Monday, June 16, 2025
Jason Williams, WaBA Volunteer
An encounter with tropical bees
Washington Bee Atlas volunteers survey native bee populations across the state. But for many of our volunteers, insect biodiversity has long been an interest and is not limited to state boundaries! This blog highlights WaBA volunteer Jason Williams’ recent encounter with bees native to Central America.
The bees of Costa Rica
Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica for a week of photographing insects in the rain forest of the Osa Peninsula. Having never been to the tropics before, it was the achievement of a long-time dream. I’ve been volunteering in the Washington Bee Atlas for over a year now, and obsessed with insects for far longer than that, so I’m no stranger to bees. But the bees of Costa Rica still astounded me with their variety, beauty, and fascinating life strategies.Orchid bees
I think the first thing that struck me was the bright metallic colors of the orchid bees (Euglossini). We have some amazing metallic green bees here in Washington (for example, Agapostemon), but in Costa Rica I saw solid metallic green, metallic blue, and even a metallic orange-red bee! Orchid bees are fascinating because of the behavior of the male bees. To attract females, they collect smelly material from a variety of sources (notably
orchids, from where they get their name). Then they mix these together into a blend of scents which apparently are irresistible to female orchid bees. This makes them some of the best pollinators of many different orchid species.Stingless bees
The other type of bee I saw in Costa Rica was a variety of different species of stingless bees (for example, Tetragonisca angustula). One of the places I got to go was a piece of protected land managed by BioSur Foundation Costa Rica. BioSur is the dream child of Jim Cordoba, who I was able to meet and learn from. Jim is passionate about conservation and presented one of the projects he’s been working on, raising colonies of stingless bees. Raising stingless bees is nothing new — indigenous people of South and Central America have been raising them for at least hundreds of years. But in our modern world, basically all the honey we have comes from just one species of bee, the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). Having the opportunity to learn about another social type of bee which produces a very different honey was quite an experience. The box that Jim was raising the colony in was small compared to a honeybee hive, but very busy. Jim explained how the long narrow neck into the colony box was used by the bees to prevent parasitic flies from infesting the colony.
After talking about the project and his attempts to establish colonies of several different species of stingless bees, Jim took the colony down and opened it up, allowing for a view inside the colony. It was a messier place than the perfectly spaced hexagons of a honeybee hive. Stingless bees instead make little baskets of honey that are all chaotically organized. They reminded me a lot of the hives made by our own bumble bees here in the Pacific Northwest. I was lucky enough to be able to try some of the honey, and in addition to being a lot more liquid than the honey I’m used to (stingless bee honey has a much higher water content), it also has a very distinct, hard to describe flavor unlike any honey I’ve had before.Reflecting on my journey, I realized how incredible it was to see and learn about different bees from those I regularly find here in Washington. This experience opened my eyes to the vast diversity of pollinators around the world. It also reminded me that we have over 600 species of native bees right here in Washington, each unique and fascinating in its own way. This experience has reignited my passion for the Washington Bee Atlas project, motivating me to contribute to expanding our knowledge about local bees. As we celebrate Pollinator Month, let's all take a moment to observe the bees around us and recognize how fortunate we are to have them in our lives.