Washington Bumblebees 2022

During our stay in Washington in July, we signed up for a grid cell that included my grandpas’ houses. We had found out about the Bumblebee surveys from our friend Adriana Barsan. We had met her last summer in 2021 on Sauk Mountain while she was surveying butterflies with another group of volunteers. This summer, we had signed up for grid cell WA481. For our first survey, we headed to the Arlington Lavender Farm, because it would be easy to identify the plants, which was a requirement of the survey. The first time,we brought the nets, a few containers, and the cooler some ice packs. The owners of the farm agreed, so we tried to catch a few that day. My mom found a bumblebee first, but it flew out of the net as we tried to put it in one of the containers. The next time, we were ready with the containers. As I swooped down on it, I grabbed the top of the net so the bee couldn’t escape. I put the opening in the container, and waited until the insect was inside. As he crawled around the bottom of the container, I swiftly pulled the net away and my mom slid on the lid. Success! We had caught our first bumblebee. We set the container onto the ice packs, and waited fifteen minutes. We came back after no luck of catching anymore to discover that he still wasn’t cooled yet. Five minutes later, he was finally chilled. We set him onto the paper and took several pictures trying to identify him. As we were letting him go, I spotted another bumblebee a few feet away. I managed to catch that one and put him in the freezer. The first bee we caught turned out to be a Fernald cuckoo bumble bee. The second one was a Fuzzy Horned Bumble Bee, who looks similar but has a red band near its tail. The final Bumble Bee we caught that day was a Hunt’s Bumble Bee. It seemed harder than it should have been when we were identifying the bumble bees. The markings seemed unique, but when we looked at the list we had no idea. The next time we surveyed them, we were certain that a bag of ice would make it easier. However, it almost seemed harder to freeze them, probably because they were bigger. There were way more people than the last time, which was exciting because people kept asking us questions. There were lots more bumblebees than the first time, and they were bigger and mostly yellow. The first bee we caught was a Brown-Belted Bumblebee, and soon after we caught a Red-Belted Bumblebee. Very similar, just the color of the band around their abdomen is a different color. Another bee we caught was the Nevada Bumblebee, regular sized but just as hard to calm as the big ones. When we tried to take pictures of the bees, we realized that my camera was too big to take pictures of the tiny bumblebees. On our final encounter with bumblebees, I was mowing the lawn at my Grandpa Fred’s house when I saw one on the lavender at his house. I quickly shut off the mower and grabbed my net. Once he was trapped, he flew directly into my net. This time, we put him in the freezer since it was nearby. It only took five minutes instead of thirty. Again, my camera was too big, so we settled for the not as good quality i-phone pictures. This time, we identified this bumblebee as a High Country Bumblebee. This seemed like the best bet because the markings mostly matched on the app to the bumblebee we had captured. After he flew away, we packed away the containers for next summer. It was a fun and intense experience, and I hope to continue next summer. Thanks for reading my blogpost on Bumblebee Surveys! Pictures of the bees will be coming shortly, but for now please explore my U.S. Birds section at Pictures: Me at the Lavender farm with Bumble Bees