carolyninthefield-blog

[carolyninthefield-blog]

The plight of the Albertan Bumble bees!

I've been lucky to have conversations with people that I run into at the areas that I work at. Generally, it sounds like people are aware of the decline in bee populations ("save the bees!!!), but there is some fuzziness when it comes to information on honey bees, bumble bees / other native bees, etc.!

No worries though!! Some misconceptions I'd like to clear up are:

🐝 1- Honey bees are non native to Alberta whereas bumble bees ARE native to Alberta (along with other native bees such as sweat bees, mason bees, leaf mining bees, etc.)

🐝 2- Bumble bees do not produce honey the way that honey bees do, but the small amount that is produced tastes heavenly

🌼 3 - There are lots of studies that show that the presence and popularity of urban honeybee hives can have a negative impact on bumble bee populations. Things such as being outcompeted for food sources (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12263/full), increased rate of diseases, etc. (http://sciencenordic.com/wild-bees-lose-fight-flowers)

🏆 4 - Our native pollinators are more adapted to our climate, and therefore, BETTER pollinators for where we live <3 ___ ♥ Some of our crops even rely on bumble bee pollination (such as tomato crops) and a recent study even shows that bumble bees make our flowers smell BETTER and grow BIGGER (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/bumblebees-make-flowers-grow-…/)

🐝🐝 5 - Plus, native pollinators are free LOL

To learn more from someone with more experience, better humour LOL, and more credited knowledge than me, please like this page here: https://www.facebook.com/Our-friend-the-Bumble-bee-1780296…/

To learn how to make bumble bee nest boxes, or to volunteer as part of a North American bumble bee conservation study, check out this event on JULY 8 from 9:30AM - 3:00PM at the Glenbow Ranch provincial park: http://www.grpf.ca/events/pollinator-citizen-scientist

Some final messages: - save our NATIVE bees!! - http://www.bumblebeewatch.org/

Other than that, check out this photo of a huntii worker that I snapped in a wetland area yesterday :'-)

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June 6 - the workers come flying two by two...

10:00 - 1:00. Warm day, slightly breezy, no cloud cover. 

I guess it’s officially the lull in bee sighting season! We saw four different worker bees (no photos because they were so fast and so tiny!! and also foraging on plants deep off the trails) and THREE QUEEN BEES (one pictured above foraging on silver berry aka wolf willow; one orange booty bumble nest hunting; and another a Nevadensis foraging on locoweed). I’m not sure if the sight of the three queens is worrying or not (ie: should they have already found a nest? etc etc.), but perhaps they just started late. 

I think some of my favourite native plants so far are: buffalo bean (or gold banner), locoweed, chokecherry (for their scent <3 ___ <3 not as overwhelming or as sweet as the wolf willow scent, but more sweet like spring time?), and gooseberry/currant bushes (for their apparent value to bees!).

Justin and Steve came too and they were busy with identifying native plants... Listening to me try to identify native plants... It was fun and the ranch is looking so beautiful with all the new blooms and green leaves! 

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*cue Jason Derulo ft. Imogen Heap’s Whatcha Say*

T.Rex skin shows it was scaly after all, scientists say

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June 5 - Getting right to it on campus

9:30 - 2:00. Warm day, slightly breezy. Slight cloud cover. 

It’s exciting to see these two workers on campus (and no signs of honeybees). This was a pretty fun day. I was out making rough sketches of where native plants were on campus and was busy trying to identify everything. 

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June 1st - Getting wet(land) and wild

9:30 - 12:30. Warm day but overcast. 

Today I tagged along with Alyce and Melanie to help out with their wetland measurements. It was really cool to see Alyce’s wetland quality check list and it was really eye opening as to how many wetlands are actually located in Calgary (and how many wetlands are listed as “official wetlands”). I’ve noticed that there has been more buzz around wetland health and quality lately as they, and the amphibians that use them, are ecological indicators. Interesting things:

The colour of chicken eggs are related to the colour of the laying hen’s earlobe

Beavers build dams because they don’t like the sound of running water (supposedly) LOL

We caught a glimpse of a white tailed(?) fox! We were perplexed about a paw print that we saw earlier, but seeing the fox was the key to the puzzle. 

I’ve never been around so many native, wild mint species!! The area we walked through smelled so refreshing (and reminded me of mojitos)

Although this wetland was of pretty healthy quality, there were still problems (ie: constant noise from the traffic; additional lights from the street lamps at night could be a concern; etc.). 

We saw some cool things in the water, like fresh water eels?

We also saw some uncool things like dozens of golf balls that landed in the water from the neighbouring driving range

... we saw ONE tad pole!!! 

Interested in learning how you can help with wetland and amphibian conservation? Please check out the Call of the Wetland program (it’s an app too!). 

[carolyninthefield-blog]

Carolyn’s Bumble Bee Plant of the Moment - May Night Sage (wood sage) 

Salvia x sylvestris 

beautiful deep colour

easy and reliable to grow

drought tolerant

deer resistant

huge attractant for pollinators like butterflies, hummingbirds, and (bumble) bees!

For more information, please click here. 

Interesting in helping with bumble bee conservation efforts in Canada and the United States? Check out bumblebeewatch.org

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May 30th - A bumble bee nest and Lexie saves the day - again!! 

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Monday, May 29th - Things are about to get even more lush! (part 3/3) and... concerning?

Although today was pretty busy with bumble bees, nearing the end of my usual loop I stopped at the huge patch of caragana that is just beginning to flower. I probably saw 2 bumble bees (one pictured above), but for every 1 bumble bee, there was 6-10 of these honey bees (unidentified at the time but confirmed as of the next day). The honey bees are a sign that someone around the area must have bought in a, or several, honey bee colonies. That’s not immediately concerning, but it is heartbreaking to see that there was so many more non-native honey bees than our native bumble bees. I think we’ll be keeping a close watch on if the numbers change or if we see honey bees in other areas of the park. Bumble bees and honey bees CAN get along if there is a wide variety and abundant resources of forage. 

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Monday, May 29th - Things are about to get even more lush! (part 2/3)

No cloud cover. Warm day. 10:00 - 1:30

Top row: This bumble queen was caught foraging on dandelions(!!). Before today’s visit, I’ve only seen bumbles foraging on the gooseberry bushes. Today, I saw some forage on Gold Banner (aka Buffalo Bean) as well. 

Middle row: I was walking and thought I saw this insect (what I thought was a honeybee from the corner of my eye) foraging on a dandelion. I IMMEDIATELY realized how wrong I was after catching it in the net. I’m pretty sure I started seeing black spots (as I was blacking out HAHA) but couldn’t let the hornet(?) go because I was already in too deep. Anyways, I quickly took some photos of this stealthy looking bee and let it fly its own course as I speed walked the opposite direction. Thanks to this website, I think this was a blackjacket? Feel free to let me know how close/off I am LOL I wish I had thought of to take a photo of its face/mouth parts for better identification. 

Bottom row: I spotted this huntii queen by chance :O She was not foraging or nest hunting, but was barely moving... Just laying on this leaf. I texted Lexie to ask if I should try to offer her some water (which I tried to), but even as I got close she was not reactive to me. It was weird and concerning because she was quite close to a nest box (which I saw an ant come out of... So perhaps not a great sign?) and in a shady area of a large patch with great flowers (lots of currants, buffalo bean, dandelions, and even the false Solomon’s seal). However, it WAS getting quite hot at this time so maybe she just decided to take a break?

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Monday, May 29th - Things are about to get even more lush! (part 1/3)

No cloud cover. Warm day. 10:00 - 1:30 

Today I set out to do a quick visual inventory of what type of vegetation is available around the areas close to the nest sites. Here are two photos of plants that I only recently learned the names of:

Top photo: False Soloman’s Seal (I’m really liking these!! I love their vertical stacked leaves)

I think these could also be the Star flowered Soloman’s seal?

These are fun because Alyce and I were joking about.. If there’s a false Soloman’s seal... There MUST be a TRUE Soloman’s seal! And here’s a quick webpage with very detailed images (although these plants look different still from the ones I have a photo of) 

Bottom photo: Western Canada violets aka Canadian violets aka the Trailing Violets (Viola canendensis) 

Super beautiful! 

These are getting to be pretty abundant throughout the park

Like plants? Love identifying them? Want to contribute to a citizen science conservation project at the Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park? Check this out: http://www.grpf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/GRPP-Plant-Species-Checklist.pdf 

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Friday, May 19 part 2/2 ~9:30 - 12:30 

There’s this amazing sounding frog(?) at this wetland area that has been calling the past few days that we’ve been out here. Today we decided to venture out to see if we could find it but in typical frog behaviour, the calls stopped as we got nearer. 

Alyce and I looped back around to the first bee box nest site and we managed to run into this tenarius which we initially identified as a huntii. We also quickly chatted with a family who:

(1) mentioned that they have mining bees as home which was super cool!  and (2) the grandpa pointed out that the thong was quite long and therefore more likely to be a tenarius than a huntii. Hooray for friends :’-) 

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Friday, May 19 part 1 

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Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds by spitting

In dry southern Morocco, domesticated goats climb to the precarious tippy tops of native argan trees to find fresh forage. Local herders occasionally prune the bushy, thorny trees for easier climbing and even help goat kids learn to climb. During the bare autumn season, goats spend three quarters of their foraging time “treetop grazing.”

Spanish ecologists have observed an unusual way in which the goats may be benefiting the trees: the goats spit the trees’ seeds. Miguel Delibes, Irene Castañeda, and José M Fedriani reported their discovery in the latest Natural History Note in the May issue of the Ecological Society of America’s journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The paper is open access.

Miguel Delibes, Irene Castañeda, José M Fedriani. Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds during rumination. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2017; 15 (4): 222 DOI: 10.1002/fee.1488

Goats graze on an argan tree. In the fruiting season, many clean argan nuts are spat out by the goats while chewing their cud.Credit: © simonestorelli / Fotolia

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Bombus terrestris + 2 Helophilus pendulus foraging on Buddleja davidii. Bumblebee & Hoverflies

I am very sure about the hoverflies, bumblebees are always a bit of a mystery though because they can look so different! What is the whitish spot on the back of this one, where the wings meet?I couldn’t find anything about it and made some hypotheses…

Here is my post about Buddleja, or Butterfly bush, from a while ago.

More bumblebees: B. pascuorum,  B. terrestris  

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Thursday, May 18 - Songs and Bees with Steve

Warm but a bit windy, mostly sunny - 9:40 - 12:20

On this visit to the ranch, like most of the other visits so far, we did not check on the nest boxes but only stopped in the nest box sites to observe and listen for bumblebees. Steve was stung twice in his life by something (a wasp or a hornet) and is not extremely comfortable around bumblebees - but that’s ok! Bumblebees are friendlier than wasps and hornets, but to some people they can still be scary. 

Although we heard a few bumbles, we only caught this queen as she was foraging on currants to take a photo of. Her colouration is a bit hard to see but she’s definitely not a red/orange booty bee (narrowing down the identification by at least half - oops!). We also saw what I think is a hoverfly buzzing around and foraging on the dandelion in the photos. Steve and I got slightly rained on (extremely light drizzle of rain LOL) around 12:20 so we speed hiked up the slope and into the parking lot.

Notes: all the buzzing we heard/ bumbles we briefly saw were in areas with currant plants. The late spring we’ve been having seems to be limiting what the pollinators (bees, hornets/wasps that we’ve seen can forage on), and what they seem to be foraging on are currant plants. 

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Saturday, May 13th - Few bees but lots of wild strawberry plants 

9:40 - 12:40 

Today I went out with Steve, Brandon, Bao, and Justin. Although we only saw a few bumbles (and even fewer photos were taken), wild strawberry plants like those shown here were starting to peek up everywhere along the forested areas of the park. Excited to see the white flowers and  lil red berry jewels when they fruit! 

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Tuesday, May 23 - Wetlands as my favourite classroom!!

Sunny, partly cloudy, but warm! 9:30 - 12:00

Today I was super lucky to have been able to help Lexie with her wetlands presentation to four grades 5/6 classes :’-) I used to do a lot of volunteering with elementary and jr. high aged students and every time I get a chance to, it’s always so fun to learn how they learn and the things they talk about now (from that day: blood types, pokemonGo, and LEECHES!! - the most popular and talked about catches of the day LOL)

Firsts for me:

- interacting with grade 5/6 students in an outdoor science setting! - visiting this gorgeous wetland (a stormwater retention pond from what I was told) that was hidden between a large road an a residential area - touching: leeches and freshwater shrimp - not being able to bring myself to hold: dragonfly nymphs (my favourite of the day though!) - nearly slipping on geese poop into the water *whew* 

Super fun bonding activity - 10/10 recommend. Get all your friends out to wetlands and digging around in the mud LOL 

Photos (top to bottom, left to right): Lexie and the kids intrigued by a juicy leech catch; leeches and some freshwater shrimp; healthy looking dragonfly nymphs; one of several red winged black birds playing around the area; Lexie and the group getting reading to do some wetland science.