Did You know...

Bumble bees are more effective at pollinating flowers than honey bees.

Bumble bees ‘buzz’ pollinate flowers where they vibrate their bodies when inside a flower to better transfer pollen from flower to flower.

Survey Results

During the 2009, we scouted 16 number of fields in southwest Washington, the Willamette Valley and northwestern Oregon using the scouting guidelines outlined on the Preliminary scouting guidelines page. Here are some of our findings:

More bumble bee species were observed than any other native pollinator species.

More than 50% of the bumble bees we found were B.vosnesenskii, which correlates with an Oregon State University study that also found more of this species than any other type of bumble bee.

Click here to view a pie chart comparison of our findings.

Most common species found were bumble bees:

   - Bombus vosnesenskii
  - Bombus melanopygus
  - Bombus mixtus
  - Bombus sitkensis

Click here to view a table of pollinators found during the survey and their counts.

Click the image below to see a detailed view of some of the pollinators we pinned.

All commonly found bees:

-are considered social bees
-are ground nesting species
-emerge in March through early April
-have a flight season through September
-dig nesting sites in soil
-inhabit abandoned rodent nests, bird nests or burrow under grassy areas
-forage on a variety of flowers
-pollinate berries very well

Our survey was visual only. By using obeservation to find pollinators, we collected a much different pollinator population than someone using a trapping method might have found.

The OSU study used trapping methods, where a higher number of non-bumble bee species than bumble bee were found. Using bee traps is a viable way to quantify types of pollinators. Traps are best used in conjunction with visual observation in order to obtain accurate counts of small native pollinators.

Traps can have some biasing factors that are likely to attract different kinds of pollinators than you might find when doing a visual search. For example:

The color of a trap can attract a wide range of bees, including smaller bees. Click here to read an article about Oregon State researchers uncovering that native polliinators are attracted to the color blue.

Traps are considered to be a "passive collection method". This means that it is possible that the traps will collect much more than you might see, count or capture when actively observing your field.

There is the potential for bees, particularly larger pollinators, to escape traps if no killing solution is used. This means that traps may show less larger bees, even if they are abundant in your field.

Blue Vane traps™ and/or pan traps can be used to supplement visual survey results. Note: if you don't use a killing solution in the pollinator traps, then they may need to be checked daily.