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<H1 class=story_headline>Beeing alive </H1>
<H3 class=story_subhead>The mysterious decline of North America's top pollinator
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<DIV style="DISPLAY: block; FLOAT: left">June 19, 2008</DIV>
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<DIV class=byline>By DAVID JAKUBIAK Contributor </DIV><!-- boxscore --><!-- Article's First Paragraph -->
<P>If you've got bees buzzing around your backyard, your local park, your office
courtyard, or your school playground, May Berenbaum would love to see 'em. </P>
<P>Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign, also runs the university's BeeSpotter program, a project that
relies on citizen scientists to identify bee populations around Illinois. </P><!-- start sidebar -->
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<DIV class=caption>Scientists have found that populations of managed honeybees
are dwindling. <BR><SPAN class=credit>(Photo by David Jakubiak) </SPAN></DIV>
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<P>Tracking bees may seem less glamorous than, say, spotting a rare bird at your
feeder. But Berenbaum said her motivations lie in some very real concerns for
bees. </P>
<P>With pollinator populations suffering from threats ranging from habitat loss
to the mysterious malady dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder, which has ravaged bee
hives around the globe, Berenbaum was tapped by the National Academy of Sciences
to assess the status of North America's pollinators, which include a wide array
of insects, bats and even some birds. </P>
<DIV class=story_subhead>Where'd they go? </DIV>
<P>After analyzing available data, Berenbaum's committee released a report.
"Among our conclusions was that there has been a demonstrative downward trend in
the populations of managed honeybees, but comparable data simply was not
available for other pollinators." </P>
<P>This lack of data was "shocking," Berenbaum said, "many of these pollinators
are important contributors to the maintenance of not only agriculture, but also
natural communities." </P>
<P>Berenbaum knew she needed to find a way to count pollinators. But she faced
two very steep hurdles. First, she said, "there aren't enough bee biologists to
count them." </P>
<P>And, she added, "There are some real challenges with recruiting the public to
contribute to citizen science involving insects." </P>
<P>For example correctly identifying some pollinators requires not only catching
the insects, but also performing a very delicate dissection to determine subtle
differences in their reproductive organs. </P>
<P>Berenbaum decided to limit the pollinator pool. "We needed a group of
pollinators that could be easily identified without extensive training and
without even handling them. So, we settled on honey bees and bumble bees." </P>
<DIV class=story_subhead>Seeing bees </DIV>
<P>With their target established, Berenbaum's team set up a Web site where
citizen scientists could report their bee sightings. </P>
<P>The way it works is simple. First, a bee spotter takes a picture of a bee
with a digital camera. Then they visit the site, create an account, and upload
their picture. They are asked to give a few bits of information, for example,
the address where their bee was located, and a possible identity of the bee
based on color chart on the site. </P>
<P>Berenbaum said anyone from a gardener to school group can become a bee
spotter. </P>
<P>"We're not asking anyone to catch these bees, and we're certainly not asking
them to kill them. We just want a picture." </P>
<P>All you need, she said, is a computer, a digital camera, and site bees visit.
</P>
<P>"It should be s place you have access to and that isn't going to be turned
into a parking lot anytime soon," she advised. </P>
<P>Since the site was launched last fall, she said, it has received more than
1,000 visits from 53 countries and 47 states. </P>
<P>Among those visitors was Linda Slepicka of Westmont. An amateur gardener with
a "big flower garden" Slepicka said she has "tons of bees. So, when I heard
about it I thought, well they are trying to track where the bees are located and
I have lots of bees, so why not?" </P>
<P>She found the site, she said, when she was poking around the Internet reading
about Colony Collapse Disorder. </P>
<DIV class=story_subhead>Confirmed bees </DIV>
<P>"I went to the Web site and bookmarked it, but it wasn't all the way up then.
By the time I got around to taking picture it was late in the season." </P>
<P>Then, late this winter, Slepicka got an email from the project. They
confirmed that some of her bees were in fact honey bees. One was not. </P>
<P>"I know nothing about bees, so the distinctions between this kind of bee and
that kind of bee are lost on me. But I printed that information, so that when I
take a picture I can see if it is what they are looking for," she said. </P>
<P>While Slepicka has never thought of herself as an entomology buff, she did
say it feels good doing something for the bees. </P>
<P>"I'd never thought about how important bees are. But if the colonies are
collapsing and you don't have the bees to pollinate your crops, it could lead to
a global collapse of our food supply. You don't tend to think of honey bees as
being that important," she said. </P>
<P><EM>Do you have honey bees or bumble bees in your sights? To become a bee
spotter or to read more about bee topics like Colony Collapse Disorder see:
http://beespotter.mste.uiuc.edu/.</EM> </P></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Laurie
Davies Adams<BR>Executive Director<BR><B>Pollinator Partnership </B><BR>423
Washington Street, 5th floor<BR>San Francisco, CA
94111<BR>415-362-1137<BR>LDA@pollinator.org</FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial
color=#000000 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#0000ff size=4 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="14"><B><A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></B></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"></B><BR><A
href="http://www.nappc.org/">www.nappc.org</A><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="12"><B><I>National Pollinator Week is June 22-28, 2008. <BR>Beecome
involved at <A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></I></FONT></B></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient <A title="http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007" href="http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007" target="_blank">used cars</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>