April 2023
spring is coming. really.
The cold and rain have seemed endless, but the season is about to turn. In the meantime, lots of OBA members are keeping busy holding wonderful outreach events. Those who are waiting to collect bees will have their turn soon. Get those nets cleaned and collection vials prepped, it’s going to be a good year!
If you have any feedback or submission for Field Notes or if you want to post notes for your regional team contact Ellen Silva (e.silva@comcast.net). Thanks to Carol Yamada for the lovely Andrena image in our header photo as well as the outreach photos and to Lincoln Best for the parataxonomy photojournalism. Other photos/screenshots from your editor.
In this issue
Field Notes
it’s always outreach and taxonomy season
Lori Humphrey working in the bee lab curating the Microandrena subgenus of our impressive Andrena collection.
RB and Jan Buschman, along with Carol Yamada, shared OBA excitement at the City of Tualatin Arbor Day event. Friends of Trees PDX and over 100 volunteers planted native plants and a pollinator garden as part of the festivities!
A chilly weekend but a warm welcome from wine club members at Soter Vineyards as volunteers and Andony introduced the OBA and the Bee-Friendly Vineyard program to Soter Wine Club members.
Flowers are starting to open
iNaturalist records for the OBA show a trickle of blooms down the Willamette Valley - many are dandelions and English Daisies, but beggers can’t be choosers.
The map from Pacific Northwest Wildflowers is showing a few more blossoms opening up (besides those in Scott Sublette’s back yard!).
But speaking of Scott S’s backyard, there is a whole heap of Columbia desert parsley blooming in The Dalles area. Here Mike Bogar scouts for the few bees that braved a cool, grey day at Four Sisters Preserve, a Columbia Land Trust property.
OBA announcements
Catch a Buzz
Catch a Buzz is the FIRST Tuesday of the month at 7pm. To join, go to https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/97230252365?pwd=TURyTXNMZ1M5SHl2TFQvajBxemtRdz09 | Password: bees
service point opportunities
Watch your email for announcements from Jen for a wide variety of service point opportunities throughout the state. Please contact the event organizer directly as Jen doesn’t have capacity to manage who is volunteering where. If you are new to the OBA and hesitant to volunteer on your own, feel free to contact the organizer and tell them that you are willing to help IF a more experienced member also signs up.
serve the atlas by helping us all build our rare bee collection
Linc would love it if someone (or two or three) folks would be willing to sort through and organize a data set that lists where and when and from what flower some of our more uncommon bees have been collected. This would give us all a tool to plan collection trips targeting filling out the collection of these special bees. Linc imagines something of a calendar, but format would be up to the abilities and creativity of the volunteer. Contact Linc directly if you are interested in helping.
kudos to those who deserve them
Has something gone better in your OBA journey because of the action of an unsung hero? Maybe you’ve gotten to go on more collecting trips because another volunteer took it upon themselves to organize events in your area or maybe a staff member helped you untangle a snarl of passwords or another member helped you organize materials for an Outreach event. You said thanks but felt it needed to be said louder. Now you can make that happen! 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.
Calendar
There are loads of collecting opportunities on the calendar already, plus Bee School in August and campouts, too. Plan your collecting season now!
Team news
If you want to include your own team’s news in the Roundup, send it to Ellen Silva (e.silva@comcast.net) the Monday before we publish (typically, the 1st and 3d Monday of the month).
PDX
The PDX team held a tasty meetup at the food truck pod near John’s Marketplace on Powell Blvd. Next meetup will be in the field!
Columbia Desert Parsley (Lomatium columbianum) - S.Sublette
What’s blooming
Combing through iNaturalist over the last week, we note our volunteers have come across some great plants on the hit list or have found bees in areas of special interest. You should be able to revisit these sites. Remember to check the permit requirements for these sites in Canvas.
Willows (Genus Salix)- Leana Dickerson- Jefferson, OR (April 3)
Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis)- larathon59 - Portland, OR (April 1)
Bigseed Biscuitroot (Lomatium macrocarpum) - Ellen Silva - The Dalles, OR (March 15)
Please remember to include images of the flower, the leaves, and the entire plant with all your submissions. Only include images of the plants you collect on, not bees.
miscellany (not to be missed)
Catch A Buzz: Summary submitted by the brilliant Martha Richards
Welcome back, seasoned melittologists, and welcome aboard, new folks!
Check the Calendar on Canvas! This part of the summary practically writes itself: remember to check the calendar on Canvas for upcoming events. Most of the major events for 2023 are on the calendar now, but new ones pop up periodically so it's worth checking it from time to time.
April highlights:
Out-of-state mentor session April 19th
Boise, Idaho collection event with Amy Dolan on April 22nd
Mariposa Preserve (near Ashland, OR) collection event on April 22nd
A note about this event: the Mariposa Preserve monitoring is funded by a Bureau of Land Management research grant and is scheduled to include multiple collection events. That said, the timing of the release of funds is uncertain, so future collection events will be scheduled when those funds become available.
Bee Camp at the Siskiyou Field Institute April 23-26
This event includes microscope time; they are currently about 3 microscopes short of a full lab so if you have a portable scope and are planning to attend, please contact Linc.
Outreach
New and improved seed mixes are now available upon request, along with all of the other outreach materials like information cards and pamphlets. Use the request form -- in Canvas, look at the FAQ page and scroll down to Outreach Materials.
Outreach requests (aka service point opportunities) are coming in fastly and furiously with Earth Day quickly approaching. If you're interested but tentative about volunteering for any event, do reply to the event coordinator with your interest, but request that they let you know if someone else is planning to go -- chances are good that there will be someone else to be your outreach pal. Also, a small group of OBA volunteers is working on making outreach materials and resources more easily available, so hope is near.
FAQs: We've all wondered the very same things. How do I get more boxes or pins? Who do I contact for help with this that or the other thing? Do we have a permit to collect on this site? Is there a taxonomic key for this adorable bee? The FAQ page on Canvas (go to the course's home screen, admire the photo of those fearless OBA members, and the scroll down a bit to the big buttons listing various topics) has answers to these most...um...frequently asked questions.
The Portal: Apparently some people are living in areas where it's warm enough that bees are flying around. Not all of us are, and those of us still getting hail in our hair on an all-too-frequent basis aren't necessarily bitter about it (okay maybe we are a little bitter), but yes, some people have been catching bees lately. Those of you early birds should know that the regular process for doing the iNaturalist entry, confirming your data, and updating the number of bees is totally on track, and will result in getting location labels in the mail as it has happened in years past. Leah, our wonderful label czar, is currently clearing the portal of 2022 data and prepping it for 2023, but she's also paying attention to incoming reports so it's open season on our native bees. (Can I just mention here that the early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese?)
iNaturalist: The iNaturalist app is how we collect the data that are the basis of the OBA. Linc reviewed the process for using this app, but remember that there is a module on using the app and entering your data. If you're new, you'll certainly be viewing the module, and if you've been collecting for a season or two, it couldn't hurt to rewatch the module. TL;DR: be sure to take plenty of photos of the plant. Take a close-up or two of the flowers, including the underside of the blooms. Document the leaves, branches, branching patterns, and overall plant habit. More photos = more better, especially if you have any doubt about the plant identification.
Rare Bees: In the annals of the OBA, there are plenty of bee species that are poorly represented, and Linc would very much like our help finding more specimens. That said, while he has the information about such species and their plant hosts, he lacks the time to compile this information into a user-friendly format to guide us to where, when, and what to look for. If you are interested in helping to turn his mess of data into a bee-hunter's treasure map, please contact Linc.
The Genus Andrena
Spring is here according to the calendar, and we hope, it will arrive sometime soon according to the weather. And spring means Andrenas! These mostly ground-nesting bees overwinter as adults, so as soon as things get warm enough, they're out and about. Many are plant specialists -- Linc noted that there are a number of coastal, Manzanita-loving Andrenas that are very lightly documented (hmmm...a hint for the rare bee hunters). Andrenas in Oregon are particularly diverse, as there are dozens of subgenera and over one hundred species here. Along with this diversity comes a treasure trove of documentation. In the taxonomic literature that's available to OBA members (Canvas --> FAQs --> Literature, taxonomic keys), Linc has created a subfolder for Andrenas. It's great bedtime reading, and also a great way to impress the person sitting next to you on your next flight. He noted that there's a standard template for each species account so once you are familiar with the format, it's easy to flip through quickly and glean the relevant information.
Weather: 2023 is a heavy snow pack year, and we're looking at an extended spring. Wildflower blooms are likely to be extra-special this year, and there will likely be an lots of opportunities to find "early" bees in the coming months. There are multiple resources for finding out what the snowpack/bloom time looks like, including Snotel which will give you the USDA interactive map of snowpack levels (hint, not many bees fly when the ground is covered in snow) and the Northwest Wildflowers site.
In your excitement to net a bee, don’t bring home a nasty, itchy rash. Check out this extension publication for aid in identifying poison oak and treating its aftermath. It is NOT a good idea to collect bees off poison oak. They can carry the active ingredient, urushiol, on their bodies, putting the pinner and taxonomist at risk.
Donating to the oba is always in season
Do you really want another tie (can’t really wear them in the field when you’re collecting bees) or flower arrangement (unless it comes with bees, I’m not interested)? Why not suggest to your kids/nieces/nephews that instead of Mother’s/Father’s day gifts or for spring birthdays, they give a donation in your name to the Jerry and Judity Paul Native Pollinator Endowment and help fund the future of the OBA!
Share these instructions: 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!
Check out this nice piece on the latest OBA collaboration for native bee health - Bee-Friendly Vineyards!
Send your OBA news to the Round-Up editor, Ellen Silva at e.silva@comcast.net!
Good advice from great melittologists
Becoming a Master Melittologist is a wonderful way to appreciate, honor and learn about nature, to slow down and see the intricacies and interconnections of the ecosystems.