1. UPCOMING EVENTS
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. Landscape Bldg. #4, 17705 NW Springerville Rd., Portland. Free parking on Saturdays. 9am-4pm.
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.
December 5 - Eastern Oregon Bee Mini-Conference. Hermiston, OR (10:30am-5pm) @ Hermiston Farm Fair (details coming up soon).
2. VERIFYING YOUR RECORDS [SEPT 23]
In the last Roundup we let you know we that we wanted to clear the backlog of unverified records this week. Please go onto the Google Sheet, make sure your records are correct and put a ‘v’ next to them so we print your labels off. If you have never done this before, please watch the video below. If you have any questions, please contact us (oregonbeeatlas@gmail.com) If we don’t hear from you after September 23rd - and you have not verified a record all season long - we will assume your are inactive. We know there are some records - like those collected in traps - that can’t be verified until the winter when the trap catch is pinned up. All other cases aside, please verify your records by the end of this weekend.
3. TURNING IN YOUR CAVITY NESTS
If you received some blocks this year, it’s time to take them down. If you have not recorded the GPS coordinates of your blocks, please do so before moving them and email them (along with the block number) to oregonbeeatlas@gmail.com. Be gentle moving the blocks and store them with the holes facing up (so as not to knock any late nesting bee larva off their pollen balls). Blocks can be stored undercover outside until they can be transported to OSU. Ideally, we would like to get these blocks by mid-November so we can put them into cold storage. One way to get them to OSU is to bring them to your local Extension office - if you do this let us know when you drop it off and we will arrange transport. Do not mail the blocks to us.
4. NEXT STEPS WITH YOUR COLLECTIONS
If your bees have labels and are in the database, then you can turn your bees into us at any time. If you are interested in working out the taxonomy of your bees, you will have until late January to work on your specimens. You can add your tentative identifications of the bees directly into the Google Sheet (we will have a video showing how to do this in the next Roundup). But the first step is taking all your labeled bees and moving them into similar looking groups - morpho-groups. Once into moroph-groups you can use some of the keys (but also check out the 2019 Bee School manual for an improved bumble bee key) to work out genus and/or species level identification. We will be running microscope identification events in Portland and Corvallis once per month during the winter to help you with this process. But remember, you also don’t have to identify your bees. If you want, you can simply hand your collection in.
4. WHAT YOU MISSED ON FACEBOOK
Back in late August Michael O’Loughlin noticed there was still milkweed blooming in Yamhill County. He saw a heap of Bombus griseocollis on it. Others confirmed, B. griseocollis really love these plants.
Steve Sheehy caught this great image of a Hylaeus female nesting in the nail hole of his screen door. What a find!