Dec 6 – Progress Updates, PBS Bee Doc, and other fun

Hi Everyone!

We are up to 44,000+ bees identified to at least genus! The last two weeks have been hectic with various days off, so progress has been slow. We are also down to the last few weeks of the semester, so students will be switching up how they are working with us. That potentially means graduate students putting in more hours, with undergraduate students logging fewer hours.

Our lovely pie chart of identification progress to genus level. There is still plenty left to go for species IDs

PBS Bee Documentary: My Garden of a Thousand Bees

I finally got around to watching the PBS bee documentary that a few people sent to me a few months ago. For those who haven’t seen it, the documentary is about a wildlife videographer in the UK who spent his lockdown filming the bees in his small backyard. He got some fun video and even though it is not in Ohio, many of the bee genera are the same. See more about the fun film here: https://www.pbs.org/video/my-garden-of-a-thousand-bees-trjhzt/

Fun Bycatch Wasp:

Occasionally, a few non bee wasps ended up getting pinned by accident. The square headed wasp was staring me down as I went through the IDs last week.

My, what big eyes you have!

These are cavity nesting predatory wasps, though what they forage on depends on the wasp species. They can also regularly be found visiting flowers.

Wasp course:

Want to learn more about non-bee wasps? Well, there is a course covering all the other wasps that are not bees, starting in January! Also, did I mention that it is a fully remote course? There is a small fee ($60 for regular, $45 for students). See more about the course here: https://waspidcourse.wordpress.com/ 

All for now,

MaLisa