Master Melittologist Roundup - June 2024
Happy Pollinator Week/Month
This is the month that everyone wants to talk about and learn about bees, not just us! So it’s our favorite month of the year! A few of the events we put on are in the Round Up, please send pictures of your events so we can show what’s going on all around the state.
In this issue
Field Notes
First Collection event in National Wildlife Refuges
Canvasing the National Wildlife Refuges in the Pacific Northwest is underway! The first refuges were Malheur and Hart Mountain in southern Oregon, followed by Ridgefield June 21 north of Vancouver, Washington. August Jackson is busily putting together collection events and protocol for collecting on the refuges.
Read his article about this project in the Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge newsletter here:
Steens Mountain Trip May 2024
by RB Buschman
August Jackson and Ellen Silva led a dozen melittologists on a two-day camping/bee hunting trip to South Steens Mountain, based in the campground there. We arrived on Friday evening or Saturday for hunting in and around the campground and up the road from there. Lomatia, Camas and Deathcamas were the predominant bee flowers present. We also had an adorable Dwarf Monkey Flower (Diplacus) in the gravel path to the outhouse and in a rock garden nearby. Many Andrena were collected. Melecta and B. morrisoni were documented, as well.
Sunday, we drove south to Fields for gas (and milkshakes). From there we formed a leap-frogging caravan, hopping from flower patch to flower patch as we worked our way east and north along the Alvord Desert. There were not a lot of flowers at this time, but this roadside has uncountable quantities of sunflowers covered with bees in summer. A few bees were captured off Buckwheat, Astragalus and Fiddleneck. Osmia, Andrena, and Anthophora were common. Later we came upon an area with alkali soil. Hopeful of finding Nomia, we scoured the area. However, with little potential food sources there on this date it wasn’t surprising we found none.
Continuing our Steens Mountain circumnavigation, we looped into Malheur’s headquarters for the night where we were allowed to camp at the staff and volunteer facilities, which included RV and tent sites as well as toilets, showers and a kitchen with table and chairs (facilitating indoor bee pinning). In the predawn we were greeted with an impressively loud and diverse birdsong chorus. Sleeping through it was unlikely but since most of the group are birders or bird-curious anyway, it was mostly appreciated. A few stops in the refuge where there were flowers on dry (rare) ground yielded the usual spring bee suspects and a single Dioxys on a small purple/white Phacelia linearis. We collected off mustard and patches of willow (that were covered with scary hordes of midges – they look and sound a lot like mosquitos). Even though we were not in prime migratory bird season there were many beautiful non-Willamette Valley birds to enjoy.
Late afternoon brought us to Frenchglen for gas and snacks. Then after a short section of pavement we were onto our long stretch of dusty gravel to Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge Headquarters where we were offered accommodation in the bunkhouses for staff and volunteers. Beds with mattresses, flush toilets, showers and full kitchens were provided free of charge. The next morning, we were accompanied by all 5 of the current staff members and their trucks for our bee safari. They wanted to join us in the hunt, so. we offered up spare nets and they jumped in, all learning to catch and jar bees as well as gaining familiarity with iNaturalist. It was fun for everyone, and the staff will be seeing the refuge in a different way (Hart is all about the 3 index animals: antelope, bighorn and sage grouse. No invertebrates or flowers in the brochure). Groundsel, Balsamroot and Currant produced the most bees. However, the most amazing gathering of B. huntii queens on blooming (non-native) pea-family trees at the headquarters was a star attraction.
RB Buschman lives in Portland. This is his 4th bee season with the OBA. He humbly didn’t mention that the single rare Dyoxis that was caught was in his net . Photos from various participants.
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge
photo and text by August Jackson
Anne Bulger with the Washington Bee Atlas took the initiative to organize a field/training event at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, Washington on Friday, June 21st. Five Master Melittologists spent several hours walking the trails at the refuge and visiting a few different habitat types. It's getting later in the season for native flora in our low elevation valleys, so much of the sampling was off of invasive blackberries and thistles. However, we did locate patches of native roses and ocean spray that offered good collecting opportunities. Between all of us, at least 15 bee species were collected. Anne has organized additional events at Ridgefield on July 7th and July 20th. Register here!
OUTREACH EVENTS
Sunriver Wildflower & Pollinator Festival
The OBA table at Saturday’s 2024 Sunriver Wildflower & Pollinator Festival was popular with festival attendees. The annual festival is held at the Sunriver Nature Center in collaboration with the High Desert Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon. OBA members staffing the table included Pete and Gretchen Pederson, Jerry Freilich, Gail Kimbell, Dave Schiappa, Lisa Cowan, Toni Stephen, Heike Williams and Debbie Spresser. Pete and Jerry wowed visitors with magnified images of bees, and Toni and Gretchen led very popular “bee walks” on the Nature Center grounds. Children especially liked the insect display boxes showing bees, bee-look-alikes and other non-bee pollinators. Over 200 people visited the table with at least 50 people going on the bee walks.
Incredible Edibles
The Portland team was back at the Incredible Edibles plant sale, a fundraiser for the Multnomah County Master Gardeners. There was a constant flow of visitors thru most of the day. It was fun for us to have 3 newbies come help out and practice their trail talk skills in the booth! (Photos by Susan Albright or Carol Yamada.)
PCC Educational Garden Open Garden Event
Formerly know as Meet The Masons, the PCC ED Garden now has an Open Garden event in June that gives folks a chance to learn about bees, moths, butterflies, plants, worms and even miniature horses! This year we had a fun booth where Mark Gorman did the Sleepy Bee exhibit, having sleepy drones from his hives that he would bring out and let walk around on people’s hands. Wildly popular! Marek Stanton has an illustrated version of the Bee Wasp Fly? material and was able to pinpoint in large scale the differences to visitors. And the popular Catch And Release was back with Martha Richards on Small Net. If you would like to participate in future years, contact Susan Albright!
Mark Gorman, Marek Stanton & Kalika Stanton
OBA ANNOUNCEMENTS
Check the weekly emails from Jen Larsen to stay up to date on OBA announcements.
Lab Drop-Ins Replace Weekend Scope Days: Don’t forget that you can come to the lab to work on ID’ing your collection. We can take up to two people at a time in the Corvallis pollinator lab and you will be able to work directly with our collection. This will be of particular benefit to anyone setting off on the journey to the Journey level. To set up an appointment to spend the day in Corvallis, contact our taxonomist, Lincoln Best via email: lincoln.best@oregonstate.edu
Out-of-state Melittologists Welcome to Collect in Washington - IF you abide by these guidelines
If you are an Oregonian like me, your mouth kinda waters when you hear descriptions of the bee-collecting forays that the Washington Bee Atlas folks go on. Did you know that you can go along despite Washington State’s otherwise strict restrictions on collecting? There are several ways to collect Washington bees:
As an OBA member, you can sign up for WA field collecting events through the Canvas RSVP link. For WaBA events, the link takes you to the Washington Bee Atlas website to finish your registration. As a participant in an official WaBA event, you are good to collect.
If you have a Washington buddy who is a registered member of the WaBA, you can go on a private collecting trip with them – but stick together, you are only covered if you are traveling with a WaBA member who is on the Washington permit! And only collect where you have permission to collect.
You can join the Washington Bee Atlas and get added to the permit. In that case, you can head out and collect on your own, again on lands where WaBA has permission to collect.
In all cases, use the Washington Bee Atlas project on iNaturalist for your records. Keep your WA bees separate so you can turn them to the WBA at the end of the season.
BEE SCHOOL 2024
Learn how to identify your bees, how to use multiple reference resources and online materials to get your bees from ‘it’s a bee….I think.’ to the correct genera (intermediate level) or species (advanced level). A great week where you will definitely up your microscope skills and expand your taxonomic vocabulary.
Plus make friends that are as bee crazy as you are! Everyone needs at least 3 bee buddies, besides Linc, that you can text photos to in the middle of the night for identification help.
Bee School at OSU
August 12th - 16th, 2024: Intermediate course; August 19th - 23rd, 2024: Advanced course
The intermediate course is almost full – don’t delay registering!
More info here and registration link here
Catch a Buzz
Catch a Buzz is the FIRST Tuesday of the month at 7pm. It can be harder to remember to join in when it’s light outside and bees are buzzing around distracting us. Consider setting a reminder to go to https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/97230252365?pwd=TURyTXNMZ1M5SHl2TFQvajBxemtRdz09 | Password: bees
Ellen climbing hills outside of Burns, before there was a rattlesnake sighting.
Thank You Ellen!
If you’ve been around a, you’ll know that Ellen has won every possible award that the Bee Atlas has except one highly coveted award - Most Bees Award. There’s only one way to get that award of course: catch the most bees. So after several years of informative and amusing editorial work on the Round Up, Ms. Silva has resigned as Editor and gone into the field. Every field she can find! Thank you Ellen for all you’ve done for Atlas Communication. Best of Luck!
If you have any feedback or submission for Field Notes or if you want to post notes for your regional team or be a roving reporter, contact Carol Yamada (carolyamada@rocketmail.com).
kudos and thanks are always in season
Kudos to Susan Albright for sharing her 'To Bee or not to Bee' activity for us to use at the Abbey Road Farm Bee Friendly Wine event. It's a wonderful activity w/hand out that Susan created, and everyone liked. So appreciated as the weather prevented an outdoor activity. submitted by Janice Buschman
And Holly Stephens wrote in her kudos - Heather Poehler is a great collection event guide. She made time for everybody's skill levels, has a good working knowledge of anatomy and species names, and was a great resource for everybody on the trip to Kings Estate Winery.
Nominate your personal hero for going above and beyond and after approval by the Advisory Committee, a handwritten note will be sent thanking your special person. All it takes to get the process started is to fill out the nomination form found by clicking HERE.
Team news
Team DISCORD reprint from last month
Michele Sims is trying to get a Discord group going to discuss native bees. Please note that this isn’t an official OBA effort - this is Michele Sim’s trying to help her bee nerd friends, aka you and me.
From Michele:
There is now a Native Bee Discord server for anyone who wants to join. This is a place to post questions, photos, resources that you’ve discovered, cute pet photos and whatever else the kids do on the interwebs these days. There is also a voice chat, so we can nerd out in real time.
Discord is a communication platform used by millions of people around the world. It started out as a social gamer platform, but has come a long way from Ye Misty Times of Olde (2015) and is no longer just a place to yuk it up with your friends whilst killing zombie hordes. By joining a server, you have access all of the tools without ads, spam or other annoying features of social media. Basic access is free.
OBA members are scattered across the state, so it can be hard to collaborate. I’m hoping that creating this server will help. Have a bee anatomy question? Post a photo and ask the group. Need some help with a key? Maybe someone can hop on voice chat and work through it with you. Find a useful paper that unerringly IDs your Melanosmia to species? Post that link. (Please)
How is this different from Zoom, which we all know and love? Zoom is optimized for meetings. Discord is optimized for communication. Yes, you have to download the app and learn how to use it, but OBA is all about new skills, right? It works on iOS, macOS, Windows, Android, Linux, and in browser. There is an extensive, well-written help section on their website. Or just ask some teenaged person (who is wasting their youth playing video games) to help you set it up.
· What you need to do: Download Discord and set up an account
· Email Michele Sims (sims.mw@gmail.com) and request an invite. You can also send a friend request or direct message through the app.
· You will get an invite code from Batlady (That’s me, Michele!)
· Read the instructions in the invite and join us
Calendar
There are plenty of collecting and field training events remaining in the calendar. Sign up for one today!
What bloomed.
Scott Sublette shows his net after netting in a weedy patch
Foxtail is usually featured on websites that sell RoundUp and other herbicides. It’s one of the grasses invading our natural areas. Be sure to clean your boots and pants when entering a natural site!
MISCELLANY Not to be missed
Accommodations Wanted, Willing to be Flexible!
by David Kollen
The Black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, is known for a certain amount of flexibility when choosing nest sites. This bee nests both underground and above ground. Above ground it is known to use bird houses and insulation in buildings if there is an available entrance.1,
In addition to nest site flexibility, it is one of the earliest species to begin nesting and have males out on the landscape, where they patrol circuits looking for females.1
A friend of mine up the coast in Port Orford sent these pictures, including one showing a night time infrared shot. You can clearly see where the nest structure and bees are located.
1. Bumble Bees of North America, Williams, Thorp, Richardson & Colla
David Kollen OBA member in Salem, often does outreach by writing articles for the magazine like the Mahonia, a publication of The Federated Garden Clubs of Oregon. This article appeared this spring to answer that common question - why are honeybees in my birdhouse?
Instructions for Donating to the oba
Would you like to help ensure the future of the OBA with a donation to the endowment fund? Start by clicking HERE and in the “I want to give to…” field, start typing “Jerry & Judith Paul Native Pollinator Endowment” and it should pop right up. Be sure to select this exact destination for your funds to get it in the right place. And thank you in advance!