[Pollinator] Worldwide 3 Hour Online BUMBLE BEE BLITZ - This Saturday

[Droege, Sam]

BUMBLE BEE BLITZ

[Feel free to send this message to other related listservs]

Worried about the declines and changes in worldwide populations of Bumble
Bees?  No? Well you should and now you can help as long as you have a
computer with Internet access.

The U.S. National Museum Entomology Department has just scanned in the
labels and pictures of 44,000 Bumble Bee specimens in their collection
(many more to come)  and this Saturday the objective is to harness the
online power of the world to get them all transcribed and into their
database.

These Bumble Bees form the baseline for comparisons with current
populations, but are useless unless the data are accessible.

This is where you come in.....

The event will take place this Saturday from 1-4 p.m.

You can participate simply by clicking into the Smithsonian's Bumblentry
website:

https://transcription.si.edu/project/6794

(hint:  you can actually start transcribing now, only 1% of the labels have
been transcribed so far)

or, if you are local to the Washington D.C. area and want to join the
Entomological elite you can come down to the museum (with your laptop) and
enter away.

You can register for the local event at:

http://go.si.edu/site/Calendar?id=100261&view=Detail&s_src=er_bee_em_nmnhnews

Thanks to you the world will be a better place.

-------

Note the contact for more information on the event is:  Robert Costello NOT
Sam Droege

COSTELLR at si.edu

sam

Sam Droege  sdroege at usgs.gov
w 301-497-5840 h 301-390-7759 fax 301-497-5624
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
BARC-EAST, BLDG 308, RM 124 10300 Balt. Ave., Beltsville, MD  20705
Http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov

            "Old maids are the support of the British Empire: Old maids
keep cats: cats catch field mice that otherwise would destroy humblebee
nests; humblebees enable red clover to set seed; red clover is good food
for cattle; and roast beef gives strength to men who are the support of the
British Empire."

       - Extracted from the 1948 edition of  Lutz’s Fieldbook of Insects of
the United States and Canada
-- 
*Bees are Not Optional*

*Apes sunt et non liberum*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20140916/86ad9a36/attachment.html>