The Bee Report Podcast Matt Kelly

Our story this week on the podcast is very much a product of this current moment in American history, in which race and racism are at the front of all of our minds. It’s a story about acknowledging and addressing the disparities that exist for people of color in the field of entomology – and in science generally.

In this episode we’re talking with Dr. Jessica Ware and Ph.D. candidate Stephanita Sallqa Tuwa BondocGawa MaflaMills. They are both members of Entomologists of Color, a group that’s seeking to improve the participation and experience of people of color in entomology through a very specific initiative: increasing their participation in scientific societies.

We talk about this initiative, but we also talk about Jessica and Stephanie’s experiences as women of color in science, and some of the things that all of us can do to be part of the solution.

Entomologists of Color
• www.entopoc.org
• entopoc@gmail.com
• Twitter @EntoPOC

WEEKLY UPDATE

• About 94% of wild bee and native plant species networks lost (York University) https://bit.ly/3jeRPO7

• Community scientists identify bumble bees correctly 50% of the time (York University) https://bit.ly/2ZG2YQu

• EU has failed to halt decline of bees and butterflies, auditors say (Reuters) https://reut.rs/2WwpiKi

• Are pollinators at risk from road pollution and being hit by vehicles? (Twitter, Ben Phillips @ben_phi11ips) https://bit.ly/32rL4m2

• Group genomics drive aggression in honey bees (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) https://bit.ly/2ZF3eyQ

• Mixing of European and African ancestry plays role in ‘killer’ honey bees’ aggressiveness (York University) https://bit.ly/399h67C

• Who likes – and doesn't like – bees? (The Wildlife Society) https://bit.ly/398xdCM

STAY CONNECTED

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Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.

Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com.

This week on the podcast we're talking about mowing lawns - or rather not mowing lawns - and the impact it can have on urban bees.

You may have heard about No Mow May, an initiative from Plantlife in the United Kingdom which encourages people to stop mowing for the entire month. One of the communities participating in the initiative was Appleton, Wisconsin.

And Israel Del Toro, an assistant professor at Lawrence University, went out and surveyed the bees of Appleton at the end of No Mow May. So he and I chat about the fieldwork, the results and what it was like working with the city government to make this happen.

Israel Del Toro
• Twitter @IsraelDelToro

WEEKLY UPDATE
• Leafcutter bee video (Twitter, Hella Bee Nerd @sfbaybees) https://bit.ly/3g5h5UR

• Is #PollinatorWeek just #beewashing? (Twitter, Charlotte de Keyzer @cwdekeyzer) https://bit.ly/2Yzw2Z7

• EPA signs first ever Pollinator Week Proclamation (Environmental Protection Agency) https://bit.ly/3dBRFMN

• ‘National nature service’ needed for green recovery in England (The Guardian) https://bit.ly/3i59Wpl

• Entomological Society of America donates 100 two-year memberships to EntoPOC (Twitter, Entomologists of Color @EntoPOC) https://bit.ly/31ig1Zy

• Database being assembled for early career pollination ecologists (Twitter, John Mola @_JohnMola) https://bit.ly/3eAWmb4
- Enter info at https://bit.ly/2YwHzbN
- Database at https://bit.ly/3i3h6ug

• Scientists decode honey bee queen toots and quacks in hive (BBC) https://bbc.in/381nDkp

• Soap bubbles could assist with pollination (CNN) https://cnn.it/3g23WLU

STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review.

Visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter.

Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.

Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com.

Thank you very much for allowing me an additional week to work on the many projects I have going on right now, including today’s story for the podcast. Never a dull moment here.

I promised you a story about flowers, pathogens and bees, and that’s exactly what I have to share with you today. I had the incredible good fortune of speaking with both Lynn Adler from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Laura Figueroa from Cornell University on the exact same day about the role flowers play in spreading disease among bees. It was like binge watching everything we currently know about this aspect of the bee-flower relationship. Lots of information. Very satisfying. And I will do my best to summarize it all in four key points.

Lynn Adler
• Disease where you dine: plant species and floral traits associated with pathogen transmission in bumble bees (2018) https://bit.ly/3h26nzt
• Flowering plant composition shapes pathogen infection intensity and reproduction in bumble bee colonies (2020) https://bit.ly/2z7zUqq
• Science Poetry @Science_Poetry

Laura Figueroa
• Landscape simplification shapes pathogen prevalence in plant-pollinator networks (2020) https://bit.ly/2XE3EVa

WEEKLY UPDATE
#BlackInNature  #BlackInSTEM  #DiversityInSTEM  #BlackEcologists  #BlackBirdersWeek

Being black while in nature: 'You’re an endangered species' (The Guardian) https://bit.ly/3gVd7iG

Black Ecologists statement (Twitter @BEcologists) https://bit.ly/2BE2PDv

Why black lives matter to entomology (Entomological Society of America) https://bit.ly/377GwBy

We speak their names: statement of solidarity for racial justice (Xerces Society) https://bit.ly/2A6LyCu

Judge rejects Trump administration attempt to toss endangered species lawsuit (The Hill)
https://bit.ly/3eYQfx5

Trump administration makes major changes to protections for endangered species (NPR) https://n.pr/2UgF3Uy

17 states sue feds over Endangered Species Act rules (AP) https://bit.ly/3dyJUYK

Bees grooming each other can boost colony immunity (EurekAlert/University College of London) https://bit.ly/30cbLdl

Once is enough for long-term memory formation in bees (The Scientist) https://bit.ly/2UihjiV

A call to refocus away from bowl traps and towards more effective methods of bee monitoring (Annals of the Entomological Society of America) https://bit.ly/2XE2V6o

STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review.

Visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter.

Hit me up on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.

Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com.

This week on the podcast we have a story about a last resort in bee conservation. It’s a story about the steps we might need to take to prevent a bee species from winking out of existence for ever. It’s a story about the captive breeding and intentional reintroduction of bees into the wild.

This is an idea I first heard about in my conversation with Sheila Colla a few weeks ago (Episode 4, if you want to check it out). It’s an idea that I’d never heard anyone talk about for bees. But it’s an idea – and a probable future – that we need to be talking about. Because if we want it to be successful, we need to be preparing for it now.

Elaine Evans from the University of Minnesota and Tam Smith from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service join me in this episode and graciously indulge my curiosity.

WEEKLY UPDATE
• Florida’s rare blue bee rediscovered at Lake Wales Ridge (Florida Museum of Natural History) https://bit.ly/3dLXHe9

• Microalgae food for honey bees (USDA) https://bit.ly/2T4Q6zm

• Researchers discover a gene in honey bees that causes virgin birth (University of Sydney) https://bit.ly/3cylRJ7

• Does urbanization homogenize regional biodiversity in native bees? (University of California, Riverside) https://bit.ly/2T6Fosl

GET INVOLVED
• Bumble Bee Watch https://www.bumblebeewatch.org/

• Queen Quest https://www.queenquest.org/

STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review.

Visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter.

Hit me up on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.

Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com.

This week on the show I have a story about an effort to rescue a community of native bees in Pennsylvania: Anthophora abrupta. And this story of protection and conservation might seem a little strange to you – because everything seems to go just right.

It's good to be back after a couple weeks spent getting this story ready for you. I certainly had fun doing it. So I hope you enjoy it.

WEEKLY UPDATE
• Virus-infected honey bees more likely to gain entrance to healthy hives (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) https://bit.ly/2VQ0hK8

• How ‘undertaker’ bees recognize dead comrades (Science) https://bit.ly/35mjjLp

• Endangered Species Act protection sought for Suckley’s cuckoo bumble bee (Center for Biological Diversity) https://bit.ly/2WeVssL

• Honey bees could help monitor fertility loss in insects due to climate change (ScienceDaily/University of British Columbia) https://bit.ly/2xoDM5v

• Minnesota wraps up 30-year biological 'census' (Minnesota Public Radio) https://bit.ly/35le7qP

• Minnesota Biological Survey https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mbs/index.html

GOT A. ABRUPTA?
Let Mike Slater know. paplantings@gmail.com

Just a reminder that the Bee Report is now on a biweekly schedule. Next episode in two weeks.

Hit me up on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.

Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com.

Please subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review. And visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the newsletter to stay connected to the world of bees.

This week on the podcast I'm joined by Zach Portman, a bee taxonomist at the University of Minnesota in the Cariveau Native Bee Lab. For a while now I’ve been wanting to talk with a bee taxonomist about the impending taxonomic bottleneck we’re facing. So Zach and I chat about that. We chat about how taxonomy is a living science and why people in this profession deserve to make a living wage.

Zach Portman:
• Twitter @zachportman

WEEKLY UPDATE
• Coronavirus may prove boost for UK's bees and rare wildflowers (The Guardian) https://bit.ly/2VBeCZt

• Traffic and pollution plummet as U.S. cities shut down for coronavirus (New York Times) https://nyti.ms/34K4aTJ

• 5 lessons from coronavirus that will help us tackle climate change (Time) https://bit.ly/3cnWWap

• Some flowers have learned to bounce back after injury (EurekAlert/University of Portsmouth) https://bit.ly/3ewabaU

• Bees in Fiji point to new evolutionary answers (EurekAlert/Flinders University) https://bit.ly/3bsr2tD

• German museum looking for citizen scientists to help make bee collection accessible online (Museum für Naturkunde) https://bit.ly/3bca966

BEES OF GSENM
• The Bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante https://beesofgsenm.com/

Hit me up on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly

Get in touch at tbr@bymattkelly.com

Please subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review. And visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the newsletter to stay connected to the world of bees.