Insects

An interesting chamber made by a wasp or bee perhaps? I’m not sure yet. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

An interesting insect, but I do not know what it is.

Feathery Combs - Jun 21 2023 (3024K)

Where the bee keepers are stacking their hives along the north side. I’m not sure how many they put out there, but they swamp the bird baths in the summer.

Bee Hives - Jun 09 2023 (4093K)

Some type of spider I have to search for to see what kind it is (looks like a tiny version of Shelob) but it seems to be an avid hunter and collector of bugs, plus I see all those white balls are perhaps egg cases. I sure don’t want those to hatch so I had to evict that spider and it’s bug collection and whatever those white fuzzy puffballs were.

Spider - Nov 16 2022 (3994K)

I think it was a Common House Spider. This picture is from today’s cleaning and I was able to get a better picture of a different one.

House Spider - Nov 20 2022 (3744K)

A brown praying mantis showing off, well not quite as it is so well blended with the background.

Brown Praying Mantis - Jul 27 2022 (2990K)

When keeping worms in buckets once in a while you can have fungus gnats and fruit flies or other small bugs showing up that you really don’t want to get out when you open the top up. I found these small spiders in some detritus outside and decided to try them out as a member of the worm bucket ecosystem and they’ve been working out very well. Here is a picture of two of them, their webs are very faint, but they do work.

Small Spiders - Jan 13 2021 (2739K)

A fungus gnat caught in the web.

Small Spider Food - Jan 13 2021 (2406K)

An even smaller spider (about 2-3mm long including the legs).

Smaller Spider - Jan 13 2021 (2371K)

Three bumblebees feeding on some bunching onion flowers. I’m so glad to see them. :)

Bumble Bees - Jun 13 2020 (1734K)

A bumblebee feeding in the creeping thyme.

Bumble Bee - Jun 13 2020 (2146K)

A spider web in February?!

Frozen Spider Web - Feb 5 2018 (1340K)

Mom likes this view better…

Frozen Spider Web 2 - Feb 5 2018 (1011K)

Another bee that likes to use mud for their babies. I just missed getting a picture of the bee coming out of the nest.

Bee Home - Jul 19 2017 (1426K)

A closer look at that pattern - in places it looks almost like weaving…

Bee Home Closer - Jul 19 2017 (1341K)

Butterfly in the salvia.

Butterfly - Jun 7 2008 (1257K)

Monarch caterpillar on the tuberosa. I haven’t seen too many of these around since then.

Monarch Caterpillar - Aug 30 2009 (1332K)

It seemed rather early for ants to be swarming.

Ants - May 2 2011 (1489K)

The year we grew cabbages organically I found out how many eggs a cabbage butterfly could lay. While we do have a healthy population of wasps and hornets we still had plenty of cabbage butterfly caterpillars on the cabbages. I tried to go out each day to pick off what I could find of both eggs and caterpillars, but they still made a large amount of chew marks on those plants. I learned that if we were to ever do it again I would need netting to keep the butterflies off the plants. I like this picture because of not only the cabbage worm caterpillar but also the play of light and shadows that all the chewing marks created. You didn’t think that a caterpillar could be an artist?

Cabbage Worm - Jul 15 2013 (1331K)

What a cabbage butterfly pupa looks like.

Cabbage Butterfly Pupa- Jul 19 2013 (737K)