What are these cups? In order to study bees, we have to catch them first. We use a standard method of pollinator sampling using blue, white, and yellow painted cups filled with soapy water. These are the colors that bees are attracted to, and we recommend planting flowers in your garden of these colors.
The cups are left out for 24 hours before we go to collect them and bring them back to our lab. After collection we also use large nets in the same area to catch any large bees. Bumble bees are big enough to climb straight out of our cups, so in order to catch them we need to use nets.
Kill the bees to save the bees? Yes. As contradictory as it sounds, bees cannot be easily identified in the field, so we must lethally sample bees in order to bring them back to our lab. See our Bee vs. Wasp vs. Fly page for more information about identifying bees. It is not easy to identify something small that won’t stop moving.
Doesn’t that effect their population size? No. Studies have shown that bi-weekly sampling does not negatively impact bee populations. Two weeks is enough time for bees to reproduce and lay eggs.
Do you only catch bees? No. Our sampling catches all types of pollinators and other insects. We make sure to identify all non-microscopic bugs we catch and catalogue them in our database.
