I'm Back, Also Monarchs!

I'm back! Stories of what Ants of the Southwest was like will have to wait a few days while I get my luggage and belongings mailed to me. I managed to fill up 2 memory cards with photos and videos. My short review is it was awesome, I had a great time, and highly recommend it to anyone with an interested in the topic of ants, or just looking for a vacation to one of the most biodiverse spots in North America. It's a happening bird and butterfly spot, and the whole place is crawling with lizards, toads, and assorted other kinds of creepy crawlies. 

 I came home to find the garden completely overgrown, but also robustly flowering. I finally got the attention of some Monarchs this year.

Unfortunately they're getting harder and harder to attract it seems. I had to plant 24 more plants of the types of Liatris they like.

They're also on the New England Asters, but Meadow Liatris seems to be more of a magnet to them, and it's less aggressive than the asters, which I have plenty of at this point. 

Gone Ant'en

Later this week I'm heading out to Arizona for Ants of the Southwest, and I won't be back for a few weeks. So I probably won't be blogging for a few days.

Sourwood Tree

Sourwood, Oxydendrum arboreum, is an important nectar crop for honeybees. They make an excellent landscaping tree with their Lily of the Valley-looking flowers (which are very mildly scented) and their brilliant red fall color. Filmed above is a young sapling that only has 5 sprigs worth of flowers, for lack of a better term, and it's already getting a decent amount of pollinator attention. Sourwood honey is said to be a world class honey, making this tree an excellent choice for your landscape.

A Trip to Longwood Gardens

I spent yesterday, July 4th, at Longwood Gardens, though not for the fireworks. Really the place was a bit of a disappointment and ran differently than I expected.

For starters the ticket system is confusing. You buy tickets to arrive at a specific time in half hour intervals but you can stay as long as you want and I didn't understand why this was necessary at all. What's wrong with just selling tickets and having a recommended time of arrival? Their parking lot is big enough for special events like the 4th of July, there were even people setting up camp outside on the hills around the parking lot having little BBQ's of their own.

Getting inside and walking the gardens for a day I started to realize why they limit the number of tickets they sell in half hour intervals. There is ONLY ONE place that sells food and drinks for people to eat lunch or dinner. Now they were holding a special event for fireworks and additional vendors were setup but they were all in one area! So you can't get a drink if you visit the entire right side of the facility or walk all the way out into the meadow garden other than a public water fountain they have hidden way back in this end building. I almost died of dehydration walking around this place.

Finally I found some sort of delicious-looking BBQ happening but this was only for people who spent the money on the fireworks show happening later that night. I asked the girl if I could upgrade to get some real food, and she said Nope! So inside the regular building I went where I paid $8 for the smallest peperoni pizza in the world that tasted like air. And the glass they gave me was tiny, like what they sell as a Small everywhere else, which was only about $2 though. And it came with "unlimited refills" but frankly there didn't seem to be anyone watching the drink area; it's all self serve so I could have fill up a 2 liter for all they knew. 

They should be selling collectable water bottles that come with free refills the day you buy it and setup more stations around the park where people can buy and refill them, similar to how an amusement park does it. I should be able to upgrade my dinning choice right then and there to special BBQ's, Buffets, and wine tastings etc... instead of having to walk all the way back to the main entrance for a wrist band.

I would have voiced all this to the little suggestion survey card but someone made off with the pen or pencil for doing so... so I just tossed a blank card inside to show what I thought of the place which was not much.

Most of the gardens were vast stretches of lawn with plantings only right next to the pathways. These plantings did look nice and worked well with a corridor effect (looking down the hall). There were points of interests such as sculptures and fountains and the occasional neat plant they highlighted but the amount of lawns this place has really drags the whole place down.

There was a Japanese Stewartia that was absolutely infested with Japanese Beetles.. which might not be a bad thing but generally no one wants this pest insect.

There's a main conservatory that's full of all sorts of tropical plants, and even included a rather nice pond section but it would have benefited from a guide or two or audio tour like a museum exhibit to highlight what I'm looking at and why it's important. 

Something where they'd put a number on the plant tag and you could listen to a botanist, curator, landscape designer, translator, or voice actor, talk about why the plant or feature is so impressive. They could rotate which ones are of interest in and out or limit it to specific gardens. Generally without the information and history behind it, it's really just another pretty flower among hundreds. 

I was happy to see a grove of Bottlebrush Buckeye but disappointing to see absolutely nothing was pollinating them. Actually there were almost no butterflies flying about at all. The only ones I saw were out in the meadow garden and I know from the Mt. Cuba Center that this plant is normally covered in hummingbirds, and large butterflies. They're growing it correctly at least. The plant wants to push up an army of suckering stems to form it's own grove which was extensive. The photo above was taken at the top of a hill and they extended all the way down around the pathway.

This is what it was like looking in. 

But the real reason for going was for the newly installed Meadow Garden, which I'm happy to say was drawing a decent crowd. All of the bird watchers and generally non-handicap guests were at least giving one pathway a stroll. 

Early on I was a little confused though. I thought they had sprayed Round UP on the pathways which is why they looked like dead grass but then I realized, nope, someone started to roll out the sod for god knows why and it's just dying from lack of water. A bizarre choice but perhaps it was something left over from last year. A good design choice I thought were these corner sections where instead of seeding in plants randomly, they had plugs to specific plants. Eventually this will ensure guests get to see specific plants up close and personal.

Another specific plug planting next to one of the rest and viewing areas. Behind me there were some benches, sheltered by the sun with built in telescopes for everyone to look out upon the meadow. 

The occasional butterfly would flap about but for the most part they found a bit of butterflyweed and clung to it.

Black-eyed Susans speckled parts of the meadow with their little yellow disks.

There were a few places where they seemed to be better established and taller.

Red-winged Blackbirds fluttered about the meadow and all the bird watchers seemed to enjoy them particularly. I accidentally interrupted more than one person trying to take a photo I'm sorry to say.

Butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosa, was a real highlight here.

I love the way the color of the dried grasses adds to this, still blowing with the breeze along with the green, and still with yellow flowers dotting all over.

False Sunflower, Heliopsis helianthoides, was another draw but mostly for bumblebees.

I really enjoyed the meadow garden a lot because there weren't big boring patches of lawn. If you're going to have big sweeps of lawn, at least do something with them; maybe even take that "golf course look" literally and maybe a mini-golfing or croquet. Or even make it more perfect than it already looks? A large carpet of moss maybe?

So the Meadow garden has my interest enough that I think I'll return sometime, maybe in September and I'll be sure to give the whole place another chance.

Introduction to Natural Pools - a film by David Pagan Butler

Quite possibly my next project to contemplate. My only worry with these is wildlife using it as their toilet. Obviously you don't introduce fish but things like racoons and opossums have some pretty nasty bacteria in their fecal matter. Even if I never swim in it though, it sounds like a fun thing to design.

Caterpillar Season

A few days ago it was unbearably hot and humid out, but I was enjoying it nonetheless because this seemed to bring out all the ants and other bugs of interest. There were so many types of ants wondering all over my plants that I was tempted to make a video about them all but the mosquitoes got the better of me.

One thing I had to photograph was this patch of caterpillars on my Persimmon tree. My assumption was they were some type of giant silk moth but I don't believe that to be the case.

Unfortunately they were all dead the next morning. No doubt a large black carpenter ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, came along and chewed them all up into mush as there were several of those out on the tree. The whole clutch of them could have fit on a quarter, they were that tiny. I'm kicking myself for not removing the leaf and placing them into the butterfly cage.

I've no idea what they were, other than they were on Native Persimmon, they're were sort of hairy, and that I live in New Jersey. If anyone out there wants to take a crack at identifying them, be my guest. 

So I then realized this week, there are a lot of caterpillars in my yard! 


The Eastern Redbud has Fall Webworm, Hypantria cunea, which are poorly named because it's clearly the start of summer.

The tree also has treehoppers and a few aphids which are attracting ants that are supposed to help prevent insect herbivores or at least discourage and harass them onto other plants. It's not a perfect system but it does have an effect.

Fall Webworms get around this though by sticking together in a small group and forming webs around the leaves they eat for protection.

They do this until they're big enough to take on a few ants or develop other defenses. I'm not sure what they are for this species but I know long hairs, tasting bad, chemical weaponry, are a small taste of what some caterpillars do for protection. It's the early instars when the caterpillars have basically just hatched and don't have these defenses when they're picked off by everything, like the ones I found on the Persimmon tree.


The Eight-Spotted Forester is a day-flying moth (not quite a butterfly) that hosts on grape vines. The adult has black wings and eight cream/white or pail blue spots on the wings, hence the name.

Caterpillars are somewhat colorful looking and are in the habit of jumping ship upon disturbance, often leaving a silk lasso behind so they can climb back up. Grape Vines are very aggressive growing and often the caterpillars don't effect the yield of the crop.

Now I tried looking up what young Eight-Spotted Foresters look like, and I don't think these are them. What interests me is that the grape vine doesn't have any pores that produce extra floral nectar or attract aphids and other insects to do that for the plant. So that means the only ants walking over the plant are simply foraging for the sake of it, meaning fewer ants compared to a plant that's gushing out food to encourage them. So I'm curious to see how far these guys get.

And lastly the False Indigo Bush, Amorpha fruticosa, has not only eggs but fully grown caterpillars on it.

Silver Spotted Skippers, Epargyreus clarus, forage at night, making them hard to spot. During the day they stay inside a small "shed" of leaves they've woven together to hide from birds. Smaller caterpillars simply chew a section of a single leaf and fold it over with silk.

This is another case of the plant not attracting ants, other than letting them steal nectar from the flowers, but even this isn't a popular practice compared to other plants.

The caterpillars are a decent size and employ an additional tactic to hide from ants. One of the things ants look when hunting is insect frass; when they find it they know an insect can't be far. In this case though the caterpillars actually launch their frass pellets several feet away from them. They also lay silk down on just about everything they walk on to discourage ants from following them.

Myrmecochory: Turkey Corn (Dicentra eximia)

Turkey Corn, Dicentra eximia, is a ... wildflower? I don't think it dies back technically until the autumn so it's not an ephemeral. The peak bloom is in the springtime though alongside the majority of our ephemerals in North America. A lot of people mistake this for Bleeding Heart, Lamprocapnos spectabilis, but that's a different genus and it's not native; it's also more commonly sold by nurseries but both tend to be available if you look hard enough. Turkey Corn is better though because, despite the flowers not being as heart shaped, it actually blooms year round until it goes dormant in the autumn.

Maybe 4 to 6 weeks after flowering seed pods will form on some of the blooms. Oddly enough though I've never seen any pollinators tending to the flowers so perhaps nocturnal moths are what it attracts? Seeds are tiny black beads with packets of elaiosome on them. 

Elaiosome is a lipid rich substance that ants find irresistible. Nutritionally speaking, it has more in common with a dead insect than nectar or honey, thus the ant thinks it's just found a dead bug, or eggs. It's been found that this substance effects the caste system within the colony. Some species will produce more new queens while others produce more workers over reproductive. So colonies will either go bigger or spread faster depending on which ant we're talking here. Both can benefit the plant in the long run. A bigger colony will plant more seeds in a central location; colonies also move and change location every year or two thus multiple patches are planted over the years. New queens produce more colonies overall so the seeds from one patch of plants can be taken in multiple directions potentially.

Major Nectar Flows of the North East United States (May/June)

Okay where to begin.

About a month ago all the dogwoods were flowering, and while people are very familiar with the main two Cornus florida and Cornus kousa (not native) I've never really been impressed by the attention they get by bees. These are the big flowering dogwoods with the really big white "petals" which are actually bracks, modified leaves that are white or pink colored to act like flower petals. But unlike flower petals, they're able to produce chlorophyll to a degree where as true petals and rays do not.

Pictured above is the Alternate Leaf Dogwood, Cornus alternifolia. This species lacks the big showy white bracks of its cousin and instead easily produces ten times more flowers! This makes them extremely popular with pollinators, and honeybees are no exception. One failing though is I believe the plant is only used for pollen (or otherwise produces an insignificant amount of nectar for bees to bother with) but it's certainly a powerhouse at doing so. Growers will be impressed with the flowering display of saplings and every year they become more and more showy.


Other dogwoods, such as the Red Twig Dogwood, Cornus sericea, take on more of a shrub habit. They have similar flower displays to C. alternifolia but nowhere near the amount of flowers, and thus have to grow considerably larger to get the same pollinator attention.

White Dutch Clover, Trifolium repens, this is a common lawn "weed" that I'm all for planting. It's hard to remain a native plant purest with a plant that spices up the nonnative American lawn. You can buy seeds to this plant by the pound which have about a 40% success rate when seeded into an established lawn. Plants produce their own fertilizer too and are fairly hardy. Even with large patches of this plant in bloom though you only see a hand full of bees even bothering with them. What makes them so successful as a nectar plant though is the fact that almost every lawn has them.

Black Cherry, Prunus serotina. Truth be told, this isn't a very popular plant with any pollinators, but it's bloom time, along with other cherry/plums, fills a gap between a few others. It's also a host plant for the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, the berries are edible though perhaps better used for pies and jam making, or left to the birds as it's one of the earliest to ripen.

Tulip Tree, Liriodendron tulipifera. Not to be confused with Magnolias, this is one of the fastest growing and tallest trees in the forest. A dozen or so honeybees can work a single flower at a time, though it's not every year that it's flowers are prized. As odd as it sounds, honeybees will only work this tree intensely on years when the blooming is later than usual but also preceded by a rain storm. Rain causes most trees to produce three times as much nectar so on wet years a hive will produce a lot more honey. This tree is also a host plant for Tiger Swallowtails, so it's well worth planting if you've got the space.

Hop Tree, Ptelea trifoliata. This tree has become somewhat uncommon which is a shame because bees go nuts for it. The foliage superficially resembles poison ivy, and can have a displeasing odor when disturbed. They can grow in full shade or full sun, but of course flower best in full sun. Also I've noticed that bees only work the flowers that are in full sun, often high up in the tree. (I would have gotten pictures of honeybees on this one but this isn't my tree and I didn't have a ladder accessible.) Another trait one might be on the fence about; this is the host plant to the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly, which is the largest butterfly in North America. The caterpillars mimic bird droppings and have been known to completely defoliate whole shrubs and trees of this plant! So gardeners need to choose between a good nectar plant (assuming it's in full sun) or living with flocks of the largest butterfly in North America flying through their yard. 

Okay that's an ant, not a bee, but even they like to steal the nectar from some of these plants. Members of the Ribes genus are high up on the pollinator list. Red Raspberries in particular are beloved by honeybees but only when allowed to grow into a nice sized patch. Blackberries get a silver medal, maybe bronze compared to the classic Red Raspberries but are still worth growing. 

Spiderwort, Tradescantia sp., these only open in the daylight hours, and are usually closed by 4:00pm. Honeybees work them, usually before noon time when the pollen is fresh. Patches of this plant need to be at least two feet around in order for honeybees to bother with them though. I planted a few dozen plants three years ago and it's taken that long for them to even take notice. Thankfully spiderwort is one of those care free natives that grows, spreads, and goes dormant with almost no maintenance or care. 

Black Locust is another one that's flowering now. It's a medium sized tree with chains of white, wisteria-like flowers on it. I've been unable to find time to get pictures of it so far. The same goes for Catalpa Trees which are also flowering, and have great big white trumpets for blooms.

False Indigo Shrub, Amorpha fruicosa, this is another one that's not often planted. The flowers are fragrant, plum colored with bright orange pollen, and appear similar to Butterfly Bush, but better smelling and with an open habit.

This is another nitrogen fixing plants that produces its own fertilizer. It produces part shade beneath it too so you can grow it fairly close to a vegetable garden with little impact on the crops below.

It's also a host plant for the Silver Stripe Skipper, the largest of the skippers of North America. Unlike other supposed host plants of that butterfly, I've actually found the caterpillars on the plant! 

And a reminder that I wrote a book titled "Native Plants for Honeybees" last year on that topic. Word of warning, it's self published, and thus not on the best quality of paper. I encourage you to give the free preview a try before commuting to purchase. Reading through some of the negative reviews I see not everyone thinks my opinion on plants was worth their time, also one seemed against self published in general. 

Rhododendron Ant Trap

The odorous house ant, Tapinoma sessile, is a noted nectar thief of assorted flowers. Often they'll steal the nectar to plants that have noted defenses against ants robbing he nectar. But this times it seems the odorous house ant has met its match.

Our native Flame Azalea, Rhododendron calendulaceum, has some very pretty yellow-orange and sometimes red flowers that are fragrant. Hummingbirds, butterflies and bumblebees are all occasional visitors to this plant. The dead ants and gnats attached to the flower stem entice Hummingbirds in for a different reason.

 Free Hummingbird Food

Early Ant Activity