Vermont Wild Bee Survey's Journal

Just because it's below zero outside, that doesn't mean you can't be learning about and contributing to our knowledge of VT's bees. Winter is a great time to revisit observations on iNaturlist to refine ID's and add annotations that increase the value of the data.

To learn more about the identifying process, check out VCE's latest "mission":
https://val.vtecostudies.org/missions/mission-identify/

Did you know from the identify window you can also add annotations?
In the "Annotation" tab, look for the "Observation Fields". There are thousands of fields to choose from, but for consistency, we recommend using those that begin with "interaction ->". In particular, "interaction -> visited flower of:" is helpful to document the flower that a bee was visiting. Your own observations are a good place to start, since identifying the plant is often easier with some memory of the observation/location. Not only is this useful information for bee biologists, it also allows anyone to explore the visitors of various plants. For example, here are 63 insects that have been marked as visiting goldenrod in VT: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=47&taxon_id=47158&verifiable=any&view=species&field:Interaction-%3EVisited%20flower%20of=48678

Helpful hint - You can change the flower of interested by replacing the last number in the URL with the number from the iNaturalist taxa page (ie https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48678-Solidago)

As always, feel free to reach out with technical questions regarding iNat.

Finally, if you find your self overwhelmed with bee identifications, here are eight common species that are relatively distinctive, without look-a-likes: https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/easy8/

We are in the process of a writing a paper on the Bees of Vermont, and want your help!
Nearly half of the bee observations on here don't have the sex marked, and even if you don't know anything about bee ID, you can help with this. Below are two examples of groups where males and females are straightforward to separate. For maximum efficiency, click the link, then first photo, then the annotation tab, then use the keyboard shortcuts (s, f = female, s, m = male). While there you can add annotations for any flowers you recognize (interaction -> visited flower of). Each observation you mark will directly translate to a data point on at least one figure in our paper! Feel free to @beeboy if you have questions about a specific observation!

Agapostemon - yellow and black = male, all green or green and white = female
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&taxon_id=50086&without_term_id=9

Megachile - long, distinct hairs (often yellow) or pollen under the abdomen = female
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&taxon_id=52784&without_term_id=9