The Urban California Native Bee Survey (2005 - 2017)
A female Osmia visiting Phacelia campanularia.
With the success of the monitoring in Berkeley and other nearby cities, the Urban Bee Lab has extended their research beyond the Bay Area to include several more locales throughout the state of California. The goal is to document and explore the diversity of native bees from Northern to Southern California. We are curious to see if a flower type in a garden in Ukiah attracts the same kinds of bees as the same flower in a garden in Santa Barbara and beyond. Do the same bees in Southern California prefer the same flowers as they do in Northern California? This research seeks to find some of these answers.
Diverse home garden in Ukiah, CA.
The survey began in 2005 and ended in 2017. We visited each site monthly, starting at the beginning of the bees’ season, which is usually early spring, and continued until the end of the season in late fall. Seasonality between the sites is variable, as is rainfall, so we documented the flowering times for all flowers at each site carefully. Good “bee days” are also sought out when visiting a site in order to provide the best results. The weather should be warm and sunny with little to no wind in order to provide the best conditions to view and record the bees.
From North to South, the original cities we chose to sample were: Ukiah, Sacramento, Berkeley, Santa Cruz/Soquel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and La Canada Flintridge (near Pasadena). These cities were selected because of their diverse flowers and gardening cultures. Some of the gardens in these cities include arboreta, home gardens, community gardens, and even cemetery gardens! Other urban sites have been explored, like Paso Robles and San Diego, but the gardening culture is so different that suitable gardens were not found. Redding and Riverside were added to our statewide survey in 2009, along with Palm Springs in 2010, and have shown good bee diversity. As of Spring 2013, five new cities were added to the statewide survey: Visalia, Chico, Sonoma, Bishop, and Camarillo.
California poppies.
In order to make comparisons from Northern to Southern California, we selected 31 target plant species to monitor. There are both native and non-native flowers on the list, and they have been chosen because of their attractiveness to bees and because they are widely planted across the state. Some of the flowers we monitored include CA Poppy, yarrow, catnip mint, Santa Barbara daisy, lavender, sunflowers, and several different salvias (native and non-native). The flowers are observed according to our “Bee Monitoring Protocol,” and collections were made so that we can correctly ID all the bees.
Bumble bees on Echium 'Blue Bedder'.
For almost all target plant types, the same characteristically associated bee groups were found in each of the above original 7 cities. This was especially noticeable with native bees. The two most attractive plant families were Asteraceae (which provide pollen and nectar) and Lamiaceae (which provide nectar). With this kind of information, gardens can be planned with predictable relationships between bees and ornamental plants (See "Seasonal Bee Gardening" to learn about creating your own garden).
Each year we continued to add new bee species to all of the urban sites. To date, we have found that La Canada Flintridge boasts the largest number of bees at 112 species, followed by Ukiah and Berkeley. The research was finished in 2017 and all specimens continue to be identified by our taxonomist, Jaime Pawelek.
Each year we continued to add new bee species to all of the urban sites. To date, we have found that La Canada Flintridge boasts the largest number of bees at 112 species, followed by Ukiah and Berkeley. The research was finished in 2017 and all specimens continue to be identified by our taxonomist, Jaime Pawelek.
