Washington Bee Atlas nets 100 volunteers in less than a year
Pollinator enthusiasts have been all a-buzz about one of WSDA’s newest projects: the Washington Bee Atlas. Native bee lovers from around the state are swarming to sign up to help with the program’s ambitious endeavor: collecting and mapping all of Washington’s native bee species. In every county.
Why an atlas?
“It has never been done before – not on a wholistic, statewide scale,” Karen Wright, WSDA’s new Bee Taxonomist and program coordinator, said. “We have some idea of what bees we have in certain areas, but there are entire counties where we have very few records of any bees at all. Without this information, we can’t truly say what bees we have or whether they are thriving or struggling in our state.”
Wright says there are estimated to be around 600 bees in the state. Because most bees cannot be identified by a photo or in the field, the bees are netted and collected for identification in the lab. In addition to collecting bees, the program will also record the flowers the bees are visiting to better understand what plants the bees are using as food sources.
To bee or not to bee…a volunteer
Washington has the fastest growing bee atlas volunteer program in the country. Write was hired in February 2023 to run the program, but didn't really begin recruiting volunteers until last summer.
Those who volunteer have a passion for native bees or are interested in learning more about them. The entire program is modeled after Oregon’s native bee project, which itself is modeled on the 50-year international success of Master Gardener programs.
And these volunteers are committed. They take an online Master Melittologist (the study of bees) course through Oregon State University, then are trained on field collection and pinning techniques locally. Volunteers also can also learn how to identify native bees to genus if they are interested. At the end of the season, the specimens are sent to WSDA for identification and most will eventually end up in the collection at Washington State University.
A favorite of many volunteers, the program periodically holds in-field collection and training events. This allows volunteers to come together; help others learn how to collect, record, and pin bees; and share their passion and cool bee finds with one another.
New bee find and future data
Despite just finishing the first collection season as a program and still not having finished identifying the bees collected in 2023, Wright has already found a new-to-Washington bee among the submissions: Melissodes nigracauda. This is the first confirmed specimen in the state*, with the next closest detection being in California. The program anticipates more first-in-state and first-in-county specimens as the volunteer work continues each season.
All the data collected as part of this project will eventually become publicly available so anyone in the state will be able to look up and find what species of bees have been found in their area. It will take several months and possibly even years to make the data available as every specimen collected will need to be examined under a microscope to identify it and some may still be difficult to identify.
Could this hurt native bee populations?
Bee lovers sometimes ask if this project could potentially harm bees that may already struggling. The short answer is no. First, the collection method volunteers use for this project is netting by hand – not a baited trap, for example. Because of this, only a few bees at any given time will be collected. Also, collecting bees happens during a very limited window – usually a few hours in an area. This means that there will be plenty of bees left when volunteers end their brief collection trips.
The information obtained from collecting bees from the wild will have an immeasurable impact on our understanding of Washington’s native bees with very minimal impact on our native bee populations.
However, capturing and pinning bees isn’t for everyone. If collecting bees is not your cup of tea but you are still interested in learning about native bees, consider checking out the Washington Native Bee Society, which focuses on educating others about native bees.
No doubt about it – the Washington Bee Atlas and the volunteers undertaking this work are the bees’ knees.
* There is a possible Washington sighting of this bee on iNaturalist, but it cannot be confirmed without the specimen.
Photo captions:
1. Washington Bee Atlas volunteers spot rare Western bumble bees during a volunteer field training day.
2. Native bee on gumweed flower.
3. A volunteer learns to use a microscope to identify bees to genus.
4. Karen Wright (Washington State Department of Agriculture) meets with Lincoln Best (Oregon State University) to examine and identify bees for a reference collection for the Washington Bee Atlas.
5. A volunteer examines pinned bees collected in Washington.
6. Washignton Bee Atlas volunteers excited to learn how to collect bees.