Pinery bumble bee community science project seeks volunteers

A bumble bee community science project, buzzing along in Pinery Park since 2015, is looking for volunteers.

The provincial park in Lambton Shores is the site of Guelph-based Wildlife Preservation Canada’s first bumble bee community science monitoring program where volunteers are taught to survey for bumble bees over the summer.

“Pinery is actually known to be really a special habitat for bumble bees in Canada and Ontario,” said Sarah MacKell, lead biologist with the group’s Native Pollinator Initiative.

“It’s the last known place the rusty-patched bumble bee, which is endangered,” was identified in 2009.

“It’s really important to keep surveying there,” MacKell said. “If we ever find a rusty-patched again, that might be where we’re going to find it.”

The Pinery, with its 21 square kilometers of forests and sand dunes on the shore of Lake Huron, is also the last spot the endangered Ashton’s cuckoo bumble bee was found in Ontario, MacKell said.

“It’s very special bee habitat,” she said.

“It’s really one of the largest remaining intact forest areas in southern Ontario,” as well as home to tall grass prairie, which has become rare, and oak savannah.

“All these different factors are likely to play a part in why we see so many interesting animals there.”

The program runs a training workshop each spring at Pinery Park and this year’s will be held June 24, MacKell said.

“This is a special day where we teach our new volunteers all about bumble bees” and prepare them to conduct “catch and release” surveys at the park, she said.

The bees are caught in nets and placed in vials so they can be photographed. Information is uploaded to www.bumblebeewatch.orga community science platform where they can be identified by experts.

Bumble bees are important pollinators of crops and wild flowers, but about 25 per cent of their species in Canada “seem to be in decline,” MacKell said.

“There are multiple factors including habitat loss,” and climate change, she said.

“But there’s also things like pesticides. We have also been increasingly concerned with parasites and pathogens. Bees can get sick too.

“It’s a very complicated picture.”

The program has flexible expectations about how often volunteers survey in the park, MacKell said.

“Basically, it’s as much as you want — as little as you want,” she said.

Some volunteers go out weekly and some may survey once a summer.

“We do end up getting about 600 or so observations every year, which is quite a lot,” MacKell said.

Pinery makes up 19 per cent of Bumble Bee Watch observations in Ontario, she said.

“Really, the Pinery is doing a lot of heavy lifting every year.”

Contributing sightings to the platform is helpful for science and conservation, MacKell said.

“It builds a long-term dataset where we can see, are bumble bees declining or increasing in certain areas?”

Scientists “can’t be everywhere” so volunteers “really pick up our slack,” MacKell said.

“It’s also important for the public to become more aware of bumble bees in general and learn how to appreciate them and how to preserve them.”

The workshop typically attracts 15 to 20 people and about half end up returning to survey, MacKell said.

“We also are running bee walks” in July and August at the park, she said.

“It’s a good opportunity to come out and learn about bees — actually learn how to survey them yourself and upload to Bumble Bee Watch.”

The surveying program begins each year following the workshop and runs into September. It’s supported by The Friends of Pinery Park and Ontario Parks, and funded by the province.

So far, 10 species have been observed at Pinery, MacKell said.

Bumble bees tend to be docile, compared to other bees, wasps and stinging insects, she said.

“They’re pretty relaxed,” she said. “Once you’re trained on actually surveying them properly, it’s very, very unlikely you’ll get stung.”

Information on the group’s community science program can be found online at wildlifepreservation.ca/participate-community-science.