Diario del proyecto NCSU Campus Bee Competition

Congratulations to our first NCSU Campus Bee Competition winner, @leahguercio! She submitted 23 observations of 3 different bee species. I want to say a huge thank you to her and everyone else who participated!

Overall, we had 66 observations of 4 different bee species. Common Eastern Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) were by far the most observed, with Eastern Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa virginica) and Western Honeybees (Apis mellifera) coming in second and third. I also submitted a picture of a sweat bee observed at one of the pollinator gardens on Centennial campus!

I will be re-opening this iNaturalist group and encourage everyone to keep submitting bee observations around campus. This will help us to continue to identify areas with high densities of bees, the diversity and abundance of different species, and more! We also may be conducting another competition in the Spring, so stay tune for that!

Thanks for reading and keep beesearching!
Ren

Hi everyone! We are about a week into this competition with about a week to go. Thank you to everyone who has participated so far - we've got some great submissions! It looks like Common Eastern Bumblebees are winning as our most commonly sighted species.

As a reminder, it is preferable that observations are submitted from NC State owned property just to keep the area of interest specific. :) Here is a map of the current NCSU pollinator gardens (many of which are active with bees right now!).

Please feel free to reach out to lnrooney@ncsu.edu if you have any questions.

Hi everyone! Here is some information about identifying bees versus wasps versus flies. Did you know that these insects are also great pollinators?

Here are some common bees you may see:

And an even more in-depth identification guide if you're curious!:

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/the-bees-of-north-carolina-identification-guide

Feel free to email me at lnrooney@ncsu.edu if you have any questions. Happy bee-searching!