In the last three years, on behalf of the Pennsylvania Bee Monitoring Program, 20 master gardeners from around Pennsylvania have netted and trapped more than 25,000 specimens across 25 counties. They collect bees from city parks and among forest clearings, beneath power line rights of way and in their own backyards. And their work, done between March and November each year, has transformed what researchers know about wild-bee abundance and diversity in the Keystone State. Peg Friese, an environmental educator in Chester County and one of the beeple, figures that about 2,000 of those were bees she collected. That topped the previous year’s total of 800. “It’s addictive,” she says.
Together, the beeple have provided an unprecedented dataset for Penn State entomologists who are trying to get a handle on what is happening to wild-bee populations as the climate changes. “It’s incredible how much time and energy they are willing to give for our research,” says Sarah Kania, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University who receives, identifies and catalogues every bee the beeple find. “We can only do the work that we do because of the work that they do.”
This story, written by Ashley Stimpson is published in The Washington Post.
