B5
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2022
Oregon State University
The Oregon lava hole bee is seen on a fl ower.
New research on bees could benefi t farmers
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
CORVALLIS — New research on native
bees could help Oregon farmers, support
pollinators and boost public knowledge
about wild bees.
Oregon State University researchers this
month released the results of a 2019 state-
wide native bee survey, a project within the
volunteer-run Oregon Bee Atlas, an initia-
tive founded in 2018 that tracks wild bee
species and their plant hosts across the state.
Andony Melathopoulos, Oregon State
Extension’s pollinator health specialist and
assistant professor, said this powerful bio-
diversity dataset not only tracks wild bee
species but analyzes their interactions with
fl owering plants — documenting which
fl owers certain bees prefer, for example.
Melathopoulos said this kind of informa-
tion could help farmers more strategically
support local bee populations, which is not
only good for bees but may give growers the
ability to boost crop yields and market their
products as high-biodiversity.
Lincoln “Linc” Best, lead taxonomist for
the Oregon Bee Atlas, agreed.
“I think this will really empower the
farm sector, the forestry sector,” said Best.
The data was collected by volunteers via
the Oregon Bee Atlas. Some of the volun-
teers are now “Master Melittologists” — a
melittologist studies bees — in a program
modeled after Oregon State’s Master Gar-
dener program.
In the program, Oregon State researchers
train volunteers to locate, identify and pre-
serve bees from the more than 620 species
of native bees in Oregon.
For this dataset, in 2019, volunteers sub-
mitted 25,022 bee specimens from all Ore-
gon counties. This represented 224 unique
bee species and 45 bee genera. Volunteers
also collected samples from 352 unique
fl owering genera, resulting in the largest
contemporary state-level database tracking
interactions between bees and plant hosts.
The volunteers also made two big
discoveries.
Master Melittologist Judi Maxwell of
Grants Pass found a rare small stonecrop
mason bee for the fi rst time in Oregon.
Another rare bee called the lava hole bee
was found by Master Melittologist Ellen
Watrous of Corvallis — the fi rst docu-
mented in Oregon since 1969.
Many of the 25,022 bee specimens were
found on or near farms, which Melathopou-
los said is evidence that Oregon’s diverse
crop mix supports bee populations.
“Agriculture is often implicated with bee
declines,” he said. “That’s sometimes true,
but we’re not the Midwest. Here in Oregon,
farmers are doing a good job overall, and
specialty crops are actually contributing to
many diverse types of bees.”
Using the new research, farmers can fur-
ther step up their eff orts to support bees.
Farmers will soon be able to track which
wild bee species have been found in their
area and the types of plants those bees pre-
fer. From there, Melathopoulos said, grow-
ers can see which bee-friendly plants or
trees they already have and what they can
add to “complete the suite.”
Melathopoulos and Best said they are
working with several Oregon farms, includ-
ing Willamette Valley Vineyards, in trials
this year to explore which plants can sup-
port wild bees.
Best and his team are developing an
interactive online Oregon Bee Atlas with a
map and simple user interface so that farm-
ers can search for particular bee species or
plants.
“We’re working hard to publish that in
the next few months,” Best said.
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