Posts Tagged: artichoke

Sex Amid the Artichokes

What the world needs now is "love, sweet love" and...more ladybugs.

Ladybeetles are our friends. They gobble up aphids and other pests in our garden, and then look around for more. They have insatiable appetites.

Last Friday morning, as volunteers worked in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, the artichoke plants stirred.

Two ladybugs were in the midst of making more ladybugs.

Yes! We need more ladybugs.

During the grand opening celebration of the haven on Sept. 11, we spotted a web-weaving spider eating a ladybug.

One ladybug gone. 

But many more to come.

Volunteers interesting in tending the plants--and maybe spotting a few ladybugs, as well as honey bees, butterflies, dragonflies, sweat bees, praying mantids and a variety of other insects in the garden--can show up at the haven on Fridays at 8:30 a.m.

Melissa "Missy" Borel, program manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture, UC Davis, and one of the key persons involved in the development of the garden, is coordinating the volunteers. She can be reached at mjborel@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-6642.

And oh, if you like to capture images of plant and animal life inside the garden, don't forget your camera.

Ladybugs

LADYBUGS on artichoke leaf. Soon, more beneficial insects in the garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Same Ladybugs

SAME LADYBUGS, same artichoke plant. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Beneath a Leaf

THE LADYBUGS crawled beneath an artichoke leaf. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Choke Hold

Honey bees have a "choke hold" on artichokes.

They absolutely love flowering artichokes.

Take the artichokes blooming in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.

Sometimes 10 or 15 bees try to gather on a single blossom.

The "beeline" of honey bees, bumble bees and sweat bees turns into a collision course not unlike a NASCAR race.

"Hot spot," said Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty. "They're all heading for that hot spot of nectar."

The artichoke (Cynara crdunculus)? It's a thistle, and bees are ravenously fond of thistles.

A rule of thumb: When you're trying to attract bees, don't harvest the artichokes. Let them bloom.

Lots of Bees

HONEY BEES head for the flowering artichokes at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Hot Spot

HOT SPOT--These bees are all seeking the same nectar hot spot on a flowering artichoke. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Near Collision

CAUCASIAN BEE (left) and an Italian bee try to avoid a collision over a patch of flowering artichokes in the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)