Insects

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

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)