Vermont Wild Bee Survey's Journal

Chances are there are Violets blooming within 1000’ feet of where you are at the moment. They are nearly ubiquitous in gardens, lawns, and forests - we have 32 species according to the Vermont Atlas of Life. But what about the Violet Miner (Andrena violae)? At the moment, we know very little about its distribution and status in Vermont. The only two confirmed VT records are from the spring of 2020 in Windsor County. Both were from passive traps, so we don’t know what flowers they were visiting. Based on records from elsewhere in the country, Violet Miners seem to primarily occur south of VT and on the blue or purple violet species. Luckily this species can be identified from clear photos, so next time the sun shines, step outside and see if you can find one!

Explore VT Violet records: here.https://bie.vtatlasoflife.org/species/2874237#classification

Learn more about Violet Miners: https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/andrena-violae/

Everyone loves blueberries, right? Well in the bee world they are more polarizing since the long, deep flowers make it hard for some species to access the nectar. Other species however, are well-suited to blueberry flowers and are rarely found away from them. Wild blueberries in VT belong to a number of different species, but from the bees perspective it seems soil type is more important than blueberry species. Blueberries growing over sandy soil are likely to support the highest number of specialists, while blueberries in swamps might only be visited by species that nest in above ground cavities. This is one case where garden varieties might be as good or better than the wild thing. The UVM study below found that commercial blueberry farms support a wide range of specialist bees and that wild bees are economically important for pollination. Despite all the work that has been done with bees and blueberries, we still have a lot to learn, and there are several blueberry specialists that we are yet to find in VT, but likely occur here. They could be hiding in your backyard!

UVM Study: https://tinyurl.com/5d5mpafy
Learn more about Blueberry Bees: https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/blueberries/

If you happen to live in southern or western VT, this week's target is for you, if not, you can skip to the bottom for a general tip and resource. Wild Geraniums are blooming right now and with these pink flowers, comes a bee we don’t know a lot about in VT - the Cranesbill Miner (Andrena distans). We first looked for it in 2020, and found it easily, but still need more data to know much about its status here. So if you come across Wild Geranium in the next few weeks, take a minute to photograph any bees you see visiting it!
https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/andrena-distans/

If you aren’t in an area with Wild Geranium, you can explore our new Specialist page for ideas on plants to target. Note some of the secondary pages aren’t complete yet, but will be updated through the season.
https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/specialists/

And finally, I encourage you to annotate your iNaturalist observations with the flower the bee is visiting. There are a million options for observation fields, though the ones with “interaction ->” are perhaps the most widely used and probably the best choice. You can add “Interaction->Visited flower of:” for any bee photographed or netted on a flower, even if you only know the genus or family of the flower. Once they are added, you can click them to see other observations from the same flower.

Here is Wild Geranium as an example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=map&verifiable=any&field:Interaction-%3EVisited%20flower%20of=47699

As always, feel free to ask questions in the comments here.

There are so many flowers this time of year, its easy to overlook the less conspicuous ones, especially those above eye level. Many bees however, are focused on flowering shrubs as they often provide a reliable food source in large quantities. Some of the shrubs flowering now that are of interest to bees include Mountain Maple, Dogwoods, Early Azalea, Blueberries, and Hawthorns.

You can explore some of the shrub-associated Mining Bees (Genus Andrena) here: https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/andrena-shrub/

Also, if you happen to know of any Mock Orange (Genus Philadelphus) near you, its worth looking for Chelostoma philadelphi, which would be a new state record.

https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/Chelostoma/
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/452986-Chelostoma-philadelphi