Community Science at Rogers Center
The B-Team is the first Community Science Project at Rogers Center. Started in 2023, this initiative’s first goal is to document which of New York’s 450 species of native bees are present in Central New York. It is hoped that some species which are rare, in decline, or undocumented in the 21st century, may still be found.
Why are we doing this?
Over the past few years, you have likely heard the term “Save the Bees,” a movement started by environmentalists to draw attention to declining bee populations and emphasize the important role they play in the ecosystem as major pollinators.
Much of the attention was centered around honey bees, who face challenges but are at a lower risk because they are supported by the agriculture industry since they produce honey.
This project wants to bring more attention to native bees as they are just as important, if not more so. They support local ecosystems by pollinating countless native plants. They also support farmers by pollinating crops like blueberries and tomatoes.
Native bee populations have been in serious decline since the late 1990s. Several once-common bees, like the Rusty-patched Bumblebee (B. affinis), have disappeared from huge portions of their historic ranges.
Many people are unaware of the value of our native insects, and as an environmental education center, we believe that this needs to change.
Click Here to Download Data Collection Manuel
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Click Here to Record Volunteer Hours
Joining the B-Team
Anyone interested in joining The B-Team can contact our project lead, Charlie Tourbaf, for more information. All you need is a digital camera or smartphone and the iNaturalist app downloaded to your phone and/or computer. Turn on the geolocation and upload your pictures of bees, and they will automatically be added to our project.
*If you do not have a smartphone, click the Data Collection Manuel link for an alternative data collection method
Bee Photography Tips
Photographing bees can be a tricky business, especially when trying to get images that are good enough for ID. Here are a few tips.
Cooler temps mean the bees will be flying more slowly.
For best chances of ID, get images of the bee’s face, side and back. Face shape, eye shape, coloration, wing venation, and leg structures all contribute to being able to identify species.
Make sure images are well lit and not blurry (no Loch Ness- or Sasquatch-quality photos).
The Rusty-patched Bumblebee, Bombus affinis, was once one of the most common bees of the northeastern United States. By 2000, it was discovered to have vanished from over 90% of its historic range, including NYS. There is a hotbed of these bees in northern Illinois still, where this photo was taken in our senior educator’s garden in 2019.
B-Team Background
In 2023, we established our project on iNaturalist and called it The B-Team: Central New York Native Bee Survey. Any photographs of bees that are uploaded to iNaturalist from the nine designated CNY counties (Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland, Herkimer, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Otsego and Thompkins) are automatically added to the project.
This initial effort is providing us with baseline data that hopefully will be used to verify species presence.
In June and July, Matt McGeary, a Fellow from the Upstate Institute at Colgate University, took on the mantle of the B-Team. He spent many hours photographing bees on Rogers Center’s properties, and creating a database from our iNatluralist images. The highlight of his summer was documenting three Northern Amber Bumblebees (Bombus borealis) onsite - a species that is listed as critical in NY.