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Pollinator Post 10/23/23 (1)

The mosses on the tree trunks are a vibrant green this morning.  We had almost an inch of rain at Skyline Gardens yesterday.  With high hopes of seeing termite swarms this warm, calm morning, I enter the garden through the Steam Train entrance, knowing that I am most likely to catch the action in this northern section of Skyline Trail.
As I step through the gate I can already see termites in the air.   It is not hard to find where they are coming from.  Hundreds of winged termites are rushing out of a crack in a log on the side of the trail.  They are getting ready for their nuptial flight!
Here’s a termite soldier with a large, elongate head and sickle-shaped mandibles watching over the emerging alates (winged reproductives).  It’s hard to believe that the soldiers and the alates are the same species from the same colony – they are so anatomically different!
Termites have a caste system in their social organization. Worker termites undertake the most labor within the colony, being responsible for foraging, food storage, and brood and nest maintenance.  They are tasked with the digestion of cellulose in food and feeding their nest mates in the process of trophallaxis.  The soldier caste is anatomically and behaviorally specialized to defend the colony.  They have large heads with modified jaws so enlarged that they cannot feed themselves.  Instead, like juveniles, they are fed by workers.  The primary reproductive caste of a colony consists of the fertile adult female and male individuals, commonly known as the queen and king.  These form lifelong pairs where the king will continuously mate with the queen.  The queen is responsible for egg production. Alates, or winged reproductives are produced at certain time of year.  With the right environmental conditions (usually warm, windless days after a rain), the alates fly off on nuptial flight in search of mates from other nearby colonies.   
Here’s a fun video to introduce you to the Western Subterranean Termites, Reticuliformes hesperus (family Rhinotermitidae, order Blattodea):  

Some alates race up nearby twigs to launch themselves into the air.  
Barely a hundred feet ahead, I find an aggregation of termite alates massing on the bare soil of the trail.  
Several soldiers are guarding a small hole in the ground from which emerge the alates.  
Oh, look, there’s a worker!  That pale termite with the rounded head is a worker.  
In the midst of the commotion, one of the workers in this video is doing repair work, bringing up and sticking a piece of soil particle near the entrance and then depositing a droplet of poop as it descends down the tunnel.  In constructing their tunnels, termites use a sticky substance from their mouth or fecal material for cementing soil and wood particles together.
The workers seem to be clearing the path for the alates and the soldiers.  They are also seen grooming the alates before seeing them off.  

Curious about the Pollinator Posts? 

Who created the Pollinator Posts?2025-12-09T10:27:17-08:00

The Pollinator Post is a photo journal created by May Chen, a local naturalist.  It started many years ago, as simple e-mails sharing the excitement of discovery with fellow hikers and gardeners.  The burgeoning readership eventually necessitated the creation of the Google Group, the Native Gardeners three years ago.  Now the journal has found a permanent home at our website, with easy access to all.  Let May guide you through the miniature world of the creepy crawlies, regaling you with the drama that is happening right under our noses.  Enjoy!

May likes to describe herself as a career volunteer.  She has been a docent at Martin Griffin Preserve in West Marin for more than 20 years.  Her passion for plants and insects has led her naturally to the study of pollination biology.  She has taught docent-training classes on pollination at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden.  As a volunteer with the Friends of Sausal Creek, May has helped in the native plant nursery and tended the BridgeView Pollinator Garden.  She enjoys exploring the East Bay parks and gardens, and shares her observations on the Pollinator Post.  

Because of her initial focus on pollinators, especially bees, May has titled her missives “Pollinator Post”.  However, over the years of observation, she realized that we should view the botanical world as an interconnected whole that embraces other plant-insect interactions that are often overlooked – e.g. predator/prey, decomposer/recyclers, host/parasites, each contributing to the health and stability of the collective.  Too often we are quick to judge insects as “good” or “bad”, ignoring their true roles in the ecosystem.  We need to understand these relationships if we were to be good stewards of our gardens, our farms and wild lands.

To see more of May’s work, see the following article and videos:

The Buzz in My Garden by May Chen, originally published in the Regional Parks Botanic Garden quarterly newsletter Manzanita in 2018

Life and Death on Milkweed

Life and Death on Silverleaf Lupine

How were the photos taken?2026-01-06T09:08:09-08:00

The photos in the older Pollinator Posts were taken with a series of Canon Power Shot point-and-shoot cameras with built-in macro capabilities.  Once May discovered the amazing convenience of the iPhone camera in 2019, she gave away all her other camera equipment.  Since then she has taken all her photos with her trusty iPhone 11Pro.  The close-ups are taken with a Sandmarc attachable 10X macro lens.  “Anybody with a cell phone can do it!”

 

There are countless other attachable macro lens available on Amazon, some as inexpensive as $30, that also work  well.  In fact, here’s one recommended by a bee enthusiast friend, Emil. The disadvantage of this lens, when compared to the Sandmarc, is that it clips on, and the clip could get in the way. 

In what area, locations, and when were the photos taken?2025-12-08T15:17:07-08:00

The photos in the Posts were taken in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area; they were taken at Crab Cove and Bay Farm Island in Alameda, Skyline Gardens and the Bridgeview Pollinator Garden in Oakland, Mendocino Park in Richmond, numerous sites in the East Bay Regional Park District, such as the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, and Inspiration Point, other open space areas in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. and occasionally at private gardens, among other locations..

The Pollinator Posts began on July 12, 2019. Post creation is paused at the end of each year, during the quiet time for insects, and resumes in the following spring.

How can the Posts help me garden for wildlife?2025-12-08T15:16:39-08:00

Browse the Posts to see what insects you might look for in your own garden on certain plants at a specific time of year. For example, you could search on “August”, and among the results you’ll see that you could be looking for leaf cutter bees on aster and, early in the morning, male longhorn bees sleeping on buckwheat or tarweed. If you have soap plant (aka soaproot) you might see the caterpillar of the western brown elfin butterfly, or dance flies.

Search on ‘pale swallowtail caterpillar” and you’ll see that it can be found on coffee berry, as can miner bees, hover flies, lady beetles, and more. Try it! Search on “clarkia,” “sunflower,” “gum plant,” or “acmon blue butterflies” and see what you discover!

How can I search the posts?2025-12-08T15:16:05-08:00

The search engine looks at every word in a post: you can search on an insect, such as caterpillar, a plant, like lupine, a month, or a location.

Can I use the photographs or text in these Posts?2025-12-08T15:15:11-08:00

The photographs and text in the Pollinator Posts are licensed as

CC BY-NC (Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial). Basically, this means that the content can be used by others as long as they properly attribute it to © May Chen, and use it for non-commercial purposes.

Thank you to…2025-12-09T10:28:01-08:00

May Chen, for allowing her work to be made available to the general public on the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour’s website. 

David Faden, for solving the technical aspects of how to get the Posts, which were in an invite-only email Google Group, onto the Tour’s website. This was complicated, as you can see here.

Jeffrey Samorano, owner of Fearless Digital Journey, for integrating the posts into WordPress and making them functional and attractive.

Michael May, Clytia Curley, and Robin Mitchell for their help with earlier versions of this project. 

It was a pleasure working with all of them on this project. 

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