March 2024
Welcome New Melittologists!
The Roundup Newsletter is one of the various ways that we communicate with each other. It comes out sort-of, kind-of quarterly. We rely on member submission to make it fun, so we hope that you’ll find interesting things here and then be inspired to contribute info about your own outreach events, bee adventures and research. Or email us with story ideas you’d like to see!
There’s a lot of ways to be connected in the Atlas group. Catch A Buzz is always informative and at the end there’s time to ask any sort of questions you may have (1st Tuesday of the month, 7PM) We have a Facebook page and an Instagram account, so if you’re social you can connect there. Of course, Jen sends out great weekly updates. The Canvas pages are always changing with outreach opportunities and collection events. And in the Portal, be sure to ‘Opt In’ to share your contact info in your settings so people who live nearby can find you and maybe arrange to go out netting together. Our membership is also a helpful source of insider knowledge. if you’re collecting in a new location, someone nearby may be able to give tips on where to find the best flowers and what’s blooming.
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 Ellen Silva (e.silva@comcast.net). or Carol Yamada (carolyamada@rocketmail.com) Photo credits are at end of newsletter.
In this issue
Field Notes
Some photos from our Annual Conference.
Bee Camp, AKA Siskiyou Field Institute coming in June - watch for the announcement on Canvas
The OBA Bee School at the Siskiyou Field Institute takes place June 3-7 this year, a couple of weeks later than last year, so likely a whole lot less snow and a whole lot more bloom. Will that mean a whole lot more bees? Better come along and find out. Here’s what to expect.
Crawl out of bed and get your beverage of choice going, then sit out on the picnic table and watch the wild turkeys parade across the field.
Chat up the gang from Fish and Wildlife, then pretend you know more than you do when talking to grad students from OSU and OU and probably a couple of other universities, too.
Ogle the flowers in Linc’s morning presentation and jot down your checklist of all the bees you ARE going to net.
Spend the late morning and afternoon in the field, delighting in pitcher plants or rushing rivers or tiny Osmia on even tinier popcorn flowers.
Come back to the institute for more information and to pin your bees in a large and comfortable classroom with scopes provided.
Maybe join in the revelry at the final night campfire or maybe fall asleep early dreaming about bees.
I’m pretty sure there’s a turkey out there…somewhere.
There are several sleeping options. For those who need it, a few rooms are available in the lodge. For the others, you can choose to share a large yurt or pitch your own tent anywhere on the grounds that suits you. Probably a good idea to avoid overhanging limbs if it’s windy at all.
Cooking is nothing like car-camping cooking - you have full access to a kitchen with pots and pans and REFRIGERATORS! A small grocery is a few miles up the road, but while you are out looking for bees you can stop at nearby towns, too.
Collecting is guided, in as much as we all head for roughly the same spots and maybe even plan to rotate among them if parking is tight. Car-pooling is de rigueur when we head out to the fields, so if you manage to get a ride to the institute but don’t have a vehicle on site, no worries. Someone will welcome you.
Interested in joining the fun this year? Watch for the flyer to be posted on Canvas and RSVP! Note that this event does have an associated fee which will be announced when the event flyer goes live.
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.
It’s Outreach Season
Internet meme - but would love to see this presentation!
WANTED: People in Oregon, Washington and BC that care about native bees, have access to fine handouts about bees, flowers, forests and gardens, and a willingness to share their advanced bee knowledge with the public. Having an OBA T-shirt is a bonus. If this sounds like you, apply below.
There’s a wide variety of opportunities there, but of course you can make your own contacts and events in your neighborhood. Farmer’s markets, local Bee City and Pollinator celebrations, and street fairs are always looking out for bee people,
Check out the peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed Powerpoint presentations created by other members that you can use whole or copy slides from, plus other useful tools.
Did someone ask about wineries? Special OBA Vineyard events on Canvas are at several wineries. Check to see if you can attend one or more of those. Andony is there, you get to catch bees with him, and there may even be some refreshments. Everything fun!
Catch a Buzz
Catch a Buzz is the FIRST Tuesday of the month at 7pm. The April topic hasn’t been announced yet, so be sure to tune in and be among the first to find out what it is! To join, go to https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/97230252365?pwd=TURyTXNMZ1M5SHl2TFQvajBxemtRdz09 | Password: bees
kudos and thanks are always in season
Joe Engler and Mark Gorman received kudos from fellow members this month for sharing their bee ID expertise at the PCC-Rock Creek scope days offered by the Portland area team. They are both great coaches and so generous with their skills.
Mark also received a separate note of thanks for making a visit to Scott Sublette’s cousin, who was concerned about a swarm of bees. Mark lives closer to the cousin than Scott and was able to reassure them that the cluster of male Osmia was nothing to worry about.
And talking about swarms – a whole swarm of kudos have flown in to thank Jen Larsen for going above and beyond in so many areas: question-answering, supply-gathering, website re-configuring (especially this!), quick-question-responding, nitty-gritty-working, communication-improving, kindness-projecting, open-minded idea-juggling, and overall friendliness. As one of the many nominators said, “What would we do without her?”
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
Central Oregon
The Oregon Bee Atlas team in central Oregon was honored to spend some time with Andony before his talk at the Tower Theater in Bend on January 24. The group did a "speed dating" style of tabling speaking to a ton of people in the hour before Andony's talk. Many people were excited to learn that the pollinator license plate is available and we gave out bee plate cards to others who did not know about it. Of course, lots of people were amazed at the many different native bees there are. Jerry set up his microscope, on loan from the High Desert Museum, to show folks how to tell bees from flies from wasps. That is always a crowd pleaser.
In photo with Andony are Jerry, to his right, and Debbie, Michele, Toni and Heike to his left.
OBA must be doing a great job of educating the public because it seems we are encountering more folks who are aware of native bees than in 2019 when we first started talking to people about the native bees in Oregon. (Thanks to Toni Stephan for submitting this news item.)
Team DISCORD
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
Please send us news to share from your neck of the woods to publish in the Roundup. Send it to Ellen Silva (e.silva@comcast.net) or Carol (carolyamada@rocketmail.com).
Calendar
Boy, howdy, the calendar is getting full already! Be sure and browse through the coming months to discover your bee adventures for the year. Field school, a 2-day Steens/Alvord camping/collecting trip, lots of one day collection events… and don’t forget we kick the year off on March 3rd with our annual conference.
What’s blooming
Claytonia has flower stems that come out from the a center section in the leaf.
Claytonia, known as miner’s lettuce or Candy Flower attracts a famous Oregon specialist bee - the Grumpy Bee! Common across the state. photos by Noelle Landauer
MISCELLANY Not to be missed
If it doesn’t sting, does it taste as sweet? We’re not sure, but you can learn a lot of other stuff about honey from stingless bees and the people who are trying to help them in this article from the New York Times (subscription may be needed, apologies for that). Thanks to Pam Hayes for sending this along!
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!