Some research success

I went out Saturday morning to do some research. For once, I had a little success. I think the "sit ten minutes and observe" will work better than the "traplining," at least until fall when more stuff is flowering.

I did seven samples at each site, spreading  them out across the sites where there was vegetation. Again, I saw mostly butterflies (and now I know what an Eastern Tailed Blue looks like), but I did also spot a few megachilid (leafcutter) bees, and a few honeybees at the second site. (And a very small iridescent black bee that I am assuming is a halictid). Lots of the large carpenter bees (Xylocopa), but they don't often visit plants right now; I think they are in mating stage and are more involved with hovering over their patch of ground and chasing interlopers. (No idea if it's the drones or the female bees; they're hard to tell apart).

I will say I feel a lot better about the research now; now I see what I can do to get data that will work. And it's easy enough - all I need carry is my field book, my identification books, and a folding campstool. (It was very wet still on Saturday - I mean, the ground was wet - and anyway, sitting right on the ground is a good way to get bit by the various invertebrate wildlife we have (everything from chiggers to fire ants))

So once I get back, I can do that maybe one afternoon a week, plus Fridays and Saturdays, if it's not raining. I can continue to trap but I'm thinking the observations seem to work so well, that they make sense to do a lot of them. I am probably going to take more of a break in July and August; it's hotter and dryer and we have fewer things flowering. Maybe only go out once a week then. But when fall rolls around - hoping we have enough rain - and the goldenrod starts flowering, I will do more work again. (As my schedule works now, I have one day with NO classes and while we are "supposed" to hold one hour of office hours every day, I can make my hour for that day (sigh) late in the day and just come back in after field work. Once again - the inability of a few to hold the requested 10 hours of office hours means we all suffer; if I didn't post Tuesday hours I'd probably get called on the carpet - even though I could argue I "need" that time to be in the field. It's the "one bad apple" effect once again.)

One thing I do want to do over break is go to the larger, more extensive university library up where I will be and see if they have any books specifically on identifying bees and wasps, and if so, see if I can obtain my own copies of them to use. I don't know if they ever replaced their entomologist when he retired or I'd go ask him. I don't know how much extension agents know about native bees but it might be worth asking some of the extension agents around here...