Hi everyone!
Specialist Bee Sampling:
We are recruiting people to help with the specialist bee survey that will be managed by Amber Fredenburg this coming year. There will be a zoom training session next Wednesday evening on March the 8th at 6 PM. It will be recorded.
If you would like to sign up to participate in the more targeted specialist bee survey and get emails, please go to this page and fill out that form: https://u.osu.edu/beesurvey/native-bee-survey-via-specimen-collections/120-2/
Specialist bee field guide: For those wanting a copy of the specialist bee field guide, here is the link to the pdf that you can send to have printed at any local print shop: https://u.osu.edu/beesurvey/files/2021/04/GuidetoSpecialistBeesofOhio_2021.pdf
Ohio Natural History Conference Updates:
We had a good turnout at the Ohio Natural History Conference down in Cinci. MaLisa gave a talk, and both Amber and Eleanor had posters.
New paper from the lab:
The Goodell Lab just published a paper on the floral use of Ohio bumble bees here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.4425
Toxomerus marginatus
Toxomerus makes up the bulk of the hover fly abundance
Hover Fly Maps:
As part of the bee bowl project, we had many hover flies get into our bowls accidentally. We have created maps for all of the hover fly taxa, which are below. A majority of specimens were in the genus Toxomerus, which eat aphids and other soft bodied insects as larvae and pollinate flowers as adults. Since we are not doing a large write up on the hover flies beyond what Eleanor put in her thesis and what will go into a peer reviewed publication, I wanted to release the maps here. Let us know if you have questions! We will have similar maps for the bees from the bowls that we are incorporating into a large report that we will send to all of the collectors to reference.
