1. UPCOMING EVENTS
August 24 and September 28 - Saturdays at the Scopes (Corvallis). Bring the bees you caught this summer and look at them under the microscope (and even start the optional process of keying them out). Drop-in - OSU, Corvallis, Cordley Building room 3058, 10am-3pm. - map and info linked here.
September 21 - Saturdays at the Scopes (Portland). Bring the bees you caught this summer and look at them under the microscope (and even start the optional process of keying them out). Drop-in - Portland Community College - time and room TBA.
September 21 - OMSI’s BioBonanza (Portland). Volunteers needed for outreach table at OMSI. Contact Andony (Andony.Melathopoulos@oregonstate.edu) for details and if you can help out.
2. REFERENCE COLLECTIONS AND BEES FOR OUTREACH DISPLAYS
The 2018 bees have been determined (thanks to the hard work of Lincoln Best) and we have pulled out records for the Oregon State Arthropod Collection (OSAC). Later this week we will be posting an internal spreadsheet (not to be shared outside the Atlas) to help you see what your bees turned out to be (and if you provided determinations, then you will be able to line your determinations up against Linc’s. Within the next month or so we will publish the 2018 data, making all your hard work available to the world.
This all means that whatever bees are not headed for OSAC are available for making reference collections, as well as display collections.
Each team leader can now collect their reference collection from OSU (or work with Jen to make arrangements to have these collections shuttled out by OSU faculty to the nearest Extension center). There will also be floating reference collections for instructors.
Below are some instructions from Linc on how to use these reference collections. Please note, they are not a replacement for using a key, but rather a supplement to the keys, a way to have an actual determined specimen show you what the characters should look like.
The remaining bees will be divided evenly with the teams for outreach and any entities that had previous arrangements for educational displays. These display bees will be provided in cheap cardboard boxes (if teams want a nicer box, we recommend them buying them directly from this inexpensive vendor in Canada). We recommend storing these reference collections at the local Extension office and developing a way to sign them out for outreach events within each area.
3. GETTING YOUR SUMMER RECORDS TO US - SEPTEMBER 23
The students will be heading back to classes in late September. Their ability to transcribe your records and print labels will slow down considerably after classes start. Please try and get your backlog of records to Cody and verified in the spreadsheet by September 23. Just a reminder that paper datasheets (for those not using iNaturalist) can be emailed to Cody (oregonbeeatlas@gmail.com) and records can be verified on the Google Sheet.
Cody Feurborn with stack of insect labels he is mailing out to you (Umayyah is behind him pinning up bees from the nest blocks). Cody and Umayyah head back to class in September. Make sure to get your records to them by this date.
4. SAVE THE DATE - ANNUAL CONFERENCE - FRIDAY MARCH 6 (OSU)
Chris Marshall presenting on OSACs fancy new Atlas mapping tool at the first annual conference last February.
We will be coordinating our Annual Conference with the Linn Benton County BEEvent this year (allowing us to share costs on a speaker). The event will be held at OSU the day before BEEvent. Details to follow, but the Advisory Committee is planning to change the event format to allow teams and individuals in the Atlas time to present on the highlights of their year. It can be the collecting trip that yielded your best bees, it could be about lessons learned from your outreach events, it could be a detailed natural history discovery you made. We will also leave a lot more time for networking and planning for the 2020 season.
5. WHAT YOU MISSED ON FACEBOOK / POLLINATION PODCAST
Lori Humphrey gets a nice shot of a female in the family Megachilidae on cilantro.
Jim Cane talked about squash bees on PolliNation. Hear more here: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/08/03/106-jim-cane-squash-and-sunflower-bees/. We still want you to monitor for squash bees. Sarah Red-Laird wrote a great blog on how to do this: https://www.beegirl.org/blog/peponapis
Stephanie Hazen from Salem found this beetle. Michael O’Loughlin identified it as Ulochaetes leoninus. The discovery caught the attention of OSAC curator Christopher Marshall, who said there was active research on this group in California. Great find Stephanie.
Rachel Phariss bee teaching buzz cards at Rock Creek Neighborhood Night Out, with Larry Hill and Missy Martin.
Natalie Lozano and the Portland metro team monitored and collected bees in a forest setting. Their cohorts set pan and blue vane traps on Thursday, and collected what ended up in them today. They also netted on thistle, knapweed, cats ears, and several other flowers. Way to go team Portland Metro.
There is a great new book out on Solitary Bees. Just out. We talked to the author of the book a few weeks ago. Listen here: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/08/12/107-bryan-danforth-the-solitary-bees/