10:00:54 Nice to see everybody i'm denise Ellsworth with the Ohio State University Department of entomology and osu extension.
10:01:01 Where I coordinate pollinator education so i'm happy to see everybody here today for the ask a bumblebee data collector training. Nice to have everybody here.
10:01:12 We had about a 1,000 people sign up so lots of interest and Ask a bumblebee. We will save the chat and
10:03:00 post it to the website as well as the Q. and A.
10:03:05 And my guess is that those those questions will become part of the frequently asked questions on the website, so that you know we can all get answers to questions that we have that come up today.
10:03:16 So just to bring your attention to the ask of bumblebee website.
10:03:20 It's there's a quick link to get you there it's the goat osu edu ask a bumble, and i'll put it into i'll bet somebody can do that for me go ahead and
10:03:29 put that into the chat box, but you have to put the http colon slash.
10:03:37 Go dot osu edu slash Ask a bumble you don't get that front part.
10:03:41 It's not a live link. so somebody put that in the chat box, and then you can click on that link.
10:03:48 You'll be on the website you'll see where the forms are you can subscribe to that website, and get Janan's update, and as you'll want to make sure that that Link is handy you're
10:03:58 also gonna be sent to that website when the webinar is over today.
10:04:05 So at this point i'd like to turn the floor over to Janan Alfon Hefnowi, who is the coordinator of the bubblebee, Ask a bumblebee survey and sam dropping both
10:04:15 from the Usgs via Mlb. inventory and monitoring lab.
10:04:22 And guys take it over. we're really excited to learn more about this survey.
10:04:25 See if we're observing correctly and help learn what bubble bees like to eat.
10:04:31 Thank you, Denise, and thank you to for putting up the the ask.
10:04:35 A bumblebee website. it's you did it far faster than we could ever do that you know internally.
10:04:40 And so, and it's already being scraped and found by people so great, Tom and Crick, and thanks again for coming back to host this and give people a training.
10:04:52 So my job here is just to introduce janan i'm got 2 points.
10:04:56 I would like to make before I do that one is that when we think about bumblebees and the issues that surround them.
10:05:03 There's some things that we can't do anything about which are basically the disease issues that were brought over from Europe that they are dealing with to ameliorate that similar like If you are sick you want to do you want
10:05:16 to eat good food, or do you want to eat junkie food?
10:05:20 Right. So the solution that we all can control is providing lumble bees with better food.
10:05:27 So one of the questions, though, is what is that food and so Janan will talk about a way in which we divine what are the best flowers to present to bumblebees, and also which ones they really don't use
10:05:40 at all. So the magical new part of this is that we're also quantifying what's not used by Bumble Beach, because there's a lot of sort of mixed messages out there.
10:05:51 Our dandelions good, or are they not what about Yaro?
10:05:56 I've got black eyed Susan is that the best thing to plant.
10:05:59 So with your help, what we plan to do is to create that information, make it publicly available and disseminate it.
10:06:08 And there are a 1 million ways to cut those data back into all kinds of informative things, some of which will do in a preliminary set of reports, and you'll see that and others which you know fancy people with
10:06:20 fancy computers will, do fancy papers that ultimately will also help us to
10:06:27 I'll also point out that while not the primary goal we're also doing bumblebee counts, so we'll have some idea on where they're common where they're not common when they are most common during the
10:06:40 year. what's the hiatus period so right Now we're here.
10:06:44 We're in a hiatus so the queen's have come out?
10:06:47 Did some mad scramble of foraging on some interesting plants.
10:06:52 By the way, which will let you know about afterwards and Now we're not seeing a whole lot of activity only a few first couple of workers, as the queens are huntering down fostering their brood and
10:07:02 then more during the year, and then it will taper off.
10:07:06 I said I was just gonna do 2 simple introductions.
10:07:09 But now look at me Talking about too many things already. so my second point is that it's rare and almost unheard of that citizens without a whole lot of training, and Denise does that for her groups in Ohio but can directly help
10:07:27 with some kind of scientific endeavor that has to do with conservation of these.
10:07:33 And then this is a case. So there's really only thing that needs to be done, and Janan will emphasize.
10:07:37 This is differentiating carpenter bees from bumblebees.
10:07:41 Later, if you can, learning more about the bumblebee species, that would be great.
10:07:45 But many times even people like myself who do know how to identify them all. can't see them well enough, and they still become bumblebee species, and it turns out they're so picky that just the broad sense of where
10:07:57 the bumblebees are are great. So this is something that anyone can do.
10:08:02 How great is it that we really want you to go to gardens and public spaces that have lots of flowers?
10:08:08 You know the nicest environments and you get to choose where to go, and that's the scientific high road.
10:08:15 So it's, Really, I mean really you have no excuse not to do this, since just really fun and really supportive, and if you don't collect it, then you know sadly we won't have information from your part of the country and your
10:08:27 flowers that you see. So now, I'm really going to stop and let Janan take over, and I just want to say that it's been really lovely working with Janan.
10:08:36 She has primarily done almost the entire program put together. The material followed up.
10:08:41 She's your person, who's corresponding with you she shouldered a lot of responsibility while finishing up her school, going to not embarrass her a whole lot more.
10:08:50 But I really save her working with her over the next year.
10:08:56 While we process this information. So with that i'm going to actually set her up by sharing, i'm gonna try and monitor the chat.
10:09:04 If I can get on the another computer here, but i'm going to share, and i'm going to open the screen here.
10:09:13 Oops. so Sam i'm gonna launch our our poll So we have 2 poll questions that should have popped up for you.
10:09:19 Who's active right now in your garden or area so you've seen carpenter bees queen bumbles workers or none of the above.
10:09:28 And then have you already signed up to? participate?
10:09:31 So hopefully, Yeah, I could see some people are starting to answer that so we'll give that just a a second and then, Sam, when you are on the other computer.
10:09:40 You'll need to message me or I think you have myself.
10:09:45 Text me, so I can make you a yeah so no no you'll be able to answer the questions.
10:09:51 Never mind. you don't need special access so
10:10:01 This is really interesting. there's no this pull yeah so where I am in northeast Ohio.
10:10:12 I'm still seeing a few queens but I haven't seen any workers yet, so I know you know we have folks from all over. so a lot of you, even from Southern Ohio. are already seeing workers but it's
10:10:23 nice to see what's you know what else is going on
10:10:33 And that looks like lots of people are signed up already to collect data, and some of even submitted it.
10:10:39 2%,
10:10:45 Just another minute and then we'll end the poll so if you wanna click on that
10:10:55 And so i'm surprised I haven't seen many carpenteries this year.
10:11:01 Just haven't been in the right places okay i'm gonna go ahead and end that.
10:11:03 And then, Janan, all yours. Okay, you are right so hi!
10:11:14 Everybody. I'm Janan a sam so nicely introduced. That was very generous. but i'm so excited to be here working with Sam, and for Denise have to put this amazing opportunity together to share my project with you all I
10:11:29 really think that it is such a fun, survey and as I was saying.
10:11:33 It's really easy. you can do it anywhere. and yeah I think it's you all would really enjoy it.
10:11:40 I hope that you decide to participate. So this is the Ask a bumblebee project, and what we are trying to answer is but will be floral preference.
10:11:53 So we are interested in what flowers. But movies like the most And so we're planning to answer this question by focusing on collecting as much data as we can.
10:12:07 So we're really focusing on making the survey accessible to everybody.
10:12:12 So there's almost no requirements all you need is a phone with a free app.
10:12:16 Seek by I naturalist, and we just use seek to identify flowers.
10:12:20 So you don't need to know any floral identification to participate.
10:12:24 But if you do know floral identification and don't want to use the seek app that's also an option.
10:12:29 So, even if you don't have a phone there are some ways around that which i'll get into at the end.
10:12:33 And then you also need to be able to tell a bumblebee from a carpenter B.
10:12:38 From all the other flying things. but that is pretty doable, and we have resources that I think anybody could learn to do that in under 10 min.
10:12:48 So now that we know what we're doing let's get into how to actually do a survey.
10:12:53 So first you start by picking an area, and a Sam was kind of getting at.
10:12:58 This is one of the most exciting. things about the survey in my opinion is you can do it anywhere you want, so as long as you expect there to be b's It's a good place to survey it can be completely
10:13:09 urban like i've done some surveys in Washington, Dc.
10:13:14 Just in potter plants. It can be all you know, planted non-nate.
10:13:19 If you want, or it could be, you know, just walking through the woods, all native plants, whatever you want.
10:13:26 And actually the best areas are places with where the bees have the most options to pick from, because that we can really see if this is their last resort, or if it's actually their favorite plant of the 20 other options, So if
10:13:37 you have, you know, a really diverse garden, or you could even go to Botanical gardens or parks that are planted.
10:13:48 And you can get really amazing data in these beautiful places that are fun to walk around.
10:13:51 So once you pick your area, you really just walk for 30 min, and there's no transex or area measurements.
10:14:00 So it's really user friendly. and you don't need to really follow any trails or anything you can just wander around wherever you feel like.
10:14:08 So if you're walking on a trail and you see a big patch of flowers with a bunch of bees, you could totally walk off the trail and go over to the bees, which is pretty unique for scientific project because
10:14:20 you know oftentimes You would have a random gps location drop you on the side of a highway or something, and we're not gonna do that to you.
10:14:27 You can go wherever you want so as you're walking you just wanna record every single blooming flower species that you pass, and this is also a way that we're kind of unique from other surveys is that oftentimes you just
10:14:40 look at the flowers that the bees are on, but we actually want pictures of every single blooming flower species that you pass.
10:14:49 So anytime you encounter a new flower species.
10:14:51 You take a picture you write the name of the flower on your data sheet, and then you can keep serving.
10:14:58 So as you're recording these flowers you obviously want to be looking out for bees, so
10:15:04 You just want to tally any bumblebees or carpenteries that you see visit the flowers, and I have a picture of the data sheet at the end, which i'll show you how to actually do that But it's, super
10:15:12 simple, and you could i'm sure figure it out without an explanation.
10:15:16 But once you're done with your 30 min walk, which typically it ends up being a little bit more than 30 min, because we want 30 min of the observational time.
10:15:27 So you should extend your your survey. to accommodate time that you spent using seek to identify plants or writing on your data sheet or other things that Aren't observing looking for bees so my average survey takes me
10:15:41 about 40 min. Maybe so once you're done with that you want to estimate floral abundance and distribution. and this is still super simple, and really just a rough estimation.
10:15:53 But that can feel a little bit uncomfortable for people sometimes, because it is not an exact thing.
10:16:00 We know that you are just estimating based off memory so there's definitely some wiggle room in these results, and people are not expected to exactly get these rankings and number of lots right which sometimes doesn't sit well with
10:16:15 some very scientific minded people, but we just have to accept the lack of exact information, and it's still can totally work, because we'll have so much data that everything will kind of even out.
10:16:31 So i'll explain the floral abundance and distribution measures a bit more now, because this is kind of what people tend to get the most hung up on.
10:16:39 So we have 2 measures, floral rank, and number of lots.
10:16:44 Floral rank is, in my opinion, more intuitive because it really is just.
10:16:47 If you were to walk into an area you're thinking which flower is there the most of the reason we can't actually just say which flower is there.
10:16:56 The most of is because every flower is so different so you'll have something like a sunflower, which a single head is hundreds of florets.
10:17:02 So if you're saying which are which flowers, are the most of how many flowers are in each different flower. To avoid this, we just try to think of the area covered in bloom, So the number one ranks plan and your
10:17:19 survey is the plant that has the greatest surface area of blooms.
10:17:25 And another way you could think about that if you were to take all the blooms of a species and flatten them out, which species would cover the greatest area.
10:17:33 And again, it really is just which flowers are the most of but we can't ask that simple question, because there are these little flaws in that.
10:17:41 So for distribution we use number of lots which this is sort of like imagining.
10:17:51 Dividing your survey area into a grid of 25 equal area lots.
10:17:55 And then you ask, how many of these lots does the flower species appear in?
10:18:01 And this is what I really mean is an estimation and not exact, and we'd understand that from memory.
10:18:08 You can't say Oh, there were white clovers in exactly 18 out of 25 lots, because you're not drawing any lines.
10:18:14 This is all just for memory really what you're doing is you're walking.
10:18:17 You're saying, Oh, there was clover in the majority of my survey areas. So I think that was probably somewhere between 15 to 20 lots, and i'll call it 17. And then the alternative to that would be if you have you know a
10:18:31 big cherry, tree, or shroud you'll have all these flowers, but it'll just be in one lot because they're concentrated.
10:18:39 So it's not that we really need to get Oh, white clovers in exactly 17 lots, but we see that these big things that have one or 2 lots are really concentrated, and the higher number of lots are really spread apart
10:18:54 so to kind of walk through this I have a hypothetical survey path.
10:18:59 That is actually in our survey materials we say it's myos survey.
10:19:02 So this hypothetical person maya takes a day off work or leaves in her lunch break and comes to start a survey.
10:19:11 Here she walks along this black line on this trail, but then sees these thistles over here.
10:19:17 So she walks off the trail to the thistles, and then goes back on her trail to finish the survey.
10:19:22 At this white dot. So this black line is your survey path and this image is sort of like the information that you would have in your memory of your walk.
10:19:31 You don't have any grid lines. You don't have the boundaries of your survey area.
10:19:37 It just is. you know, where you walked, and you know roughly where the flowers were, and the following slides.
10:19:43 I have drawn out with the lots look like but I really want to emphasize that we don't expect anybody to make diagrams or to know lot boundaries.
10:19:53 We're just looking for you to estimate is this distributed?
10:19:57 Is this concentrated in one area so i'll kind of walk through that process with these 4 flowers.
10:20:03 So may I saw Golden Rod, weight, clover, ashley, sunflower, and thistles on her survey, and you can see that the golden rod the bigger these symbols are.
10:20:13 It kind of is more flowers more abundance so you can see there's some big patches of golden rod all across the survey area.
10:20:21 It's not an every place there's some spaces without it.
10:20:25 But it's pretty spread apart, so i'm gonna say that's in the majority of the lots.
10:20:29 Well, first i'll start. It is clearly the most abundant flower to me, so I will give that a rank of number one white clover kind of looks the least abundant to me so that will get the
10:20:41 lowest rank, but the lowest rank. The least abundant flower is the highest number, because the most abundant flower is number one rank.
10:20:50 Sometimes people will flip that scale which makes sense so I would say golden Rod is the most abundant between the thistles and the sunflower i'm.
10:21:01 Kind of having a hard time telling but that's a great thing about the floor.
10:21:04 Rank is you can have ties, so I would just say golden Rod is number one, because it's most abundant, and these 2 are kind of similar abundance, and it's less than the golden ride but more than
10:21:17 the white clover so i'll call these tied for second place, so Golden Rod is one actually some flaw rent.
10:21:23 Thistles are tied for 2, for floral rank, and the clover is 3, because it is the lowest.
10:21:28 So then, for the number of lots for thistles I think it's pretty clear that it would just be one lot, because she just comes up, and it's just this little point i'm sorry So now i'm still looking at
10:21:42 that we were to imagine the 10 feet on either side of us that is included in our survey area.
10:21:50 We get these green lines. But i'll go back to this because this is more like what we would be estimating with.
10:21:57 To actually do this in the field. Okay, So this looks to me sort of like one lot, actually Sunflower, I would say one or 2.
10:22:06 I guess i'll call it too the golden rod it's spread across most of the area, but not all.
10:22:14 There's definitely some places without it. so I would say that's somewhere in the 15 to 20.
10:22:21 And I guess i'll call it 15 but if I had said 17 or something that's no problem at all, because it's in the same ballpark, and that's what we're looking for the white clover
10:22:32 is kind of similarly spread, so i'll put that it a similar rank, or a similar number of lots.
10:22:39 It looks a little bit less distributed to me like there look like a couple lots that it's not in, and the golden rod isn't.
10:22:51 So I will give that maybe 15. And then yeah, So 2 loss for the ashesen flower, one for the thistles, and then 15 to 20 for the golden rod.
10:23:01 And and then. now to help you guys visualize it.
10:23:02 I did actually draw out these grade lines. so your survey area, as Sam was sort of mentioning is just 10 feet around you anywhere, because farther than 10 feet away chances are you won't be able to see a
10:23:14 bumblebee, so that 10 feet on either side looks like this.
10:23:19 So remember, the block line is where you walk, and then the green line.
10:23:24 Everything in that box is included in your survey area.
10:23:28 So then to actually see what the lots would look like is something like this.
10:23:34 But again, nobody should be making these diagrams. This is just so.
10:23:37 I can express to you all what I mean by dividing your survey area into 25 months.
10:23:46 See if we were actually to count this data with this diagram and get the exact correct values.
10:23:52 This is what we get, so as you can see golden rod I didn't say 18, I said 16.
10:23:59 I think, but that's no problem at all really the important things is just in the ballpark, and I think that for the really high ranked plants it is pretty easy to generally say Oh, there was the most golden raw of any of the
10:24:14 flowers. This example is honestly, I think, a little bit trickier to say Golden Rod is more abundant than the sunflower and the thistles than in real life, because generally in real life i'll see you One big
10:24:26 flowering tree, or something that totally crushes everything else.
10:24:30 So then it easily will get the top rank, and then the rankings as you get to the little one.
10:24:34 Z 2 z flowers that you just see a couple of.
10:24:38 You can just have a lot of ties. and we understand that it is an estimation, and it's not totally exact.
10:24:45 So. yeah, I hope that this doesn't overwhelm people more.
10:24:47 But this is sort of walking through the floor, ranking, and number of Lots concepts, but it is really pretty simple.
10:24:56 It is just a rough estimation, and if you have any questions feel free to reach out.
10:25:01 So one thing I kind of want to emphasize is that floral rank is not based on the number of lots. Some people like to say like, oh, Clover is in 20 out of 25 lots so that's the
10:25:13 number one rink. But even though it can be distributed and across most of your survey, a big tree like this will still outrank these small flowers because there's just so much bloom, area Another note that I wanna make
10:25:30 based on this big tree is that this 10 feet around you.
10:25:34 Your survey area should also be vertical so while you're walking.
10:25:37 It's almost like you're in a bubble surrounded by 10 feet on all directions, and anything outside of that 10 foot bubble is not within your survey area, because if you think about it in your standing by this tree,
10:25:49 over kind of by the bushes you won't be able to see these that are at the top of the tree, or over here so as much as it can be tempting to include all of these flowers in your floral rank
10:26:01 because it just looks like Wow, that's number one rank that's a lot of flowers you have to remember.
10:26:06 Not all of them are actually within your survey area. Okay?
10:26:11 So now that we got through kind of how to survey and I have a big Faq section and a bunch of time for questions at the end.
10:26:18 So if you're feeling uncertain about anything don't worry there is still time.
10:26:21 But I'm gonna quickly show our results from our pilot year.
10:26:25 So I, Sam was saying, we developed the survey last year, and by the time we finished, like perfecting our protocol and everything, it was already June.
10:26:36 So we don't have any data from the spring of last year. it's mostly full, and we only got 97 surveys because it was 12 collectors.
10:26:46 It was mostly people in the B lab, I think probably about 60 or 70 of those 97 surveys were just between Sam and I.
10:26:55 So this is definitely not data that any conclusion should be drawn off of. it is completely just a pilot year to figure out the survey so that you all can go and collect a bunch more data and we can have some real data that should
10:27:07 be useful for land management purposes, and you know a bunch of things.
10:27:13 So we had 97 surveys. It was across 6 States in Washington, Dc.
10:27:18 It was in 11 counties, most of which were in Maryland or Virginia.
10:27:24 12 collectors. but, as I was saying same, and I did the most of these surveys.
10:27:29 It was over 5 months June through October, and even just in the small number of Surveys, we saw 445 plant, taxa and 8 bumblebee species.
10:27:40 These are the bees that we saw in the way of this I don't know
10:27:49 So these species are generally kind of you know found in Maryland of Virginia.
10:27:54 So if you're in other places of the country you may not recognize these species.
10:27:59 But I think a lot of us are used to seeing a lot of impatience.
10:28:04 We saw, you know, 14, that, or 1,400, just in these 97 surveys.
10:28:10 And, as you can see, also, we have a lot of just Bomba species and sex unknown.
10:28:14 So it is totally great to have data, even without the ability to identify things to sex and species.
10:28:22 We are so happy to just get it's a bumblebee, and I really feel confident that all of you know what bumblebees look like.
10:28:31 See, i'll just leave this up for a second but you can see we had a lot of impatience, which is the most common one in our area, and we did get a few more or less common ones.
10:28:42 But yeah, nothing too surprising here, and I will move on.
10:28:51 And this is our actual bumblebee and plant data.
10:28:55 So this is the plants that we saw these visiting we have this b score, which, if anybody wants more information about, I would be happy to share.
10:29:04 How we calculated that. but we just basically looked at how many be, how many bumble bees visited.
10:29:11 And we corrected a little bit for the floral. rank to see if they were just to make sure that we're not just seeing be always visiting the most abundant plan to we have to correct for how much of each flower there.
10:29:25 Is so I was pretty surprised to see cup plant at the top of the list.
10:29:31 I think not too many people definitely some people, but it's not the most common bumblebee plant, and not so many people are even familiar with it.
10:29:40 I think that not in mint and bergamot were not so surprising definitely.
10:29:44 Are some great bumblebee plants that I would feel confident recommending planting for bumblebees, even, you know, without significant data, because mountain men it's really honestly fun to see Sometimes it'll just be
10:29:56 same called it Btv. because you'll just see but will be swarming the entire surface.
10:30:04 One kind of interesting thing here is that the common dandelion, which is sometimes referred to as a bumblebee plant, had a very low score, so that was probably one b visiting or something like that it was really
10:30:16 not a top choice. I'll leave this up for one more second, and then move on
10:30:26 Okay. And here are some plants that we saw no visitation in these 97 surveys.
10:30:33 And I want to again reiterate that it is pilot data.
10:30:36 So if we had hundreds of people across the country watching these flowers, chances are we would see some visitation to these.
10:30:43 But it is interesting that in 97 half hour surveys we didn't see a single visit to these flowers because some of them are, you, you know, also considered Okay, plans like Queen Anne's lace, or fleeing I
10:30:57 kind of was anticipating to see, maybe a little visitation, but nothing at all
10:31:05 So now that we're done with our pilot year and we are spreading the survey across the northeast us
10:31:15 So currently our target range is the northeast us which is generally main to West Virginia, but we are totally happy to collect data from across the country, and even Canada, because we're hoping to expand to include those regions so
10:31:32 we will. hopefully get to that data after we finish analyzing the northeast.
10:31:38 So. Yeah, if you're outside of the northeast don't be discouraged.
10:31:41 We still would love to get your data, but we do have to prioritize the northeast for right now.
10:31:48 And then, additionally, we really want to collaborate with just as many groups as possible.
10:31:53 So we have had a lot of people very kindly shared the survey with their master, gardener and master naturalist groups.
10:32:00 So if anybody is in one of those and you don't think your group knows about it, I would really appreciate you sharing the survey, and also students. I think there's a lot of young people who would really enjoy the
10:32:11 survey, and it is pretty accessible for young people, especially if you have some assistance from adults.
10:32:20 I think really young kids could just do the b observation and it's a really great way to just show them that it does matter what you plant, and even though they're generalist B's they're not gonna visit every flower they do have specific flowers that they
10:32:33 prefer, which I think a lot of kids don't even notice. So yeah, we just really want to expand and keep collaborating with as many people as possible.
10:32:44 Once we actually get this data. what are we looking to do with it?
10:32:48 So we want to improve planting guides because we were mentioning before a lot of these planning guides are not totally accurate.
10:32:56 They'll recommend flowers that we don't actually see bumblebees visit a ton, or there might be some flowers that are not recommended, and are actually really great.
10:33:04 So we wanna improve those guides, and we can also compare if the floral preference varies in different situations which would be interesting to see.
10:33:17 So if you want to get involved, you can send me an email at Bumblebee count at Gmailcom, and i'll set you up with a folder in our Google drive to submit data.
10:33:27 And now, thanks to Denise, you can download the forms from our Osu website, and you could just email me the data if you want, or you could download the forms there and email me to get set up with a Google drive
10:33:39 folder. And here is a little show screenshot of the website, and you can see if you hover over the survey.
10:33:48 It gives you this dropdown menu and forms. If you hover over they will appear right here, and you just click those to download the Pdfs.
10:33:57 Okay. So now we are into our Faq. and Then after this we'll have time for just people to ask questions.
10:34:05 So here is our form. People are sometimes a little bit confused with how to actually record these species on this form, and before anybody gets a little intimidated, If you don't want to identify bees to species, you would use this
10:34:20 form. So this one's a little bit simpler you would just write the plants over here, and then you just tally any bees that you see here, and you do your floor estimations here.
10:34:30 But if you do want to do these species, we have this box up here for you to record the species names, and you can see bombers unknown is always the 6.
10:34:42 So if I saw a bumblebee and I didn't know what it was. I let's say I had white clover as my flower number one I would tally this bomb is unknown in 6 and sex
10:34:54 unknown. So if I saw bonus and patience, I could write bombers and patients in species.
10:35:02 One, let's say it's a female I would tally under one under females, because this one corresponds to species one where I wrote bombus and patients.
10:35:11 It's pretty intuitive. Okay, this is another question can I survey my yard every day or anywhere.
10:35:19 Could you repeat a survey area? Absolutely we are totally happy to take data that is repeated in the same location?
10:35:28 We also, if you don't feel like doing the same area feel free to do a new location, every time we don't care how many times each location is surveyed.
10:35:37 So it's completely up to you
10:35:42 Some people have been a little bit confused with the data upload process on Google drive.
10:35:46 So I have some screenshots of that process here.
10:35:51 So I start with mine camera rule, and I have an iphone.
10:35:54 So if you have an android it'll be a little bit different.
10:35:57 But I just in my camera role, will select all of my flower photos and my picture of my data sheet, and then I
10:36:08 We'll hit this little. I don't actually know what that button means, I guess, share, and and then so that button brings up this screen.
10:36:17 And then here I can just hit the Google Drive Icon, and then hitting the Google drive.
10:36:22 Icon takes you here and Oh, i'm sorry it takes you here, and then you select my drive, and then you pick your the folder that you want it to be in and everybody's folder is named but their first and last
10:36:41 name, so you would just search in your drive. I do, Janan Alfnaie.
10:36:47 My folder pops up, I click on it, and then it brings me to this screen.
10:36:49 Sorry it's out of order, and then I hit upload so I have like the rest of this.
10:36:56 So once i'm in my folder for janan I have nowi I hit, make a new folder for each individual survey, and I name it with the location name and date.
10:37:07 So I make a new folder for this location and date.
10:37:10 I hit create, and then I hit save here and that's it. So if you don't want to use Google drive, you could also just totally email the folders.
10:37:21 But the Google drive app is super handy for data uploads, and I definitely recommend it.
10:37:27 Another question that has come up is bumblebee lookalikes.
10:37:31 So some people are wondering. is that actually a bumblebee or not?
10:37:35 And for that I would recommend going to our quizlet, which I have the link, and under here, or you could just search estrogi and quizlet, and there is a set for bumblebee species identification, and it includes some
10:37:49 lookalikes generally. there's not 2 too many lookalikes, but there are a couple to be aware of, so I do think that's worth giving a look.
10:38:02 Another question we get is, can I survey with a friend and that absolutely. I normally will drag my friends along on surveys, and I just will generally kind of have them walk with me as I survey, or there's some other
10:38:16 options, because you can't have 2 people survey the same exact area.
10:38:19 At the same time, because then we would be repeating data.
10:38:23 But there are some ways around that you can either do what I do and just have people walk with you.
10:38:28 I like to i'll bring a friend to walk my dog while I survey, and then another option is you could both do surveys, and if you're walking on a trail or something you could have one person do the left side, and the
10:38:40 other person do the right side. So you can talk and walk but You're not actually looking at the same area, or you could work together and have one person record all the notes, and you both can look for bees.
10:38:53 But, as Sam mentioned, we do also kind of appreciate that this data gives us.
10:38:59 Bumblebee counts, which is why we'd like to keep The surveys to 30 min is the observation time, so that the count of bees is actually meaningful?
10:39:09 Because we know the amount of effort that went into finding that many bees, having 2 people look in one survey, does throw that off a little bit.
10:39:17 So just note if you did this on the data sheet, so that your data can be included for floral preference purposes.
10:39:28 But not for B count purposes Is the Survey kid friendly?
10:39:30 Absolutely. This is one thing I really like about the survey is, I think it is such an amazing way for kids to get outside more and to learn their flowers.
10:39:39 I did not know any of my flowers even though i've lived in Maryland my entire life. I didn't know any of my wild flowers until I started doing this survey.
10:39:50 And it's crazy How quick you just learn everything because you have to learn.
10:39:55 You need every single plant species name to complete your survey.
10:40:00 So all of a sudden. I just know my wild flowers now, and I think that would be really great for a lot of kids to do so.
10:40:07 I think, above the age of around 12 obviously it's gonna vary person to person.
10:40:12 A 12 year old could probably do the survey themselves.
10:40:15 I think the trickiest parts for kids are generally the floral rank and number of lots.
10:40:21 So if you wanted to have a really young kid like a kindergartener or something, get outside and look for bees.
10:40:29 You could have an adult go with them, which you should probably not send a kindergarten or a alone.
10:40:32 Anyway, I suppose. but you can have an adult come with them, and the adult can do the floral rank and the number of lots, and the kids can just look for B's, which is the very fun.
10:40:43 Part, anyway, so they should have some fun this is another interesting point What if you're interrupted in the middle of a survey?
10:40:50 Do you have to just throw it out, or can you finish the survey?
10:40:54 At another time you actually can take a break in the middle of a survey.
10:40:58 As long as you continue the survey on the same day in the same general location.
10:41:02 But that's a really really nice opportunity. that you know if you're walking, and something happens.
10:41:10 It starts raining or something comes up, you can totally just stop and finish another time, which is really helps with the flexibility
10:41:19 We get this one a lot. What if I see a bumble be flying, but it doesn't land on any flowers.
10:41:25 It doesn't count for us We only care about floral preference, so we can't.
10:41:32 We can't record them at all they don't exist. but it can be sad when you see especially recently, when there's so many queens out looking for nesting sites and things it would be fun to count them all
10:41:43 but unfortunately, if it's not on the flower it doesn't count So what if you aren't sure about your flower Ids?
10:41:52 But you don't want to use seek it is Okay, to actually not write flower.
10:41:58 Ids on the forms you could write something like small yellow flower, little white flower, and we have an extra botanist review. All of the ids. Whether or not the flowers are identified.
10:42:11 So everything will be identified in the end even if you don't do it yourself.
10:42:14 So if you really don't like to use seek I know some people have sort of been struggling it can glitch occasionally.
10:42:20 It works pretty well for me, but some people don't like seek so this is a great option.
10:42:25 If you don't want to use it so back to that point some seek is really not working for some people, and I think that there's a little bit of a learning curve.
10:42:39 So one thing that really makes the biggest difference. is seek is it's a camera, and you should just show the the camera.
10:42:49 The plant rather than actually taking a photo right when you see it, because right it takes a while for seek to actually figure out what the plant is, and the more different angles and distances and different plant parts that you show the better a chance
10:43:03 it has of identifying it. So all generally scan a plant until it gets me to genus or species, and it gets almost all of my flowers to genus or species.
10:43:15 There have just been a couple of examples that it is to family. but if you're just getting like dicot every time, you should give, seek a little bit more time and show some more angles rather than actually taking that photo
10:43:27 Another thing is that it'll crash generally if you take a ton of photos in a row, So I will use my camera app for all my photos of plants that I do know.
10:43:40 So rather than using seek, which can be a little bit cumbersome, for you know, white Clover, i'll just take a picture of that.
10:43:47 But if I do actually need to identify a plant all you seek.
10:43:51 So this is another one that has been coming up what if you don't have a smartphone.
10:43:58 It's actually totally fine, despite our requirements saying that you need a phone.
10:44:02 But as long as you have a camera, and you can access the Internet to either upload data in Google drive or you could email, the photos.
10:44:10 You can totally participate. We only use, seek for the identifications.
10:44:14 But as the previous question showed, you don't actually need to identify every flower, so if you know all your plan ids, it's really no issue at all, just take photos of the plants right there plant species if you don't know your
10:44:26 ids just do what we just said. take pictures of the plants and write small white flower so that we can at least keep everything straight on the data sheet.
10:44:34 We do. I do want to emphasize again, though, that we need photos of all the flowers.
10:44:40 Whether or not you can identify them, because we have a button is verified at all.
10:44:44 The Ids. So make sure. you're getting those photos and they are actually okay, pictures. so that the botanist will be able to make out the important features.
10:44:57 Okay, that's everything that we had so If anybody has any questions.
10:45:02 Go ahead. So, Janet, we have lots of questions.
10:45:08 And you answered, Lots of month. I really like the the Aq.
10:45:10 Part So I had a question about latin do you prefer Latin names, cause there's so much confusion with common.
10:45:18 So when you are talking about filling out the data shit sheet, and I apologize.
10:45:21 If you already said this. just wondered if you want the Latin on there.
10:45:26 Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. If you know your Latin names, Latin is slightly preferable.
10:45:31 Because, yeah, as you're saying, there is a lot of plants with the same common names and things.
10:45:36 But we totally expect common names, because at least personally I don't know my Latin names, and when I do a survey, and I have a list of 20 Latin names, and i'm trying to remember which flower is which to
10:45:47 estimate the abundance in distribution. It gets a little tricky for me, so I just do common names personally.
10:45:53 But if you know your Latin names, that is totally good, so I guess, to answer your question.
10:45:57 Either. One is fine awesome, and sam's been typing away, answering a lot of the and so you know, Sam, if you want to chime in, too, with some of those faqs that have come in the chat
10:46:11 box. let's look here at our questions online. so and i'm sorry if you already answer some of these, Janet, because I was trying to keep up and write a bit and so it's hard for me to listen carefully.
10:46:26 So Sean asked if I do a survey and don't observe any bumblebee should I still log that?
10:46:32 Yes, so I We do encourage people to only start a survey when you see these in this current time, because there are so.
10:46:43 It's kind of what this assumes saying the hiatus I've been doing a bunch of surveys that I'm expecting these.
10:46:50 And then I just end up getting none so we'll still take that negative data, if you've already done the work, but because we're interested in the floral preference, it's not actually super useful for our analysis because no bees are picking
10:47:01 any flowers. but if you've done it will totally take it because it could be useful at some point.
10:47:06 But there's no need to go out and do a survey if you're not expecting to see these.
10:47:13 Yeah, i'm all ready to go but i'm not seeing any workers, and I haven't seen many queens, so i'm i'm on the cusp i'm ready to get out there and observe some bees as soon as the
10:47:20 girls are ready. Laura will be traveling around the East Coast this summer and wants to survey different areas every day or so.
10:47:29 And that's is that okay? Yeah, that's awesome wow, thank you.
10:47:33 That sounds great. Okay. Are you already addressed this But Anne is worried because she doesn't have a smartphone?
10:47:39 Yeah, as long as you can take photos with something and you can email me those pictures that's all we need. so you could totally still participate.
10:47:50 Sean wanted to confirm our parameters one.
10:47:53 It needs to be sunny to mostly sunny over 60°F.
10:48:01 And before 5. Pm: Yeah. So we do really the parameters are just the rb's there.
10:48:09 So we just put those, because that is generally when these are there.
10:48:14 But if you happen to see these in conditions other than those feel free to survey. But yeah, it's probably not worth your time to go out and hunt for bees on a really cooled cloudy day or at 6 Pm: or something so Those are
10:48:25 generally good. Okay, Super Oh, so a couple of people ask this question: Does this survey tie in with bumblebee watch?
10:48:40 But we'll be Atlas I naturalists etc.
10:48:43 Oh, there was another question. Why are you doing this? I think you kind of answer that.
10:48:46 But you know, Why are there these other bumblebee surveys?
10:48:49 Why are you duplicating anything right so we don't we're not connected to those programs.
10:48:56 And yeah, that is a a good point that There is there's a lot of bumblebee work out there. But I think that we kind of differ from those in that we're really focused on the floral
10:49:06 preference, and those are more general bumblebee biology.
10:49:09 Would you agree with that. Yes, and i'll just point out that if you take a picture of a bumblebee on your survey.
10:49:16 We're actually not interested in that but you can submit that picture to bumblebee watch, and I naturalist and that's useful, and the flowers that you take pictures of can be also be submitted to I natural as a secondary thing but we're
10:49:29 not officially in cahoots with any of them, but we support their work.
10:49:33 They just have a different mo than what janan's problem does awesome.
10:49:38 So a couple of people asked, How do you tell a queen from a worker?
10:49:44 So currently it if you're really far north it might still just be queens out.
10:49:51 I am not great at identifying queens and females, and I.
10:49:56 Sex is not I haven't mastered that yet, but generally the queens are really large, is what I keep an eye out for.
10:50:02 So do you think there's anything worth queens vers workers just size ?
10:50:07 But how do people identify just size that's the problem? Okay, yeah, size?
10:50:12 It really is the the main thing to look for okay and I didn't go back to to my data sheet on the other screen, so there's not.
10:50:19 And I think I heard samsay you're not wanting us to designate whether it's a queen or a worker.
10:50:25 We're just saying a female male or unknown we kind of will base if it's a queen or a worker based on the seasonality, because the queens come out first and I did say based on size but to be
10:50:38 more specific queens are generally at least at the beginning of the season. they're really big and almost carpenter B size, while workers are more like the honeybee size or a little bigger than that but it's way smaller than the
10:50:50 carpenter. V: Okay, great let's see I froze up for a second. So let me there we go.
10:50:59 Okay, So that's good. Okay, shawn has another question. if we serve in the same area routinely, do you want us to submit images of each flower species with each survey?
10:51:10 Or only new species. We do want flower photos for every survey that you do.
10:51:17 If you really don't want to take pictures every time. and you know 100%, it is the same plant you could use your old photos, But we do need the photos submitted with everything. So teresa asked how do you list. seeing a bumblebee on the collection.
10:51:35 Sheet if the bumblebee is just scouting for a nest.
10:51:43 Unfortunately, we can't you know if you want to write it in the corner for fun.
10:51:45 I look at that, I I smile. but yeah, it doesn't go into our data.
10:51:52 Okay, and I think, Sam, this is true. or Janan, you may know, is a queen.
10:51:53 Quest. still kind of homeless and not quite up yet because that's a thought, too. If you see a a queen out, you could submit that data to Queen Quest I'll give this one to Sam so I believe unless Queen questions
10:52:09 evolved that they are only interested in queens that you find that are overwintering literally.
10:52:16 You're digging them out of the ground , got to so not just active queens.
10:52:21 Okay, okay. Michael asked. If the same B comes back to the same plant.
10:52:26 Do you count it twice? No, it's hard sometimes with the observational surveys to tell if it's the same V.
10:52:32 Or a newbie, but if you see it, go up and land again, it only count at one time.
10:52:37 Okay, and related to that. Some people ask, What do you do?
10:52:44 If you see a b on one flower and then move to another flower.
10:52:49 But interestingly, bees will tend to pick one flower to visit for a whole day, so that situation really rarely arises. I think I've only seen it happen once in all of my surveys.
10:53:03 Marlene asked if i'm just doing my home Wildflower garden?
10:53:05 Can I just say it's one lot so this is where the number of lots is
10:53:12 It's not exactly how it works every servant is 25 lots.
10:53:15 So you would have to divide your backyard into 25 25 lots in your mind. right.
10:53:23 So the lots. If you have a small area the lots are just smaller, but every single survey is 25 lots, and I also want to emphasize that
10:53:35 Some people will get really into the lots and i'll start to
10:53:41 Think of the entire survey in terms of lots, but it really is kind of an afterthought.
10:53:47 And then it just is for floral distribution you shouldn't be considering lots and any other sort of way of the survey.
10:53:55 Sometimes people will record a flower every time it appears in a new lot, which is not what we're looking for at all.
10:54:03 So sorry if that confuse people more. Okay. So I think you answer this.
10:54:07 But just to clarify, Peg said, So is each lot 20 feet wide.
10:54:14 So this is the lots thing is the the most confusing people really what we're trying to get at is the number of places and the area that flowers cover right.
10:54:27 But it's too difficult to actually come up with an actual measurement of that.
10:54:32 So what you would do is essentially in a sort of a talk through it, kind of way, as you do your survey. and then you reflect back that if you were to actually divide up that walk that you just took into 25 sections
10:54:49 roughly. How many of them had white clover had that the one blooming which would be one lot crab apple or the scattered buttercups?
10:54:59 And don't obsess about like Oh, I have to mark out it's not a market out thing where we have. I have to tell you like, if we will give you a special present.
10:55:11 If you can tell, give us a good way, to explain this to people we just want to know from ranking roughly who is the most common in terms of flower area, right?
10:55:22 You can't compare a little a tiny little baby flower actually, there's no really baby flowers, but a little tiny flower and a giant sunflower.
10:55:30 They're both one, although some flowers obviously are multiples in that one.
10:55:35 So we use ranking just to look at the amount of flowers available, because that's important to bumble These, like one single tiny flower of one plant is obviously going to affect the number of bumblebees.
10:55:52 On that plant, then an entire field of plants, so we need a way to give us a sense of measuring that that's at least somewhat clothing, but not overly complicated.
10:56:05 And it turns out that even if we could do a super accurate measurement somehow of all that, it really doesn't yield any better results. Then there's a lot of this flower.
10:56:15 There's a little this flower we're trying to do give you a way to frame what we mean by a lot or a little in 2 different ways.
10:56:26 Rank and number of areas is that make sense? But if someone can explain that better.
10:56:35 One explanation reward that's right a t-shirt contest.
10:56:36 Somebody wants a really cool B t-shirt. if they explain it really well, and share that one thing that I kind of like is to think about it in comparison to percent coverage.
10:56:47 So it's we're looking for sort of the same thing, and it's how much how distributed is it.
10:56:55 But percent coverage. You would also care how much of each lot is covered in a flower where we don't care how much of it.
10:57:02 How much of a lot is covered. We just want to know is a flower present in each lot.
10:57:06 I don't know if any what is helpful and what is more confusing.
10:57:10 Yes, so yes, let's just do this t-shirt contest.
10:57:14 We will, We'll do that? so if you can just reiterate, because a couple of questions are how often do we survey, and where can I survey my same garden?
10:57:22 And I know you've answered that but if you could just say it again, Right? Yeah.
10:57:27 So it is completely up to you, as hard as it is to believe you could survey as much as you want.
10:57:32 You could literally survey all day every day if you want to which please do, or you could do one survey and quit forever, which please don't.
10:57:42 Yeah, you could survey wherever you want as many times as you want.
10:57:45 Whenever it's really open ended, sue wonders. If her photographs have, if her photograph has to capture the B as well, or just the flower, that is a great question that I should have emphasized
10:57:58 more. We don't need photos of the bees we only need photos of the flowers because we need to verify floral identification.
10:58:05 But we're gonna trust that everybody can do the b identification because we have faith in you that you know bumblebees versus others, and just don't do the species unless you are really confident about it.
10:58:17 So yeah, it is completely. I forgot. what I was about to say Well, that's okay, cause Maggie has a question about old willows with very high branches.
10:58:32 So what do you do with those trees as she knows bumbles are up there?
10:58:37 But can't figure out how to see them what should she do Betsy? there's a question about
10:58:54 How do I tell the bumblebees from the carpenters?
10:58:57 And I just wanted to let you know i'm gonna pull the quiz.
10:59:00 Let address again just a second, and put it in the chat box.
10:59:02 But I did add the quizlet link to our website.
10:59:08 And so, actually, when you go there, Sam has several quizzlets.
10:59:11 You can do bumblebee versus carbon Derby.
10:59:13 You can do bumblebee Id and these are really cool especially if you're like into the the gaming idea of learning they're they're really fun here like with the quizlet in there, and so these
10:59:25 are, Id quizzes There we go. So how do we tell those?
10:59:32 What? what? what? What is it about the butts, Janan?
10:59:35 Tell us about bugs. right? So carpenter bees have huge black, shiny butts.
10:59:40 There. They're bumblebees a lot of the ones in my area at least.
10:59:43 Also have black butts, but they are fully furry we're carpenter bees.
10:59:48 It's really shiny there's there's a little bit of here at the very top of the adjubin, but it's essentially looks completely hairless
11:00:00 And they also have slightly different flight patterns which it's hard to explain you more.
11:00:05 Just have to kind of get out there and watch them for a while.
11:00:07 But carpenter bees do fly pretty differently so if you see them from afar.
11:00:11 That's kind of an easier way to identify that Oh, we're almost right at the top of the hour, Sam, do you have questions that you answered on the chat that were frequently asked that would help afford clarify in
11:00:24 our in a minute or 2 remaining folks if you have to jump off on the hour.
11:00:28 Thank you so much for coming i'll record until we're done here, and so you can go back to the recording.
11:00:33 We will post the chat. we will post the Q.
11:00:35 And a section, and that that Faq section will grow and grow on the website.
11:00:42 So please ask your questions either now or email janan later, and and we'll, you know, be sure to share all that good those good questions and answers
11:00:55 And let's see, I saw Sam pop over to put Sam did you have?
11:01:00 We were just a lot doing a lot of wrestling with you know, figuring out the lots things somewhere like I could do a quadratic, but not 25.
11:01:09 So, for example, if you're a quadratic person just do it.
11:01:11 Think of it in your mind as 6 quadrats right across the thing, and don't don't obsess on it.
11:01:20 We certainly don't want anyone measuring anything or stepping it out, or that kind of thing.
11:01:25 You have roughly 10 feet on either side when you finish your walk, which allows you to wander wherever you want.
11:01:32 Oh, there's looks like good bumblebees over there go there.
11:01:36 That's the cool thing about the thing afterwards though we want to know something about what the abundance of those flowers were.
11:01:44 So that's the trick. there's the abundance of total flower mass that's the ranking, and we're not even asking you to quantify all we figured.
11:01:53 You can't really quantify that. but we can say this has these have the most flowers out there, and these have the least.
11:02:00 And then we want to know by well how how much of that whole walk was covered by that flower where they all in one patch were everywhere.
11:02:09 So thus the tricky lot thing. So think of like how many people in a suburban area with that have the suburban area has 25 lots right?
11:02:21 How many have a jaguar one, and how many have a Toyota?
11:02:28 7. you know that kind of thing. I don't even know throwing darts here on that one, and yes, as many surveys as you want is good.
11:02:37 So I do my house winter i'm there during the day.
11:02:43 And it's a good day here at the lab the same kind of thing.
11:02:45 So flowers are changing bumblebees are changing so that kind of reputation repetition is good and additionally going to places with weird flowers.
11:02:55 We didn't talk about that. but if a flower is never recorded on a survey.
11:02:59 Then we actually don't have information on that so if you have a special area. Were you like?
11:03:05 Oh, this flower is really good, but it's somewhere else. go to go to that flower and let's check it out, you know.
11:03:11 Basically, we're saying, prove it by doing a survey great i'm just gonna share our website again.
11:03:18 Just so you can see it if you can and we're on their lives.
11:03:20 So here's the quiz let i've added in there's lots more information about bumbles that you can click on Here's our whole what will be shortcourse so lots of webinars and papers
11:03:30 and other resources on there. questions. If you have questions for Janan, how to become a participant or just email your questions.
11:03:38 And then, as we get the document together with the Faqs we'll post that the the survey, so all your forms are here, and the the pilot data that Janan and Sam talked about the demo survey examples on
11:03:53 here. this black poster is on that. So if you want to, you know, get others to participate.
11:03:58 You can share that print that out here's bumblebee versus carpenter b other resources.
11:04:05 And i'm just gonna click on that because trying to remember, Sam, if we have just those shiny that's that shiny Heini there, and we've got I like that one denise that's Olivia carol shiny heine or a fuzzy
11:04:19 butt, and so I describe it as as layers of pile carpet.
11:04:24 That's the bumblebee right so they can do different colors, but it's always going to be that Harry Hinden.
11:04:28 Where is the shiny Heine? Is the carpenter, and carpenter bees?
11:04:33 It was a question. Carpenter bees are the size of Queen Bumblebees.
11:04:37 They're big and they don't really vary whereas bumblebees often could be quite small and certain times the year when resources are dwindling, You can get bumblebees that are the size of
11:04:47 almost the size of a honeybee mostly they're obviously bigger.
11:04:53 I did, put in the chat box those of you from Ohio.
11:04:57 I think We've got a lot of folks from ohio if you haven't hopped off already. if you'd like to sign up.
11:05:01 I'm gonna organize in ohio team so we can figure out our lot questions and and maybe meet up and do some B surveys and learn together, maybe do some webinars.
11:05:11 So I have a little sign up there if you want to click if You're from Ohio, and i'll get in touch with everybody.
11:05:15 So there was a question, Sam and Janet, about Will.
11:05:19 People who are doing in different state states say sorry will people who are in different states be able to get the data for that state.
11:05:28 So know what's in massachusetts versus somebody from Delaware, etc.
11:05:33 Oh, yes, and also so, for example, in Ohio, we can run reports for just the Ohio results.
11:05:39 For example, and also for people who might be associated with a large arboretum or garden. and they they can make, I think we call them projects.
11:05:51 Is that right? Yeah. So we can make a any area that someone wishes to do multiples or have a band of people.
11:05:59 Do that as a a project area, and then Afterwards we can do a report for that arboretum that gardens whatever, but also all the data, will just have it as
11:06:12 Jake, gigantic, hopefully gigantic. excel spreadsheets, and will give it away.
11:06:17 So it'll all be publicly, available, and probably available for download right on this website, too. I don't know if we're gonna do fancy chances, you know, tools.
11:06:29 But we certainly will have a report and and poke at these data in lots of different ways.
11:06:35 We actually have a report from last year. that's an example of how that might be approached.
11:06:41 Is that up? Yes, it's the link is right here under the survey.
11:06:47 Look. And then just imagine that if we actually had a lot more data that might look like.
11:06:52 So this is just an example. there's many different ways you know That's the science right Here's a bunch of data.
11:06:58 You can analyze it in a whole bunch of different kinds of ways.
11:07:03 Then or just use information that we present in tables.
11:07:08 I will mention, too, that you can Subscribe to the website, and that way. when Janan or Sam has a a post as an update, or you know, a question, a lot of people are having you'll get that as an email you can subscribe right there
11:07:20 on the website, or there's a subscribe button so wait for all of us to. to keep in touch about this.
11:07:27 Okay, So thank you so much. I know folks a lot of folks have to hop off.
11:07:32 You've got other things going or the sun is out and your garden is calling. the bumblebees are calling many, many thanks to Janan and Sam for the overview for this great project.
11:07:40 To get us all really out there excited about bumbles and guys, I don't know if you have time to keep answering questions.
11:07:47 I'm kind of on your schedule so if you want to take some more, and people want to listen, and we'll keep recording. I'll go back to the chat.
11:07:59 Can I still enter into the chat
11:08:00 Yeah, thank you all so much for coming, and Denise for putting this together.
11:08:03 This is so exciting for me that people here to hear me talk.
11:08:08 Yeah, I think we had. I think we had 600 some at the at the Peak.
11:08:11 So it's great great turnout and i'll do if you want to answer some more.
11:08:16 I'll just keep looking here. katherine wondered if you're trying to capture like the succession of bloom through the season.
11:08:26 Yeah, it's not something that we explicitly you know mentioned, but totally, I think that it is something that the same would capture, and is really interesting to see and would help make sure that land Managers actually provide resources throughout
11:08:39 the entire active season rather than just part of it, and leave them to starve.
11:08:47 Great Carol says that she knows flowers and local bumble so. I want to go out on a walk with Carol, because I love somebody who's like Oh, I know that flower.
11:08:55 I know that one Can she use a normal digital camera and upload from her desktop computer?
11:09:00 Hates using the phone cause it's hard to hold Yeah, absolutely.
11:09:05 Okay, that was easy. you you are accepting data from Canada.
11:09:13 Is that right? We are okay. So Maggie, you can go ahead and submit your data from from Canada.
11:09:21 Some of these were from a little while ago, webinar wise, So some of them have been answered.
11:09:26 Do you need to. Id down to species for the flowers and you don't.
11:09:30 You can even say it's a little white flower and just put a picture of it.
11:09:42 I see
11:09:43 I see this one that just popped up. good, awesome.
11:09:47 If you have a lot of bumblebees on a plant, should you just estimate the number or actually count them?
11:09:54 And yeah, I think that what i've generally done is i'll just count a bunch and say kind of like 50 plus or something.
11:10:03 You definitely wouldn't spend time identifying all of them I would identify maybe 3 to 5 to get a general idea as
11:10:13 The the species that are present. But yeah, estimation is good.
11:10:20 There are a couple of golden rod questions. So if folks can identify Golden Rod to species again, I want to go for a walk with you in the field this fall. but if they can, Id golden rod to species should they or is just a
11:10:33 a genus. Okay, He sees ids whenever possible, are totally great.
11:10:39 We actually have a special note about Golden Rod in particular, because it has some interesting identification features that you need to see like.
11:10:47 Forget exactly what I think with the base of the plant and under a leaf or something.
11:10:52 So if you can do species level, ids that's great we also ask some specific photos of plant parts, which it says what parts you need on the data sheet.
11:11:02 So you'll Have that out in the field. Okay, great Scott's wondering why you chose sikh, which is part of my naturalist instead of just I naturalist. Yeah, that is a good question should have been in the
11:11:13 Faq. My naturalist is great, and generally more output, I think, because you actually have real people, but seek is just instant, because it is only the Ai.
11:11:24 So seek will either give you an identification on the spot, or it will not be able to identify it for you.
11:11:29 Where I, naturalist, you would kind of have to wait for the community to respond, which would just really bogged down the data entry.
11:11:37 And you have to be connected to the Internet
11:12:11 That's very interesting. Hmm nancy wonders of flowering weeds.
11:12:16 Start in a sorry if flowering weeds and a lawn count totally.
11:12:22 Yeah, and that is a a good point as well we want any blooming thing.
11:12:26 Whether or not it's native or intentional anything that has a flower should count, and you should take a picture of it.
11:12:36 Scott says your main geographical area is northeast.
11:12:39 Can you be more specific, and you may have again sorry if you are can't quite remember the list of States.
11:12:46 But it so as Maine to West Virginia, it kind of ends up being West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island that sort of the the real I I If you were to look on a
11:13:00 map. Just draw a line from West Virginia and it's everything above there.
11:13:07 Michelle Gonzalez has a question that or at an approach that i'm gonna use as well.
11:13:13 So she says, I have access to penn state's native flower trials where we monitor different types of insects.
11:13:19 Could I use that area to monitor the bees and so we're actually doing a different pollinator study here in Ohio, comparing some native perennials to some introduced perennials, and we all have them
11:13:29 in plots, and 15 different sites across the state and so i'm going to use one of our plots to also, you know.
11:13:36 First i'll do my pollinator monitoring and then i'll also do the the bum will be monitoring.
11:13:42 So you know we know these plants are great for pollinators.
11:13:43 I hope to see some great Bumbles on there too.
11:13:48 Yeah, that's awesome. Hmm. So michelle you're in Yes, and and the answer is, yes, Lisa wonders about your western boundaries.
11:13:59 Maybe you just said that you said like diagonal.
11:14:05 I wish I included a map it's fish and wildlife service region.
11:14:11 5. If that means anything to anyone. this is a good a question for both of you.
11:14:19 Someone is looking for, and i'm sorry zip pass the question, so I forget your name.
11:14:23 But oh, here Jackie wants to know a good source to purchase nets and vials for collections.
11:14:29 Sam. Oh, that's a problem. he bioquipped just clues So the standard place where we all got our equipment is closed, and I don't have a good answer right now, But Sam, I think I
11:14:43 heard. Maybe somebody knows and can put that in the chat.
11:14:46 I heard that it was coming back somebody had bought it and does anybody know that maybe that's a rumor by those of us who wish there was a rumor several months ago. That that would happen, but as far, as I know
11:14:58 It's closed . and but there are So the problem is is that other places sell these.
11:15:08 I can go on Amazon, but a lot of them are just total junk.
11:15:10 I have to say so. I don't have any recommendations but they are people working on that.
11:15:18 But mostly i've seen that as lists that people keep on their own.
11:15:23 And so i'm sorry I can't really give you a great advice right now.
11:15:30 Okay, Thanks. Anne, ,
11:15:37 Let's see. Okay, sorry just scrolling 2 inch man, if you see any.
11:15:41 But you wanna take her, Sam, if you have any others
11:15:52 So, Kate wonders if there's a way to fill out the survey on phones rather than on physical paper.
11:15:58 And my guess is physical paper is the way you want to go.
11:16:01 I mentioned our Ohio survey and we're doing this same thing.
11:16:04 You know it's just having that paper backup is so important your you lose your connection. you're halfway through the survey. the you know.
11:16:11 Whatever the phone dies. and so is is that accurate as well.
11:16:16 Janan, you're really looking for that paper
11:16:23 Where can I find that list of bumblebee's favorite flowers?
11:16:27 And maybe you were looking from my my screen share. Let me go back here and see if I can share
11:16:34 I do have that that resource? Sam tell us about that resource isn't that Jared so Did you guys mention this Yeah. flower finder?
11:16:48 Oh, no! that's the flower finder is going to be informed by all our results.
11:17:00 But people want to do things now, particularly for bumblebees.
11:17:03 So the bumblebee flower finder has what are just people's experiential expertise on which of what plants are good bumblebee plants, and it lets you divide up
11:17:21 the you know your query like, Oh, I only want things that are tall.
11:17:25 I only want things that bloom in the spring, or I only want plants that are purple, and gives you a presentation of that.
11:17:33 Now how good they are and whether there's some questionable things on there, or whether there's things that we don't have.
11:17:41 I don't know but you can't really go wrong if you were emphasizing these plants for bumblebees, because it is based on sort of an understanding of the the communist the
11:17:56 bumblebee plants so it's it's something to play around with, and to use as a guide.
11:18:01 Now and we're already modifying it in terms of you know what is included in what's not included.
11:18:11 And So but we have to rate for your guys results.
11:18:13 Get get out there, and for example, on the top, there was a thing that said Robins Planton and
11:18:21 I have never really seen anything on that. It changes every time you reload.
11:18:25 So you know the questions about whether that's how good a plant is
11:18:29 Some of those you know, some of those early composites versus other things.
11:18:36 So this is where we're finding out but this is something that people find useful right now.
11:18:44 So diana asked, so i'm trying to go with some of our just later in the webinar questions to see if we have some that haven't been answered.
11:18:52 So Diana wonders. Is it okay? just to enter the plant name if we know it well, without using, seek for every single species
11:19:14 So Jean has a great suggestion, Janan.
11:19:17 This may be something for us to put our heads together on she's looking for an editable pdf of the data entry form, and so people could have it on their computer and just enter their information.
11:19:28 The Let's see how they yeah and just send you a screenshot or send you that would be great, and we have had a couple of people make up some excel spreadsheets like recreate the
11:19:40 thing in excel, so maybe we could kind of adapt one of those.
11:19:43 But that's a great idea, and I will follow up with you about that.
11:19:50 A lot of these are good. Oh, so i'll just go back here to our website, so that bum will be plant finder up or flower finder is under learn there, and they are the quizzlets too.
11:20:08 Oh, just take another minute or 2 no lots of folks have hopped off.
11:20:11 But let's great to be together, and be able to ask you guys these questions.
11:20:17 Here, let me let me mention some. Can I mentioned something, Denise.
11:20:27 What about pictures of these bees? and I think there is a a sense that we actually want pictures of the bubble bees?
11:20:33 And actually we don't if you have like an off hand, like Oh, hey!
11:20:39 I saw this cool thing. you can send it to us, but we really are asking you to only identify and count bumblebees visually, and but we only, and pictures.
11:20:49 We want pictures of the flowers because really more of a flower based survey, and we have to be confident of the identification of the flower.
11:20:56 Not that we don't trust you but we don't and so we'll verify that and then the bumblebees a lot of times will just be bumblebee species because even with a picture we
11:21:06 can't tell the problem with pictures is that nobody can catch get pictures of all the bumblebees on that survey because they fly away, or they're too far right. It's a little fuzzy dot or your camera is
11:21:17 not set up to do that. so and you spend too much time trying to do that.
11:21:23 So we don't want any pictures where you're just looking at flowers and saying, Oh, there's a bumblebee on it, and then trying to see if you can tell it. what species if you know those things and then
11:21:36 you continue on your survey, so does that make sense But they can take those pictures and add them to a naturalist, or you know.
11:21:45 Yes, , for everything. we really are completely deemphasizing.
11:21:50 Take what so even yes, you can send them I naturally our suggestion is, do your flower survey first, then go back and take bubblety pictures as much as you want. You know.
11:22:00 Otherwise you're trying to what we found is there's if you keep adding too many distractions like, Oh, why don't you take?
11:22:06 Why do you account, monarchs? or Why, don't you count the other bees, or what about beatles?
11:22:10 You know it dilutes the main point. And so we need to be right.
11:22:17 Be successful, be focused. Just do this now and then. go on to something else like Yep.
11:22:22 I get it. Gail wonders what the timeframe from is for the survey, and i'm guessing Gail means when to start, which is now been when to finish so November ish or as long
11:22:33 as they're bees out for me. it was mid October that I stopped seeing anything.
11:22:40 And yeah, I think from at least in Maryland it was The first are out and kind of Aprilish, maybe a couple in March, but it depends obviously a little bit where you are.
11:22:52 A couple of questions about males versus females how to tell them apart, and we can make sure we have linked something.
11:22:58 I think there's some nice diagrams that kind of show you some of those characteristics, and another question like, When would you see males more in late summer?
11:23:10 Fall. I will also, I think, defer to Sam for this, but at least personally, I just look at
11:23:17 The the pollen collecting but I think it's the scoopa on their legs.
11:23:23 If males don't have they don't collect pollen so you won't see the pollen baskets on the behind the legs of males. so if I see Paul and i'll put it as a
11:23:33 female. Otherwise I just do sex unknown. personally But sam are there any features that are useful for male versus email in the field other than the pollen baskets? it's Yeah, it's really subtle and so a lot of them were
11:23:47 just going to be unknown gender. but yeah with some pre first of all, in the spring it's all queen.
11:23:52 It's all females they might be cleaner worker Then at some point the males start getting produced by the colony and That can be fairly early.
11:24:01 So end of June even if you're in the southern areas, but they males tend to be a little skinnier, you know.
11:24:09 They're not carrying anything. they tend to be a little bit longer.
11:24:12 They have an extra set of abdominal segments.
11:24:17 Their antenna tend to be a little bit longer.
11:24:20 And as jennan pointed out they don't have the pollen basket they certainly don't carry pollen. so if see if it's carrying pollen you know it is a email if it's just
11:24:30 the leg. It could be a female, no caring pollen or it could be a male, and if you can see it, you can look to see whether that curricula it's called so. the bare shiny flat area which the bump will be
11:24:42 gathers and sticks. its pollen separates the females from the males with a very you know a we'll just do a little sidebar that says there are a few.
11:24:56 These that are nest pair sites they show up very rarely, and there, because of nest pair sites, the females also don't have a curricula.
11:25:05 So we're not going to concentrate on that and and so a lot of times you would particularly at the remainder of the year, have to put you know gender unknown because you have to get kind of close
11:25:18 to see these characters, and we a lot. of times they're just gonna fly away, anyway, or there you have to climb it to a middle of brambles or something.
11:25:30 Okay. Laura had just to reconfirm.
11:25:34 So is there Is there a requirement on the amount of area to cover in a survey?
11:25:41 So there is not really, except that it has to be large enough that it takes you 30 min to cover without you just walking in circles and repeating the whole area.
11:25:53 So generally, I think, a backyard alone the average backyard might be a little bit small.
11:25:58 So then I recommend, if you can include any of your neighbors front yards or something, or you can just walk on a grassy area that has some white clover or something, but it should take you 30 min to cover.
11:26:12 There is no actual area measurement that we just kind of you.
11:26:17 Your area is relatively limited by the time but no there is no technical area.
11:26:25 Okay, and you said Clover. So she wonders is we're looking at native and not a non native plants, weeds and desirables.
11:26:29 Any flower exactly any flower and then, canada's.
11:26:41 Okay for gathering data. Yeah, please do. Okay, awesome.
11:26:45 So the recorded session, Sally and everyone will be here at our website.
11:26:51 So again. let's somebody pop that into the chat a lot of you to the chat box.
11:26:56 You'll also go there as you leave so this webinar will send you to our
11:27:03 Ask a bumblebee website, but we'll post the recording. I should have it up by 3 or 4 o'clock this afternoon if the tech gods are smiling, so you can come back and watch that I might separate out to
11:27:14 the training part, and the Q. and A. and then all of it together.
11:27:17 So if you you know you can kind of choose how much you wanna go back through.
11:27:22 And Yeah, Then keep asking questions. So we can really build that.
11:27:26 Faq, and help all of us, you know, turn into to Janan and Sam, really meaningful data on what bubbles are visiting.
11:27:36 So again. Thanks so much. Janan and Sam really appreciate all your time and expertise on this and , looking forward to going out there and looking at peace.
11:27:45 Thanks everybody for coming and for hanging out an extra half an hour to to go over some of those questions, and I think it's time to go out and walk around the yard.
11:27:54 Yes, time to survey. Thank you. so much this is a lot of fun. That's great.
11:27:59 Thanks a lot the needs for doing this. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for all you do really appreciate it.