The humble bumblebee, that black-and-yellow, fuzzy, familiar insect, is critically important to the health and well-being of Maine’s wildflowers, garden flowers, fruits and vegetables.
But for many years, it has been almost taken for granted. Scientists knew little about how wild bumblebees here were doing, with only 1,600 bee specimens documented in Maine between the 1800s and 2015.
“We had limited information about the bumblebee species present in the state. It wasn’t something that people were tracking. It was a narrow interest,” Beth Swartz, a wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, said this week. “Most of the state was blank in terms of bumblebees.”
But with the help of a small army of citizen scientists, those blanks are getting filled in. The Maine Bumble Bee Atlas, a five-year, statewide survey looking to document the different species of bumblebees in Maine, their range, and their abundance, is just beginning its fourth year. So far, more than 200 volunteers around the state have been trained to observe and collect bumblebees, with more than 100 contributing data reliably, Swartz said.
“We have a lot more information now,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of great participation with this project. There’s a big interest in pollinators right now.”
She, and the atlas, are still looking for more volunteers from anywhere in the state to track the bumblebees. Two all-day training workshops are scheduled this spring for Saturday, May 19, at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham and on Saturday, June 9, at the University of Maine in Orono. Those who register to attend the free workshop should be committed to contributing data to the project, and will be expected to choose one or more sites to survey in Maine throughout the field season. For each site visit, citizen scientists will need to fill out a form that records data about location, habitat and the bumblebees observed. They will also need to provide either collected specimens or close-up photographs of bees to contribute to the atlas organizers.
“We spend the first half of the day talking about bumblebees. Natural history, conservation and other bumblebee-oriented stuff. The latter half of the day we spend on methodology,” Swartz said. “We send them home with equipment, vials and pinning boxes.”
Organizers prefer that volunteers collect the bees instead of taking their photos. It’s a little less reliable to identify bumblebees with a photograph, she said, adding that collecting a few individuals at a few sites here and there will not affect the bee population. Volunteers can go wherever they want to survey the bees, and many are happy to stay in their own backyards, Swartz said. That’s OK with researchers, who say that even when volunteers have chosen to keep close to home they still have added greatly to the information known about Maine bumblebees. Over the three years of the project, the numbers of documented bumblebee records in Maine have jumped from 1,600 to more than 15,000. Researchers have confirmed 13 of the 18 bumblebee species that previously had been documented in the state. The abundance of some species has clearly declined over the years and one, the rusty patched bumblebee, was listed as a federally recognized endangered species in February 2017. But early reports seem to indicate that other species are holding their own.
“About half the species that we have appear to be at least widely distributed and relatively abundant,” Swartz said. “But that’s one of the goals of the project, to do a modern-day analysis of the bumblebees.”
It’s important to do so, she said.
“The bees have evolved as native pollinators to pollinate our native plants. Bumblebees can withstand our colder, wetter weather,” she said. “There’s just a great, wide diversity of native pollinators.”
Volunteers can preregister by filling out this form. For more information about volunteering for the atlas, visit the website http://mainebumblebeeatlas.umf.maine.edu/announcements/
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