And hast thou pinned the pan trap bees? O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Today, Mike finished pinning all the bees that we collected in summer 2022 for the Pollinators on Roadsides (aka Yellow Pan Trap) project! We started out with seven coolers full of vials, and Mike has been diligently pinning pollinators since late September. In total, he pinned 789 insects! We are very grateful for his help.
The next step is to add informative labels to record collection date and location for each specimen. Then, we’ll send the bees to Zach Portman, the bee taxonomist at the University of Minnesota, for identification. Overall, we collected more bees than I expected based on the last three years. I’m very curious whether there are any differences in species diversity between years. Stay tuned!
| year | # bees collected | # traps | # collection days | avg # bees/trap/day |
| 2004 | 591 | 20 | 7 | 4.2 |
| 2017 | 552 | 40 | 7 | 2.0 |
| 2018 | 430 | 37 | 6 | 1.9 |
| 2019 | 372 | 38 | 6 | 1.6 |
| 2022 | 789 | 39 | 7 | 2.9 |
Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.
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