Newsletter of the Native Bee Society of British Columbia December 2024
Volume 5 | Issue 3
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Editors-in-chief: C. Thuring & M. Marriott
Contributors: Christine Thuring, Sky Jarvis, James M. Scott, Matthew Young Cover image: Bombus Occidentalis (Western Bumble Bee)
photo: Gwendolyn Williams
Buzz Straight to Article:
Our 6th Annual General Meeting
Recap by Sky Jarvis and Christine Thuring
On October 28th, 2024, the Native Bee Society of BC hosted its 6th Annual General Meeting over Zoom, with excellent attendance (over 40 beeple) and high spirits. Together, the board of directors and membership celebrated the Society’s 5th year of being, with optimism for another year of growth ahead.
The meeting was chaired by the Society’s queen bees (Co-chairs), Christine Thuring and Paula Cruise. Big shout out to our board who helped run this successful event, especially Secretary, Sky Jarvis, who took attendance and kept minutes, and Board member, Bonnie Zand, who facilitated the election. Tamara Litke opened the meeting with a heartfelt welcome and land acknowledgment.
View/download the minutes from the 2024 AGM here:
2024 Year In Review
Bonnie and Paula presented our Year in Review highlighting the various public events (16 volunteer presenters; 40+ events; engaging >2,000 people), monthly Native Bee Study Groups, publications (3 issues of the Buzz; 6 Blog posts), and grants (BC Community Gaming Grant; BC Parks Foundation Spark Grant; City of Vancouver Neighbourhood Matching Fund; Bee BC Grant; BC Nature Club Support Grant), all of which kept the Society busy in 2024.
Watch a video of the Year in Review presentation: | Or view/download it as a PDF:
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Bonnie elaborated on our educational programs, including the BC Bee Course and Mini Bee Schools (Nanaimo, Nelson, Kamloops, Vancouver). She also gave an update on our collaborative partnerships with Oregon State University. In the last year, the BC Master Meilitologists program acquired 20 new students, bringing it to 65 in total. Four field training events were offered in 2024.
The BC Bee Atlas also made progress in its first year of programming, including a contract with the City of North Vancouver to collect bees in the spring and summer of 2024 and identify them to species over the winter months. While benefiting the BC Bee Atlas, this project also addresses the City of North Vancouver’s interest in incorporating more pollinator-friendly plants into its park landscapes.
These initiatives are part of the Society’s commitment to public education and engagement on native bee diversity and habitat requirements.
2024-2025 Board of Directors
Elections were done with Google Polls; all positions were uncontested.
As part of succession planning, the Society started implementing an approach to ensure continuity and freshness for its Executive. This is especially relevant for the Co-chairs, whereby the two will alternate each election year. In this light, Christine Thuring agreed to another year as President. Sky Jarvis left her role as Secretary and is the Society’s new Vice President. After two years serving as Co-chair, Paula Cruise stepped away and is already busy focusing on the Society achieving charitable status. We were delighted to welcome Jane Lakes to the board, in the role of Secretary, and very pleased that our Treasurer, Nikki Donkersley, has committed to another year managing Society finances. Unanimous votes of confidence and approval were granted by the board and membership alike.
Further to a strong Executive core, this year’s board of directors includes six returning members at large - Bonnie Zand, Maureen Marriott, Lincoln Best, Valerie Huff, and Tamara Litke - and one new board member, Gwendolyn Williams. Three directors stepped down: Jade Lee (now our part-time Board Admin), Julia Taylor, and Jen Woodin. Many thanks to each of these bright humans for helping shape the success of the Society and for dedicating countless hours of their lives to native bees in BC.
Keynote: BC’s Wild Bees and BC Bee Atlas
Our keynote speaker, Lincoln Best, is a founding board member based in Corvallis at Oregon State University (OSU), where he leads the Oregon Bee Atlas and teaches taxonomy to the community scientists in the Master Melittologist program's Intermediate and Advanced courses.
In his colourful presentation, Linc inspired the audience with stunning images, complex data and brilliant projects. He summarized some remarkable results from the Master Melittologist program, notably the extent of sampling distribution and associated bee-plant records in Oregon and beyond. To that end, he described how the NBSBC Bee Tracker, along with founding member Jasna Guy and mason beekeeper Gord Cyr, discovered and documented an adventive species to North America, the European orchard bee (Osmia cornuta). Check out Matthew Young's review of the paper below.
Taken together, these successes epitomize the merit of the Society’s most ambitious initiatives, the BC Bee Atlas! Modeled after the successful Oregon Bee Atlas project, the BC Bee Atlas will collect and make publicly available data on the identity, distribution, and floral relationships of BC’s nearly 600 species of native bees. This data is essential to understanding where these important pollinators are at risk and the flowering plants necessary to sustain them. By using Master Melittologists, the BC Bee Atlas will collect province-wide data, while also training bee ambassadors to communicate to the public about the importance of our native bees and the flowers that they pollinate.
Check out this short video for a taste of the approach the BC Bee Atlas will take:
Looking for ways to get more involved?
Further to our excellent board members, we welcome your involvement and engagement, too! We are a volunteer-powered non-profit with lots of opportunities for learning and doing. Whether you are looking for in-person events or want support advocating for bees in your community, there are many ways to get involved and support the Native Bee Society of BC. Below are some easy suggestions to fill your new year with bee goodness!
Support the BC Bee Atlas: It’s all hands on deck to breathe life into this project, starting with fundraising committee. If you'd like to get involved, please send us an email with the subject heading, BC Bee Atlas.
Attend our Native Bee Study Group: Show and Tell (or just listen and learn) on the 4th Wednesday of the month at 7 pm over Zoom. Next one is Jan. 22, 2025; find out more and register here.
Join us for an education event in 2025 (stay tuned for dates as they become available):
Mini Bee School - see details of some fall Mini Bee Schools under Recent Events
BC Bee Course - see descriptions of this annual summer event lab component and field component on our blog
Contribute to our iNaturalist Bee Tracker Project
Become a Master Melittologist (more info here)
Consider donating to the Society (see our donation wishlist here)
Renew your Membership - NBSBC 2024 memberships expire at the end of December. You can renew your membership (or become a first-time member) for the 2025 year here. If you are not sure of your current membership status, send us an email to confirm.
Thanks to all who came along to the AGM and who support the Native Bee Society of BC year-round. Here’s to another productive and beautiful year!
Bios
Sky Jarvis lives and works in the areas around Kamloops with her son Cedar on the lands of the Secwépemc Nation (Shuswap Nation). She is dedicated to creating tangible benefits for her community through her work with the Lower North Thompson Community Forest Society and her involvement with The Native Bee Society of BC, BC Marsh Monitoring Program, and Kamloops Naturalist Club.
Christine Thuring lives and works on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, including those of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and Skwxwú7mesh Nations. She is an intersectional ecologist who is passionate about biodiversity, climate resilience, and healthy communities. She infuses her work with green roofs and urban ecology with her growing knowledge about native bees and pollinators.
Announcements
Help Us Hype BC Native Bees on Instagram!
The Native Bee Society of BC is looking to expand our social media reach to the public this year in a big way, and we are hoping you can help!
We are looking for volunteers to join our social media ‘Hype Group’ on Instagram. We will share posts with the group and our volunteers can LIKE, COMMENT, SAVE, and SHARE to help us boost our visibility. As much as we’d all rather be out looking at bees, social media is an important avenue to the general public and you can help us get more people educated and involved in our important work.
Here’s what to do:
Find us on Instagram @bcnativebees
Follow and DM us “Hype Group!”We will add you to the group!
Thank you all so much for all the work you’re doing for our BC Bees!
We are hoping to expand this to other social media platforms soon so we will keep you updated!
Congratulations to BC Journey Level Master Melittologist Students
We are pleased to announce that two BC Master Melittologist students are busy progressing through the journey level of the program. Jade Lee and Bob McDougall have both passed their specimen tests, correctly identifying 90% of the 30 specimens provided to them, IDing bumble bees to species and the other bees to genus. Congratulations to both!
You, too, can become a Master Melittologist. Learn more about the Master Melittologist program offered through Oregon State University.
Presenting: A Logo for our BC Bee Atlas!
Using a logo concept created by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, this BC Bee Atlas Logo ties us together with the other Bee Atlas initiatives in our regions (Oregen Bee Atlas, Washington Bee Atlas, Idaho Bee Atlas, New Mexico Bee Atlas). The Melissodes bee in the logo highlights the importance of the occurrence data points we are creating, with a map pin as the abdomen! Thank you to Washington for sharing your great design, and Oregon for putting together the logo for us! Learn more about our BC Bee Atlas.
Direct Donation Campaign
We are happy to offer charitable tax receipts for donations to the society through our partners BC Nature and the BC Conservation Foundation (BCCF). Even better, did you know you can allocate your donation to towards a specific program, initiative or wishlist item? Just let us know when making your donation. Check out our wishlist and make a donation here. Note that if you want a 2024 charitable tax receipt, your donation must be submitted before the end of December. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who helps us support BC's native bees in this way
Personal Story: The Homegrown National Park
A Grassroots Movement for Eliminating Our Grass and Saving the Native Bees
by James M. Scott
Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to feature this personal story of two homeowners in Langley inspired to take action after reading Douglas Tallamy’s 2019 book, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard (Portland, OR: Timber Press). Care should be taken when referring to the book, as it is East-coast oriented with some colonial perspectives.
“In the past, we have asked one thing of our gardens: that they are pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators and manage water.”
— Doug Tallamy, cofounder of the Homegrown National Park
A Personal Quest Begins
Sometimes the problems of the world seem so enormous and intractable that it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the challenges, which leads to discouragement and inaction. For example, how can one person make a difference when so much biodiversity has already been lost? Although I have intermittently pondered this question over the years, it is only recently that I realized that there is something I can do.
The dawning of this realization took place during the heat dome of the summer of 2021. My wife Gail wrote this short poem, reflecting on that time and our subsequent actions:
Some Fine Day
heat dome came and went
but that was two summers ago
(the summer my mother died)
last year four months of drought
parched the grass dry,
down to the roots
first it went brown, then yellow
and finally, thin stalks of white
piled up like cut hay
and despite four icy snow storms
winter was dry this year,
snow pack below normal
when April came,
only thing growing on the lawn
was bald spots
even the patches of green
were small and tentative
exhausted by extremes
times are too tough
to keep on going,
(lawn seemed to say)
mother earth’s answer for
an inhospitable world?
go backwards, re-wild
so here you are now,
kicking at a sod cutter
for six hours straight
stripping away all
heavy-handed artifice
of human caprice,
pouring out new soil,
spreading out seed,
watering painstakingly
to restart a home for
microclover, yarrow, daisies
sweet alyssum, fescue, chamomile
(and some fine day)
butterflies
and bees.
So that was our first foray into “rewilding.” We replaced our lawn with BeeTurf™ from West Coast Seeds, opting for a ground cover that was both drought-tolerant and pollinator-friendly.
But now that nature had grabbed our attention, we started wondering what else we could do to help restore biodiversity. That’s when the Homegrown National Park came across our radar and the quest continued.
The Homegrown National Park
The Homegrown National Park is a grassroots movement that aims at motivating millions of people to regenerate biodiversity by planting natives, removing invasives, and reshaping our relationship with nature. Calling it a “grassroots” movement seems ironic because one of the major goals of the Homegrown National Park is to have us reduce the size of our lawns by replacing grass (a relatively lifeless green carpet) with pollinator-friendly native plants.
The Homegrown National Park movement is based on the conviction that our individual actions, even on a very small scale, can collectively make a monumental difference in preserving biodiversity and combating environmental degradation. The premise is simple yet profound: by transforming our yards, balconies, and community spaces into wildlife-friendly habitats with native plants, we can create interconnected corridors that provide refuge and sustenance for the whole web of life. Our magnificent national parks and nature preserves are not enough on their own to stave off ecological collapse; but all of us can do our part to make one, enormous Homegrown National Park, where plants, insects, wildlife, and, yes, humans can thrive.
A major feature of Homegrown National Park is what Tallamy and his colleagues call the Biodiversity Map. You can join Homegrown National Park for free. You simply register your property on the Map, where you’re located, and the amount of area that you’re going to be a good steward of. Maybe you’re really going to reduce the area in lawn. Maybe you’re going to plant an oak tree. Maybe you’re going to put an aster in a flower pot. It doesn’t matter how small an area you’re going to be a good steward of. When you record your area on the Map, your region will light up with a firefly. And someday, after this message goes viral, the entire country will light up with swarms of fireflies!
In autumn 2023, my wife and I joined the movement. We purchased seven native plants from the Fraser Valley Conservancy, focusing on shrubs that would attract pollinators and birds: Red-flowering Currant, Pacific Ninebark, Oceanspray, Saskatoon, Chokeberry, Common Snowberry, and Evergreen Huckleberry. Then, we recorded our stewardship contribution on the Biodiversity Map.
These are our first steps in helping to create a Canadian Homegrown National Park. In the spring, we plan to plant Milkweed and Sunflowers. There’s no telling where the quest will lead us next.
The Takeaway
My wife and I have been anxious about the unprecedented environmental challenges facing our world; we were paralyzed with fear about what the next four years will mean for the environment and for society. Joining the Homegrown National Park initiative has been a way of channeling our anxiety into productive action and hope for the future. By joining the movement, we are empowering ourselves to do something rather than to sit back and wait for the inevitable to happen. Please join us!
For Further Reading
To learn more about the Homegrown National Park, start with the foundational book by Douglas W. Tallamy, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard (Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2019). The main ideas in this book are also summarized in a snappy video, What's the Rush, narrated by Tallamy.
The David Suzuki Foundation has announced that it endorses and is partnering with the Homegrown National Park movement.
If you would like to begin adding native plants to your garden or balcony, here is a list of plants that are native to Southwest British Columbia, produced by the National Wildlife Federation based on Tallamy’s data: Keystone Native Plants: Marine West Coast Forests—Ecoregion 7 (downloadable PDF). This includes a list of native plants that feed specialist bees who eat pollen only from specific plants. Keystone plants for native bees feed both specialist and generalist bees. Editor's note: see also the NBSBC's lists of Native Plants for BC Bees and Gardeners, with versions for both Coastal and Interior regions of BC, available on our website under Resources.
The idea of “rewilding” as a grassroots movement is experiencing something of a moment. Here are some suggestions for further reading:
Herb Hammond, Sean Markey, and Cam Brewer, Nature-First Cities: Restoring Relationships with Ecosystems and with Each Other, with a Foreword by David Suzuki (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024). The idea of restoring interpersonal relationships through communal efforts to repair ecosystems seems particularly important in view of our highly polarized world.
Sophi Veltrop, "Rewilding: The Many-Faceted Movement That Demands a Resounding Yes," The Ecological Citizen 6.1 (2023): 45–51.
Bio
Dr. James M. Scott is a former professor of religious studies at Trinity Western University, Langley, BC. He is the author of several books focusing on how people can get together and make a positive change in the world. He lives in Abbotsford, BC.
Bee City Canada: Get Involved in 2025!
by Christine Thuring and Sky Jarvis
The NBSBC envisions a future where BC’s native bees are thriving and protected. Through our affiliation with Bee City Canada, we are now able to support people across the province wishing to protect and promote pollinators where they live. Whether or not you’re a member, anyone who wants to help native bees and pollinators in their community or school is encouraged to join the movement. We’re here to help!
The NEW Bee City Handbook includes a comprehensive list of goals, objectives, and real-life actions. By definition, Bee Cities/ Campuses are committed to protecting pollinators. To qualify as such, those Cities/ Campuses commit to:
Creating, maintaining, and/or improving pollinator habitat (e.g., create pollinator-friendly demonstration gardens and greenspaces)
Educating the community, students, employees, and/or customers about the importance of pollinators (E.g., “protect pollinators by reducing or eliminating pesticides”)
Celebrating pollinators during National Pollinator Week or at other times of the year (E.g., “celebrate pollinators and show them gratitude for the ecosystem services they provide”)
Currently, there are only EIGHT Bee Cities (of which two are First Nations) and two Bee Campuses in British Columbia. This is surprising given that BC has several national hotspots for native bees, with almost 600 scientifically described species! Current Bee Cities and Campuses include:
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How can my city join?
As with most campaigns, teamwork makes the dream work! Since there is a bit of organizing to be done (not to mention manifesting wonderful projects with support from community leaders), we recommend assembling a small team of like-minded beeple and allies in your community. Let us know if you intend to organize in your community, so we can help streamline your efforts with resources, contacts, etc.
Note: In this role, you are effectively petitioning your leaders to commit to protecting pollinators. After preparing the documentation and convincing the leadership of your community to sign, you will transfer this to the Bee City Canada application. The best part: if your application mentions the NBSBC, Bee City Canada will direct ½ of the first year's program fees to the Native Bee Society! Win win all around!
Application steps:
Download the Bee City Canada Draft Resolution Form
Edit as necessary and customize the Resolution(s) to your community.
Present this to the city/ band council and have it signed by the Mayor, Chief, or appropriate official(s).
Download an application
Complete the online application or download and complete the PDF and email it to applications@beecitycanada.org.
Submit Application
Include the completed application form and signed resolution along with logo, photos (if available), and 100-word write-up.
Please mention the Native Bee Society of BC in your application
Bios
Christine Thuring and Sky Jarvis are the 2024-2025 Co-chairs of the Native Bee Society of BC.
Latest in Current Research: Journal Article on the Potential Spread of Osmia cornuta
by Matthew Young
A recent journal article, "The establishment and potential spread of Osmia cornuta (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) in North America" from Getz et al. (2024) in Environmental Entomology, reveals a groundbreaking discovery of a bee that might not belong and draws important implications for its future spread using public access biodiversity data.
Fig. 2. Physical characteristics of Black Creek O. cornuta specimens. A) Male face with 11 flagellar segments (arrow). B) Male lateral habitus with black mesepisternum (red arrow) and rufescent metasoma (white arrow). C) Male tergite 6 & tergite 7 detail (hairs shaved for clarity). Tergite 7 is wide and rounded laterally and lacks teeth (red arrow), whereas tergite 6 lacks angles and teeth (white arrow). D) Female face with 10 flagellar segments (red arrow) and lateral horns (white arrow). E) Female lateral habitus with rufescent metasoma (red arrow) and black head and mesosoma (white arrows). F) Female ventral habitus with concave clypeus (red arrow) and red scopal hairs (white arrow). G) Box and whisker plot for the intertegular distances of O. cornuta, O. lignaria, and O. cornifrons. Boxes mark the interquartile range (IQR) from Q1 to Q3 and median. The whiskers mark the minimum and maximum values within 1.5 times the IQR. Open circles are measured values; circles outside the whiskers are considered outliers. Image credit: Mark Gorman
In 2023 and 2024, a significant expansion of Osmia cornuta, the European orchard bee, was recorded in British Columbia, Canada. This marks the species' first confirmed occurrence in North America. Previously confined to Europe and its periphery, O. cornuta was first sighted in North Vancouver by Jasna Guy, a Master Melittologist and one of our founding members. Subsequent discoveries include a multigenerational nest found by Gordon Cyr in Black Creek, Vancouver Island and multiple observations made by wildlife biologist, Jeremy Gatten, and biologist, Bonnie Zand.
The study goes on to explain how this evidence suggests the species is establishing a foothold in North America, with a range extending over 170 kilometres. Getz et al. (2024) even provided a detailed morphological analysis of O. cornuta specimens from the Black Creek nest. Using established identification criteria, the researchers confirmed that the cocoons belonged to O. cornuta—an important milestone as these findings indicate not only the arrival but also the potential for continued reproduction and establishment of this species. A substantial portion of the cocoons from the 2023-2024 nests contained fully developed bees, reinforcing the conclusion that O. cornuta is reproducing in this new environment.
Fig. 1. Occurrence records of the European orchard bee, O. cornuta, in Europe and North America. A) Locations of 32,295 GBIF occurrence records for O. cornuta from 1960 to 2023. Not shown are 118 records to the east between 28.0 and 51.1°C longitude. B) Four distinct records of O. cornuta in British Columbia, Canada in 2023 and 2024: (i) an adult male observed in spring 2023 in North Vancouver, BC, (ii) a nest with cocoons found in 2023 and 2024 in Black Creek, Vancouver Island, (iii) a male and female O. cornuta sharing a nest with O. lignaria, (iv) an adult female O. cornuta.
In an effort to assess the potential for O. cornuta to be mistaken for a similar species, the researchers used machine learning models to analyze the physical features of the cocoons. Despite using visual data from measurements like size and colour, the models struggled to reliably distinguish O. cornuta from other Osmia species, such as O. lignaria and O. cornifrons. This could pose a challenge in commercial bee shipments, where cocoons of mixed species might be inadvertently introduced to new regions.
Fig. 5. Large regions of North America have habitat similar to the native range of O. cornuta. A) Covariance matrix of data extracted at native-range locations for the 19 WorldClim bioclimatic variables and elevation. B) Scree plot indicating variance explained by the 20 principal components calculated from the native-range climate data. The first 4 components (highlighted) were used for subsequent analyses. C) Histograms of Mahalanobis distance (D2) distributions for the native range (top axis) and North American points (bottom axis). For both distributions, D2 was calculated to the native-range centroid. The vertical axis for native-range data is log-scaled to visualize the right tail of the distribution. The arrowhead at D2 = 61.65 denotes a habitat suitability threshold that encompasses > 99.9% of native-range points and excludes 3 outliers. D) Mahalanobis distance suitability model for O. cornuta in North America based on the WorldClim bioclimatic variables and elevation. Darker colors, with D2 closer to zero, indicate locations more similar to the native range. The Utah location where O. cornuta was previously released but did not establish is outside the range of predicted similarity. The British Columbia records of O. cornuta are in regions of high climate similarity.
Furthermore, the researchers mapped out the potential spread of O. cornuta in North America by comparing climate data from its native range in Europe to suitable regions in North America. Their findings suggest that areas such as the Pacific Northwest, and parts of the eastern United States, share similar climates to O. cornuta’s native habitats. This raises concerns about the species’ continued spread, following the same patterns seen with other non-native Osmia species like O. cornifrons and O. taurus, which have already expanded across North America.
Overall, the paper highlighted severe implications given the potential for rapid dispersal of O. cornuta via global shipping, as well as the potential for pathogen transmission and direct competition with BC's native species. Moreover, this research underscores the critical role of community science in tracking invasive species and guiding response efforts.
Citations:
Getz, M. P., Best, L. R., Melathopoulos, A. P., & Warren, T. L. (2024). The establishment and potential spread of Osmia cornuta (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) in North America. Environmental Entomology. https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvae100
Bio
Matthew Young is a beekeeper and native bee enthusiast. Between camping trips, and walks through the city, you'll find Matthew netting and photographing bees in his spare time. Matthew is an active member of the Native Bee Society of BC (NBSBC) and hopes to be more involved in the BC Bee Atlas!
Upcoming Events
While we don't have many dates firmed up for 2025 just yet, you can bet that as spring and summer approach we will once again be popping up at events all around BC, from seedy Saturdays to World Bee Day and Pollinator Week events to Mini (and BIG) Bee Schools. Keep an eye on our website Events page and BC Native Bees Instagram for all the latest buzz on what we're up to in the months ahead.
Native Bee Study Group, Wednesday, January 22, 7pm, on Zoom
Join the Native Bee Study Group for our January 2025 meeting with the theme "Bee Creative!" Our online study group meets on the fourth Wednesday each month (except December) at 7 pm via Zoom, hosted by Bonnie Zand. This group is open to all levels of bee knowledge. We look forward to seeing you there. RSVP here.
If you would like to represent native bees/NBSBC at a community event in 2025, or know of an event that would benefit from having a native bee representative in attendance, please send us an email to discuss how we can be involved.
Recent Events
Since our last newsletter, the NBSBC was busily leading or taking part in a number of events around the province. These include, but are not limited to:
Native Bee Study Group, fourth Wednesday of the month, 7pm, on Zoom
Our enthusiastic online study group held its regular meetings on the fourth Wednesday each month (except December) from 7-8:30 pm via Zoom, hosted by Bonnie Zand. Open to all levels of bee knowledge, the group gathered to share insights, information and observations around different monthly themes. The most recent Study Group convened around the topic of Bees and Botany, exploring all-important plant-bee relationships. The next Native Bee Study Group happens on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 - RSVP here!
Okanagan Mini Bee School (Two-day Bee Biology and Identification Workshop), September 1–2, Kamloops, BC
This two-day workshop, led by instructors Bonnie Zand and Elaine Sedgman, began in the classroom looking at identification strategies for common native bees, as well as in-depth information on their nesting, overwintering, and flower preferences. The following day participants went on a “Bee Quest”, exploring local natural areas and observing bees and their habitat in the field. Stay tuned to our Events page, our Instagram, and our newsletter for more “Mini Bee School” offerings in 2025!
Brilliant Native Bees of BC, September 19, Hybrid Zoom & Unitarian Hewett Hall, Vancouver, BC
NBSBC Board Member Julia Taylor delivered a hybrid in-person and Zoom video conferencing presentation for Nature Vancouver, highlighting some of the nearly 600 different native bee species that give BC the greatest diversity of native bees in all of Canada.
Green Streets Fall Appreciation Event, September 22, VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, BC
The NBSBC had a table at this event for volunteers in the City of Vancouver's Green Streets program to answer their questions about planting for pollinators. Green Streets is a city initiative with hundreds of volunteer gardeners across Vancouver caring for planted traffic circles and street corners. Thanks to Quinn and Jane for representing the Society!
Native Bee Society of BC Annual General Meeting, Monday, October 28, 7 pm
Our 2024 AGM took place October 28th, 7-9 pm on Zoom. Members elected our incoming board of directors for the year ahead, reviewed the past year's activities as a society, heard a key-note presentation from Lincoln Best, and learned about some exciting new directions for our society! You can read more about this year’s AGM and view the 2024 Year in Review presentation in this newsletter.
Vancouver Mini Bee School (One-day Bee Biology and Identification Workshop), Sunday, November 3, Vancouver, BC
Expert instructor Bonnie Zand, ably assisted by Jade Lee, delivered an information-packed short but nectar-sweet one-day “Mini Bee School” workshop in early November to 18 keen bee students at the Stanley Park Ecology Society headquarters in Vancouver. With seasonal temperatures not conducive to an outdoor bee quest in Stanley Park, participants spent the day inside examining specimens under digital microscopes and gaining key knowledge and identification strategies for common native bees that will assist them in their bee-seeking adventures next spring and summer.
Stay tuned to our Events page, our Instagram, and our newsletter for more “Mini Bee School” offerings in 2025!
Plant-Based Foodie: Bee-Inspired Cuisine
Calling all foodies! Native bees rely on plants for their plant-based diets. This column is dedicated to vegan recipes, though you don’t have to be vegan to enjoy them! We invite all readers to associate native bees with good food.
Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls
Recipe shared by Sky Jarvis
With the holidays coming, this no-bake treat is a great addition to your baking list - it can be modified depending on your preference for sweetness.
Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp vegan butter
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup rice crisp cereal
1 cup semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips
2 tsp coconut oil
Directions:In a bowl mix peanut butter, maple syrup, vegan butter and salt together. Mix with a fork until the mixture thickens slightly (approx 2mins). Fold in rice crisps, being careful not crush! Place the bowl in a freezer for 15-20 mins. Meanwhile melt chocolate chips and coconut oil in a small pot. After this setting period, portion mixture into 1 tbsp portions, wetting hands and rolling into balls. Take the ball and dip into the melted chocolate. You could also use other toppings such as cocoa, coconut, hemp seeds, etc. Place balls back into the freezer for at least 15 more minutes. Keep frozen until ready to serve/gift. Let thaw for 10-15 minutes before serving.
ENJOY!!
Do you have a vegan recipe to share? It can be anything (snack, main, drink, dessert) and it doesn't have to be fancy. Send it to us via email with the subject heading, “Newsletter: Plant-based Foodie.”
Connect with us on:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BCNativeBees/
Instagram: @bcnativebees
Interested in getting more involved with the society?
Contact us at: bcnativebees@gmail.com
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