There is an almost inexhaustible amount of options for pollinator gardens. But this can not only be a cause for invigoration, but also confusion. This episode will set you straight on how to take your pollinator garden to the next level.

Carolyn Breece and Ellen Topitzhofer support the field research of the OSU Honey Bee Lab. Together they manage the lab’s 80 research and educational colonies, preparing them for experiments, and collecting data. They also teach classes and workshops to community beekeepers, OSU undergraduates, and Oregon Master Beekeeper participants.

There have been two exciting developments with Oregon Flora. The first is vol 2 of the flora, which includes an amazing section on Oregon pollinators. The second is there new website, which allows you to do amazing searches for Oregon plant communities.

Honey bee queens are durable insects, but new research shows that the sperm they store can become quickly degraded by temperature extremes.

Pan traps are one of the key methods for surveying for native bees. They are cheap and easy to use, and they aren’t subject to the collector bias of studies that rely on netting. This week we hear about the limitations associated with using pan traps. 

Washington contended with two invasive insects in 2020. The first is well-known, Asian Giant Hornet, but the second less so, the common eastern bumble bee.  We caught up with the Washington Department of Agriculture for an update on both insects. 

It was hard to keep track of developments in bee health in 2020 because so much else was going on. In this episode we catch-you-up with a guest who wrote a post per day for since January showcasing what was new in bee health. 

The Washington State Legislature just received a set of ground-breaking recommendations on pollinator health from the state’s Pollinator Health Task Force. In this episode we hear about what is being recommended and the next steps towards addressing those recommendations.

Stem nesting bees like mason bees are particularly amenable to being introduced to distant lands. In this episode we hear about research looking into the impact of these introductions on native bee populations.

Devastating wildfires ravaged Western states this summer. In this episode we find out what is known about the effect of forest fires on bees, how bees respond to the land ravaged by fire and how you can help bees while also protecting your property from future fires.