According to the Government of Canada’s Wild Species Status Report, one quarter of native bees in Alberta are unable to be assigned a conservation status assessment due to a lack of data. To address these data deficiencies and to gather more information about all of our other native bee species, the Alberta Native Bee Council and partners implemented almost province-wide sampling of wild bees in Alberta in 2018. 

Native bees were sampled by volunteers for two-week periods on and off throughout the growing season (i.e., May to September) using blue vane traps (passive samplers). At the end of the season the samples were collected and brought to the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, where students and volunteers processed specimens according to the protocol laid out in the Handy Bee Manual. This program is intended to be an ongoing, long-term monitoring program with data collected every five to ten years.

Project Objectives:

• Collect valuable baseline data. 

• Compile a comprehensive list of bumble bee species collected broken down by subregion.

• Create range maps for all bumble bee species collected through the program.

• Provide an overview of the relative abundance of bumble bee species in Alberta.

• Provide information on the distribution of bee species of conservation concern to facilitate species recovery efforts.

• Compile a comprehensive list of all bee species collected broken down by subregion.

• Create range maps for all bee species collected through the program.

• Provide an overview of the relative abundance of all bee species in Alberta.

• Create reference collections showing native bee diversity to provide to organizations for educational purposes.

• Create an identification guide to the bumble bees of Alberta broken down by subregion or other regional jurisdictions.

• Conduct assessments of landscape-level impacts on native bee populations (e.g., how do bee populations differ when surrounded by different types of land-cover and different types of disturbance?, etc.)

• Assess changes to bee populations over time by comparing these results to future monitoring efforts.

This project would not have been possible without the support and contributions of numerous partners. These include, the University of Calgary, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, Alberta Environment and Parks, The University of Alberta, efforts from numerous individual volunteers, financial contributions from the Alberta Conservation Association and the Alberta EcoTrust Foundation. We are very grateful to all of these organizations and individuals.