Wings of Life (1:15 and 3:00pm).

Be sure to come early to get your bag of free organic popcorn. Before, during, and after the movie, experience these:
  • Don Ehlen of Insect Safari and his 4-table display of flying insects and other bugs, featuring pollinators. 
  • Wondering about what it takes to host a honey bee hive or other things you can do to help save them? Be sure to visit with the folks from Puget Sound Beekeepers Association. 
  • Want to know more about native plants and the pollinators attracted to them?
Stop by the Washington Native Plant Society Master Native Plant Stewards table and hear about the work they’ve been doing at Boeing Creek, Shoreview, Hamlin, Twin Ponds, and Brugger’s Bog Parks throughout the City of Shoreline to preserve and restore native habitat.
  • Take apart a flower at the flower dissection table hosted by the Biology Department of Shoreline Community College. Discover just what pollinators eat and where within a flower their life-giving food source is found.
  • Diggin’ will, of course, have some cool take-home crafts and activities and information to share, too.
Insect costumes are encouraged!



Read more...

Stink Bug Invasion! See It, Report It

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Report stink bugs
The Washington State Department of Agriculture is requesting the public's help in tracking the spread of Southern Green Stink Bugs in the Puget Sound area.

The invasive insects feed on a wide spectrum of fruit and vegetable crops, and are threats to both commercial farms and home gardens. 

To monitor the insect's spread, WSDAcreated an online Southern Green Stink Bug Report Form for uploading photos and reporting the locations of this destructive new pest.



Read more...
ShorelineAreaNews.com
Facebook: Shoreline Area News
Twitter: @ShorelineArea
Daily Email edition (don't forget to respond to the Follow.it email)

  © Blogger template The Professional Template II by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009

Back to TOP