Guest Blog by C. Mallory
Hello Everyone-
A few weeks ago the lab did an overnight trip to look for specialist bees. A group of five us set off for numerous sampling locations in southern Ohio. A couple hours drive from Newark had us arriving in Cooper’s Hollow Wildlife Area in Jackson County, OH.
The first pond at Cooper Hollow is also the same site as Double-ringed Pennants. We had hoped to find some rare bees, but the rare dragonflies were a consolation prize. Photo by M. Spring
Our first site at what we called “Cooper’s Hollow Fish Pond #1” was fruitful and delivered us with many species of plants to survey off of including White Clover, Red Clover, Daisies, Honeysuckle, Penstemon, and Narrow Leaf Plantain. Our lab crew braved the heat and spent a great chunk of the morning collecting here. It was a great start to the 36 hour trip.
The road to the second Cooper Hollow Wildlife Area had plenty of small flowering plants along the edge. Photo by C. Mallory
Next, we drove about a half mile up the road to the next site which we called “Cooper’s Hollow Pond #2.” There were similar plant species here to Pond #1 however, we were glad to find some more bees to bring back to the lab.
Still in Cooper’s Hollow, we drove up the road to what we called “Joe Evans Road” site. Off the side of the road, this site was plentiful of plant species and bees. We collected Yellow Sweet Clover, Red Clover, and American Ipecac.
The main entrance to the United Plant Savers has a new building and interesting landscaping. Photo by M. Spring
After a full afternoon of collecting, the bees got tired and so did we. We retired to our campsite at United Plant Saver’s Botanical Sanctuary in Meigs County, OH. We enjoyed a campsite dinner, freshened up, and pinned the bees we had collected that day.
Our campsite at the United Plant Savers was just downhill from Heart Pond. Photo by M. Spring
On Thursday, we woke up excited to survey at United Plant Saver’s Botanical Sanctuary and patiently waited for the morning chill to subside so the bees would be airborne again. Here we sampled Chestnut trees, Yellow St. John’s Wort, and wild parsnip. We were all very excited by the diversity and friendliness the United Plant Saver’s provided us with.
After a few rounds of sampling, the group split up to maximize ground covered. My group traveled just up the road to the Meigs County Soil and Water Conservation site. We eagerly waded through tall grasses and plants to collect bees from Penstemon, Rose, and other plants. We then embarked for Liberty City Wildlife Area. Sadly, no plants were flowering at that time and it was shady, so we did not find anything to collect, but did have a nice drive there.
We then left for Zaleski State Forest in Vinton/Athens counties. We found only a few flowering plants. Nonetheless, we still surveyed three plant species and collected one bee. Though these last two sites were not very productive, we believe they could be plentiful deeper into the summer and may try to revisit and collect from them again. It was a productive and fun trip for everyone and we are glad to have been able to do some fieldwork ourselves. Otherwise, most of our time is spent in the lab processing the samples from 2020.
Several bumble bees were visiting the leathervine plant at Zaleski. Photo by C. Mallory
Guest Blog by C. Mallory
Note from MaLisa on weekly progress:
We sorted 8 kits the last week of June: M. Carsten (Summit), A. Miller (Carroll), S. Angel (Tuscawaras), K. Veve (Montgomery), C. Blake (Ashtabula), H. Hollis (Sandusky), J. Estep (Union – second site), and C. Frontz (Wayne). The interesting bycatch from these samples will be shared at a later date. We are now over 42,000 bees pinned!
Bees to watch:
A quick note to remind you that now is the time to look for digger bee (Anthophora) nests! These nests are likely around old stream beds, in barn floors, under decks, or in cobb houses. They seem to really enjoy the material of cobb houses, so if you know of someone with such a building that has started to get weird holes, go check them out! The outdoor bread oven at Wegertzen Gardens Metroparks in Dayton is one such example (Thanks Denise!)
Examples of Digger bee nests: https://www.inaturalist.org/
https://www.inaturalist.org/
There is also a distinct digger bee parasite, so photograph any visitors to the large nests.