Our final open house of 2015 will take place on October 2 from 5:30 to 7:00pm and will focus on integrated pest managment (IPM) in the bee garden. Folks don't want to hurt bees but may also have more harmful insects and diseases than they'd like. How does a bee gardener reconcile this dilemma? Join us at the open house, along with folks from the UC IPM Program, to learn more about bee-friendly pest management tools. 

Of course we'll also have our usual bee-oriented activities such as the honey bee observation hive, native bee specimens, and bee experts to answer your questions. Click here for full details about the program. Click here for a map link.

What's our pest management program at the Haven? We have several different beneficial insects that help keep the ones we don't want in check; you might see these at the open house. Many are aphid predators:

Eggs of a lacewing aphid predator project on their stalks from an oleander aphid-infested milkweed leaf

The green, slug-like animal at the center is an aphid predator, Aphidoletes aphidimyza. It's surrounded by oleander aphids on milkweed.

Hover fly on mustard. This insect's immature stage feeds on aphids.

Ladybird beetle on sedum 'Autumn Joy'

Among the pest problems we had this year, damage by the redhumped caterpillar was the most obvious:

Redhumped caterpillar on western redbud. There's generally no need to control this later-season defoliator.