The Aquidneck Land Trust is hosting a walk and talk event at Spruce Acres Farm all about wild, native bees and other pollinators. The walk, which takes place on Saturday, August 3 at 10 a.m., will be led by Casey Johnson, a research associate at the University of Rhode Island Bee Lab. George Christie from the Rhode Island Natural History Survey and Toby Shaya, the Pollinator Atlas Entomologist at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, will also be in attendance.
The bee walk and talk acts as a complimentary piece to the Aquidneck Land Trust’s pollinator habitat workshop at Spruce Acres back in April, during the Aquidneck Island Earth Month. Then, the goal was to get hands-on in learning the importance of pollinator and beneficial insect habitat and how to create those spaces in our backyards. Now, the focus is more on the pollinators themselves and the symbiotic relationship they have with native plants. “A lot of native plants and pollinators have a very specialized relationship – an evolutionary relationship. Monarch butterflies and milkweed are definitely one of the most famous examples of that,” Sean Grandy, the stewardship manager at the Aquidneck Land Trust, says.
The idea to have a “sequel” to the pollinator event at Spruce Acres was developed from “Transforming the Landscape: Audubon Native Plants and Pollinators Symposium” held at Rhode Island College earlier this year. The symposium discussed transforming urban and suburban areas into pollinator habitats to prevent their further decline. Green space is often negligible in cities, and “even in suburban areas, people have lawns, or they have ornamental, exotic plants that really don’t offer any kind of habitat value for pollinators and beneficial insects,” Grandy explains.
The Audubon talk inspired the Aquidneck Land Trust to host more outreach events about pollinators and their natural habitats, and it was also where the land trust discovered the URI Bee Lab. The idea for a walk and talk with a Bee Lab researcher just made sense: Spruce Acres pollinator garden acts as a mini, natural educational “lab” for local walkers with its abundance of native plants and insects. “People will get to see all these different types of native bees up close. A lot of times people just think of honey bees – which are not even native, they’re from Europe – so it’ll be cool to look at bumblebees and maybe like carpenter bees or the green sweat bees.” Really, all that was needed was a scientist to guide the walk.
That’s where Casey Johnson and the URI Bee Lab come in. The lab, led by Dr. Steven Alm, “focuses on the biology and behavior of native and managed bees in Rhode Island,” explains Johnson. “Our research interests range from native bee conservation and the establishment and evolution of pollinator plantings, to honey bee behavior and novel varroa mite [a honey bee parasite] controls. The URI Bee Lab’s mission is to support populations of native and managed bees, explore plant-pollinator interactions, and promote the conservation of pollinator habitat through research, education, and outreach.”
The Bee Lab has been involved in bee-related projects since 2014, and currently, one of its main goals is to gather baseline data on the native bees of Rhode Island, documenting which species occur (or used to occur) in the state through various surveys and from historical insect collections. This will help future researchers and conservationists respond to rare or declining bee species.
“There are at least 250 distinct species of bees in Rhode Island,” and according to current checklists, about 380 species in Connecticut, 390 in Massachusetts, 450 in New York, and 350 in Vermont, Johnson expounds, “although we seem to be continuously documenting new state records (first listed occurrence of a species in RI) through our various research projects.” To put those numbers in perspective, there are about 770 species of bees native to the Eastern U.S., and 4,000 species native to North America.
The diversity of native bees is incredible. They can range in size from a few millimeters to two centimeters long. They can also come in all sorts of colors: metallic green, black, golden, blue, white-striped, and even red and yellow. All of these bee species have been coevolving with plants for about 125 million years, with some bee species – about 25% in the Eastern U.S. – becoming “specialists,” or bees that forage for pollen from only select plants. “One example of this in Rhode Island is Osmia distincta, which is a Penstemon (beardtongue) specialist. In order to successfully feed their developing brood, this species must collect pollen from native beardtongue species,” recounts Johnson. On the flip side, some plants require specific types of pollination. “Blueberries, cranberries, and solanaceous crops like tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes, require something called ‘buzz pollination,’” which occurs when a bee vibrates its flight muscles to release the pollen. Only some bees like bumblebees and carpenter bees can do this.
While honey bees are the “poster child” for bee conservation, native, wild bees are the ones that actually need help. The honey bee can outcompete native bees, and they can spread diseases to native bee populations. Though they have an essential role in agriculture and their products can be useful for animal husbandry (honey, wax) the movement to get a honey bee hive to “save the bees” is “the equivalent to getting a flock of chickens to “save migratory songbirds” – it just doesn’t equate” Johnson says. The best ways to support native bees are to limit the amount of honey bees in the area, plant native flowers, shrubs, and trees, eliminate pesticide use, provide nesting sites like bare ground, hollow stems of dead plants, dead trees, and to share this knowledge with friends, family, and neighbors.
Even though the walk is focused on native, wild bees, it is important to remember that bees are not the only beneficial insects and pollinators. Wasps, beetles, flies, moths, butterflies, birds, and bats can act as pollinators, too. George Christie, who has been researching syrphid flies for the RI Natural History Survey, and the Toby Shaya, who leads community science projects to inventory Rhode Island’s pollinating insects, will both be available on the walk to discuss other types of pollinators native to the state. “Biodiversity is important for the health of our ecosystem, and humans are part of that ecosystem,” Johnson declares. “By respecting nature and supporting insects, you are creating a healthier community not just for wildlife, but for people too.”
