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UC Gardening Blogs
Updated Pesticide Active Ingredient Database from UC IPM
The University of California Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM) has an exciting, newly updated resource...
California Honey Festival: It Was All the Buzz
It was all the buzz. Thousands of bee and honey enthusiasts made a beeline for ...
Beekeepers Rick Moehrke and Casey Scott of the Sacramento Area Beekeepers' Association answer questions from attendees at the California Honey Festival. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Charles McMaster, a U.S. Army veteran from Copperas Cove, Texas, explained what the Hives for Heroes is all about. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Steve Hays, retired sheriff's deputy, Sacramento County and founder of Second Chance Beekeeping Reentry Service, talked about his program and how inmates are learning beekeeping and getting "a second chance." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Alexis Herbert and Missy Rianda of the Honeybee Discovery Center, Orland, offering bee products. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Amina Harris, retired founding director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center and now the "queen bee" of her family's Woodland-based Z Food Specialty and The HIVE, offers attendees a taste of honey. She and the City of Woodland co-founded the California Honey Festival in 2017. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
"Queen Bee" Inna Eyrih of Hawaiian Honey AT&S offers honey samples to attendees. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This man waiting in line at a California Honey Festival booth wears a sweatshirt expressing a message of compassion, unity and love. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
No Sweat....Just Pollen...
Look closely at a patch of California golden poppies and you may see a sweat bee...
A sweat bee, genus Halictus and family Halictidae, collecting pollen from a California golden poppy, the state flower. Both the bee and the flower are natives of California. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A sweat bee, genus Halictus and family Halictidae, rolling in the pollen of a California golden poppy. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Summer IPM Webinars
Need some summer plans? Join UC IPM at 12:00pm on the third Thursday of every month to learn...
Invite Daddy-Longlegs into Your Garden
Every so often, I rescue a spider from my bathroom, and sometimes I need to call my husband to help. I do the same for other creatures, but I have always been particularly curious about spiders. One spider type that visits often has very long legs, which are well known as daddy-longlegs.
I have been noticing these daddy-longlegs in various parts of our yard and wondered whether they are beneficial to my garden or something of concern. Once again, my research into this question took me down another rabbit-hole of unexpected information.
I was pleased to learn that, yes, the daddy longlegs add to the garden ecology! I found out that they have an extensive diet of usual plant pests, like aphids, and will also feast on dead insects and even a spattering of bird droppings.
To my surprise, I also found out that daddy-longlegs (Opillones) are not actually a spider (Araneae), they just look like one. One visible distinction between daddy-longlegs and spiders is that they have one round body part, while spiders have two. Another difference is that daddy-longlegs do not have the silk glands necessary to create webs and do not produce venom.
BUT wait: Most of the daddy-longlegs that I usually see are hanging out in spider webs! I took a closer look and I now see that these guys do have double bodies. So, what I have been thinking was a daddy-longlegs is, in fact a spider known as the cellar spider, Pholcidae. It also turns out that they are beneficial to the garden. The cellar spiders feed on flies, mosquitoes, brown recluses, cockroaches, and even black widows. Oh, and they are not venomous to humans!
Thus, I had another pleasurable day of discoveries. The bottom line is that both the daddy-longlegs and cellar spiders are beneficial and not dangerous… welcome residents in our garden.
Cellar spider - plutozoom
