Overall, this week we finished pinning one kit by K. Capuzzi from Hocking County and started sorting a kit by S. Hearn from Belmont County.
One thing that people seem to enjoy is that their “messy” filters with masses of insects still manage to come out intact, with lots of little bees hiding in their midst.
An example filter right after I open it to sort the specimens. Everything is still stuck together in the filter shape.
I have to agree that when they are in the filter, they do look beyond saving, but they actually preserve really well in the freezer!
Once thawed, the same mass in the filter above can be carefully separated and sorted.
We sort the specimens into 7 main groups: bees, hoverflies, robberflies, all other true flies, moths/butterflies, all other bycatch, and spiders (for select locations).
This is a sorted sample from S. Hearn. She also had some damselflies in her kit, so we separated those out too, but most kits do not have any damselflies.
The bees, hoverflies, and robberflies get put into petri dishes temporarily. When we have enough batches, we then wash the bees, and pin the hoverflies/robberflies without washing. These are the remaining 10 weeks of samples from the kit by Capuzzi. There were a lot of bees in the later weeks.
After sorting, washing, and drying the bees, we move on to pinning them. This is a very labor intensive step and most of what people were helping with when they came to the lab. There will be no visitors for the next month or so until the Covid cases in Ohio start to decrease, so we have been going much slower with kit processing.
One sample by Capuzzi had over 100 bees that needed pinned! We glued the small ones to the pins and saved the larger bees for last, which we pinned through the thorax.
The only other update is that Eleanor (student worker), successfully put together 46 specimen boxes and colored bee stencils on them. These bioquip boxes are somewhat expensive and variable quality, so we are going to experiment with some pizza boxes and foam to save money and space.
With the 8 kits sorted so far, we have already used 38 of these boxes! There are many more boxes in our future.
Interesting bycatch:
We may gripe about them, but deer flies do have amazing eyes! Check out those facets! And rice for scale visible here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/66053054
Also, remember those tiny snails from weeks ago that I was excited about? Well, I found more, and added in a grain of rice for scale! I told you they were small!
This full grown snail would be easily missed in the field, as it is barely larger than some sand grains. Now I really want to find one alive and try to photograph it.
Another thing that throws people off is how much colors change in the water. In June, I covered Snipe flies as bycatch. But the color of snipe flies becomes dulled once they get wet, so they are not nearly charismatic. Well, check out the same species below, once I let it air dry for a few minutes!
Check out those golden hairs on this Golden-backed Snipe fly! It looks positively huggable, if it wasn’t so small and human hugs so large. There is also a grain of rice for scale, but the rice got overexposed so it is just a white blob.
Other fun bugs included more tiny beetles with rice for scale, a scorpionfly, a hister beetle, a fungus gnat, a velvet mite with rice for scale, and a Big-eyed bug.
Recently published scientific articles of interest:
Need even more things to read in your life, check out the article below.
Decline of six native mason bee species following the arrival of an exotic congener. – As it sounds, the paper highlights the decline of 6 species of Mason bees (Osmia spp) in the northeastern United States, whereas the exotic Osmia species is having a population boom. They used pan trap data across 15 years of sampling to figure out that the native species were declining over that time frame and the exotic species were increasing.
That is all for now,
MaLisa
Thanks for sharing. I enjoy reading!
Very interesting study, and thanks for sharing! Keep it coming.
I cant help but share this quote from the final paragraph of the Discussion:
“An affordable, general collecting protocol replicated over time and space with the help of many individuals such as citizen science program participants can provide a wealth of data, including information on changes in species abundance over time and exotic species detection and spread. Such monitoring is needed in order to recognize species declines in time to study their causes as well as prevent their loss from the landscape.”
Three cheers for citizen science programs for bee study! Can’t wait to hear about final results here in Ohio.
Very cool information and photos! How difficult is it to distinguish the species of Osmia?
The two exotic species are relatively easy to ID (thanks to large “horns” on their face), but most of the native species are a bit harder to differentiate in my opinion.
Discoverlife key: https://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Osmia_female
Arduser also has dichotomous keys in the zipped file on this page too: http://bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/handybeemanual.html
Love these updates. Thanks MaLisa!!
Have you checked with Sam Droege on the pizza boxes. He pins thousands of bees and I think that is what he uses. sdroege@usgs.gov
Carl
Yea, I am trying out pizza boxes based on his suggestions in the Handy Bee Manual. We were able to find a few bulk sources for pizza boxes, though they still cost money. It sounds like he is able to get a good deal on foam, but I was not able to find any foam manufacturers in Ohio that made the right type of foam. So we had to order from a company online. But still definitely cheaper than the current box setup.
Hi MaLisa! Thanks so much for these updates! They are fun and informative and lets us feel a part of it when we can’t be doing it with you. Stay healthy and bee well!
Your updates are always interesting! I’m curious as to the colored “stones” in the petri dishes. What is their purpose?
I’m glad you like the posts!
There are matching sets of gems in each petri dish. One set is glued to the dish, the other set goes with specimens when they are washed. So I can wash the bees without washing labels and still easily figure out which kit they came from. Trick learned from Sam Droege.