Fall Notes
Good day, B-Team!
We are having some wonderful weather these last few days. Supposedly up to about 80 today! That's too warm for me, but the bees will be happy.
I was lucky to be able to spend some time over the weekend with Molly Jacobson, Pollinator Ecologist at SUNY ESF. We talked bees, bee ID, and how our B-Team can help inform her studies at ESF. It is always wonderful to meet with people who really know their stuff, and Molly was no exception.
Right now we should be on the lookout for Andrena asteris, the aster mining bee. Some might think we are bit late in the season, but with this warm weather and plenty of asters still in bloom, we could easily still find this bee. According to https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/andrena-asteris/ , this is a fairly easy bee to ID (highlight and left click on that website and select "go to" to see that page).
This next spring, I am hoping to bump up our observations of the early spring bees. This is when many of the specialists are out and about - it would be great if we can document some of the species that are lesser known.
So, stay tuned.
And thank you to everyone who has added data to our project (whether you knew you did or not). While our B-Team is pretty new, any and all bee data is important, because we don't know what we don't know. More eyes on the landscape can help researchers build cases for declining species, and likewise, can also help researchers determine if some "rare" species are doing better than thought!
Keep up the good work!
