Two years ago, Pennsylvania State University gathered 26 volunteers for a unique bee monitoring program in Pennsylvania, and the results of the program are finally available to the public.
The study, which was published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, evaluated the program from August 2021 to December 2022 — and it led to a surprising discovery.
Across the 16-month span, trained participants — many of them Master Gardeners — collected 9,062 bees and categorized them into 235 different bee species.
To the researchers’ delight, six of the bee species that were monitored were entered into public record for the first time.
The new bee species discovered in Pennsylvania include: a large ground-nesting bee (Andrena duplicata), a honeybee (Nomada banksia), two “sweat” bees (Sphecodes davisiia, Sphecodes johnsoniia), and two leaf-cutting bees (Chelostoma campanularumb, Heriades truncorumb).
Nash Turley, a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State and lead author on the study, celebrated the discovery while championing the collaborative nature of the bee monitoring program.
“This project showcases how Pennsylvanians are engaging in community science to serve their communities and the commonwealth,” Turley told the Reading Eagle, a local Pennsylvania news outlet.
“The effectiveness of this collaboration suggests it could serve as a model for other programs to further develop volunteer-based opportunities,” he added, “and contribute to future efforts to better understand and protect our state’s biodiversity.”
In a public statement, Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said that “more than 80% of flowering plants” in the state rely on pollinators — and that many Pennsylvania locals, in turn, rely on the health and wellbeing of bees for their livelihood.
“Apples, peaches, berries, pumpkins, grapes and many other high-value Pennsylvania crops depend on bees,” Redding explained. “As does our $4.1 billion nursery and landscaping industry.”
“The data in this report illustrate the value of citizen science in making sure we can protect pollinators and produce food in the future,” he added.
For over four decades, bees have been a central concern for environmentalists and agriculture experts alike, as habitat loss, pesticide use, disease, and extreme weather conditions put one in four native bee species at risk of extinction.
The “Save the Bees” campaign first began in the 1990s but gained traction in the early 2000s when it attracted the attention of the greater public.
Since then, the “Save the Bees” movement has led to legislation like the GSA’s Pollinator Protection Initiative, which places beehives in critical locations across the country, and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency’s Pollinator Habitat Initiative, which aims to establish 100,000 acres of native wildflowers to support pollinators and other wildlife.
As programs expand for beekeeping and wildlife monitoring — and great strides are made in conservation — new bee species have been discovered around the world.
In 2023, researchers discovered three bee species in California and Arizona that had luminescent bodies and “unusual metallic reflections.”
A year prior, a new species of sweat bee was found in Canada while half a world away a scientist in Western Australia discovered a new type of bee with a “protruding snout” — and fittingly named the species (Leioproctus zephyr) after her dog Zepher.
For Turley, the Penn State monitoring program continues that trend of discovery and shows that we still have a lot to learn about our buzzing insect friends.
In his paper, Turley wrote, “This study demonstrates the value of highly trained community scientists for collections-based research that aims to document patterns of bee biodiversity over space and time.”
Header image via PickPik (Public Domain)
