February 2023
Halfway to Spring equinox means time to clean up your gear
Hard to believe, but it won’t be long before bees are flying throughout the state. It’s already time to start marking your calendar with collection opportunities - like the survey at Mariposa Preserve (see below) or the Siskiyou Field School (also see below - heck, just read the whole newlsetter, eh?).
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).
In this issue
Field Notes
Scott Sublette displays one of the first OBA specimens for 2023. No surprise she’s a Bombus vosnesenskii. Scott collected her on the coast near Newport.
No yellow on the sternites, and a bright yellow T4!
Living the dream…Ellen Silva and Lincoln Best curating a pile of Diadasia in the lab. Ellen admits it was difficult explaining to her family why spending a week staring through a microscope was a wonderful time, but it most certainly was. Perhaps you will want to give it a try next year?
2023 Master Melittologist Program Oregon Native Bee Field School
Join us for a three-day field training event at the Siskiyou Field Institute outside of Selma, Oregon. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the unique bee fauna of the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion. The program will include field and lab instruction. This will consist of field instruction during the morning and early afternoon, followed by late afternoon and evening indoor lectures. The event is open to Master Melittologist students who have completed at least one prior field season. Space is limited. The fee for this program is $300 plus lodging (see flyer for details in Calendar or on Canvas or by clicking HERE). Transportation to the location and meals are the responsibility of attendees.
LOCATION: Siskiyou Field Institute - 1241 Illinois River Rd, Selma, OR 97538
DATE/TIME: Participants may arrive at the location Sunday, April 23rd at 4:00pm. Instruction will begin the morning of Monday, April 24th at 9:30 and goes to Wednesday, April 26th at 4:00
OBA announcements
new email for your program questions
Effective immediately, you can use the email Mastermelittologist@oregonstate.edu to contact the OBA staff. It will get routed to the proper person to help you out. (While Jen is out, that’s likely to be Andony, who is a very busy guy. Your patience will be much appreciated.)
Don’t forget that you can always email the advisory panel with your thoughts, concerns, and creative ideas by using the email atlas_advisory@lists.oregonstate.edu which copies the entire panel plus staff with your comments.
2022 location labels no longer sent automatically
We have come to the point in the year when new location label requests have slowed to a trickle, so we’re not automatically sending them for the rest of this season. If you have some last minute location label needs, please contact Leah directly. She’s at oregonbeeatlas@gmail.com.
Catch a Buzz
Catch a Buzz is the first TUESDAY of every month at 7pm. To join, go to https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/97230252365?pwd=TURyTXNMZ1M5SHl2TFQvajBxemtRdz09 | Password: bees
Don’t miss February’s session - it will include a presentation by Tom Ebert on using details of wing venation to help with identification.
Still time to register! Annual OBA Conference: sunday, March 5
As before, the conference will be in Corvallis and includes a great keynote speaker, Sandy DeBano (Oregon State University). Sandy’s research focus on how human activities affect invertebrate communities. She’s right at the intersection of agriculture and conservation and should be a fascinating speaker. Register by clicking HERE and filling out the form - it’s free to OBA members and students! If you’ve already registered, you should have received a confirmation email from Jen just this week (Feb 8); if you didn’t, get in touch with her pronto.
See the recent email from Jen Larsen for all the details.
Mariposa preserve sampling opportunity Details
When: April 22, 2023 with April 23, 2023 as the rain date.
Where: Mariposa Preserve is located on the California border south of Ashland and is within the boundary of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
What: This volunteer opportunity includes sampling within the Cascade-Siskiyou Nat. Monument in collaboration with The Understory Initiative.
Email Lincoln with the subject line “Mariposa Preserve” if you are interested. (Lincoln.best@oregonstate.edu)
Calendar
Watch the calendar for added or changed events - as the winter proceeds, there could be cancellations, and there WILL be more events!
Team news
Columbia Plateau
Open Microscope Day in Pendleton on February 18
Join Master Melittologist instructor Sarah Gardner for an informal open mic session in Northeast Oregon. This session is open to all members. To let Sarah know you are coming please RSVP by clicking HERE.
LOCATION: Blue Mountain Community College, 2411 NW Carden Ave, Pendleton OR. Room: Umatilla Hall Conference Room 100.
DATE/TIME: February 18th, 10am to 4:00pm
PDX
Don’t forget there are some helpful reference sets available for Portland area folks - email Ellen Silva at e.silva@comcast.net to learn more.
Susan Albright invites you to save the date for the Washington County Master Gardeners “Meet the Mason Bees” event: June 3 at PCC Rock Creek. Attend this fun event, or better yet, volunteer and rack up some service points. More info to come, but feel free to contact Susan now if you are interested. They are offering some other cool events, too - check them out by clicking HERE!
Carol will be sharing the joy of native bees with community members via the Lake Oswego Parks & Rec Program. If you know someone who might like to get a primer on the native bees of the Willamette Valley, let them know they can register HERE.
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).
cool stuff we have found
Scott Sublette and Joe Engler followed Linc’s advice to collect on willow and were rewarded by finding several specimens of Perdita salicis sublaeta, willow specialists that we hadn’t found in the state since the 1950’s. Given the size of Perdita, it’s no wonder they haven’t been seen for awhile. Maybe they should be renamed Perdita salicis sublette? Female and male faces are below, not to scale.
miscellany (not to be missed)
Catch a Buzz Summary (By Martha Richards)
New Species: Have you ever felt a pang of guilt when you turned in your bee collection and wondered if Linc really wanted to see another bazillion Ceratina? Science has prevailed, and the piles of Ceratina have yielded a new discovery -- another species new to Oregon! So keep those Ceratina coming. Linc loves to see them.
Calendar: The new bee season is underway; stay up-to-date by checking the calendar on Canvas. Microscope trainings, field events, and everything else happening everywhere -- not just in Oregon.
Conference: The annual OBA conference is March 5th, following on the heels of Beevent on March 4th. Be sure to sign up if you plan to attend in person. There is also a virtual option, which keeps getting better each year.
Jen's Back!!! Jen is back with a brand-new knee! [insert joke about bee's knees here -- I'm sure she hasn't heard one of those yet]. If you emailed her while she was out and you haven't heard back, please email her again. If she tried to go back through all of those emails that she received while she was out, she'd never get anything done.
Permits: Andony is working on renewing the Oregon State Parks permit and also renewing/expanding the USFS permit to include Washington and Idaho. They're all very close to completion, but please don't collect on OSP or USFS lands until we have the permits in hand.
Washington State has a taxonomist! Thanks to Washington OBA members' hard work, Washington State has hired Karen Wright, a taxonomist from Texas and a Eucera expert. Great news for Washington, and also a great opportunity for future collaboration with Linc.
License plate is a hit — Marek Stanton's fabulous pollinator license plate shattered popularity records and was a major hit right from the start. Order yours today. Way to go, Marek, you're the bee's knees! (And big kudos to Sarah Kincaid who shepherded this project to the conclusion of the successful pre-sale.)
Thanks, Volunteer Taxonomists! Linc expressed his appreciation for a number of OBA volunteers who helped identify thousands of bees. So many names and so many genera — Halictus alone was handled by Jeanie Taylor, Pat Wheeler and Ellen Silva. Jeanie also took care of Agapostemon and Ellen Watrous found some a couple of new species for the state while curating the male Eucera.
Survey: Watch your email inbox for a survey: the Advisory Committee wants your input. Please fill it out, and please be honest.
Emails: Andony has been sending out emails; if you haven't received anything from him recently, please let him know.
Call for Catch a Buzz Presenters: Do you have something you want to share on CAB? Andony is looking for presenters for future meetings.
Thomas Ebert: Bee Wing Morphometrics
Tom brought us tonight's special presentation. He used a computer program to analyze variations in the morphology of the third submarginal cell from a variety of Apis populations in Turkey. His preliminary results suggested that there were different population groups, but the results also left him wondering if the wing morphology variability is indicative of a population group or if it is a result of stress, environmental conditions, timing, or other factors. This led to a rather interesting discussion of wing veination and issues that impact it.
On the lighter side, he decried the notorious couplet 12, which asks whether there are one or two subantennal sutures. How many of us have ever seen that second subantennal suture, after all?
We are now in license plate pre-production! Previously, we were in pre-pre-production. But now that over 3,000 vouchers have been sold (in record time!), the DMV will gear up to produce the actual plates. Folks can sign up HERE to get a notice when production starts. Those who have bought vouchers will receive them in the mail at that time, no need to sign up for a reminder.
Bargain bumble bees!
75% off sale! Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide on sale for just $6.24
Princeton University Press is having one of its 75% off select titles with promo code sales, and it includes Bumblebees of North America by Williams et al. 2014 for just $6.24+shipping (Promo code: FEB75, for orders shipping within the US, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia). Act fast – the sale is only on until Feb 14. Click HERE to order. (Ed. note: I’m ordering 2 of them so I can tear them up and make species cheat sheets. It’s cheaper than paying for color printing of the pdf!)
Another wildflower locator website
If iNaturalist isn’t enough for you, check out Adam Schneider’s baby, Pacific Northwest Wildflowers, a pretty slick guide to wildflower records and current bloom status for Washington, Oregon, and northern California. You do have to spell your flower’s scientific name properly. Ask me how I know. Find it HERE.