Two Bee or Not Two Bee — That is the Question

Part “sting” operation, part scientific experiment, the Fourth Annual “Great Bee Count”  takes place this weekend when 78 Alameda residents are expected to be among nearly 100,000 other sleuths who gauge the nation’s bee population. 

It’s all part of the larger Great Sunflower Project, the brainchild of San Francisco State University scientist Gretchen LeBuhn's effort to unravel the secrets of pollinating bees.

Participants all over the country have planted a sunflower in their yards, community gardens, balconies and patios. Their task is to count how many bees they see on the blossom during two 15-minute observation periods each month, reporting those findings on LeBuhn’s website.

This weekend’s “Great Bee Count” is a means to generate additional public awareness of the endeavor and encourage project participants to get their data in to LeBuhn. 

East End resident Katie Button has participated in the project in the past and said it was a wonderful excuse to be out in her yard. “It was good for my soul,” said Button, “and I liked doing my little bit to help scientists who are studying the bee population, which is in crisis.”   

Button, who has lived in Alameda for 12 years, plays violin with the San Francisco Ballet and Opera orchestras, has her own string quartet and teaches music on the Island.  “I would highly recommend the Great Sunflower Project for anyone, and in particular for kids,” she said, “It is a wonderful science experiment.” 

She said she planted eight sunflower plants the year she participated — four in her front yard and four in the back of her house. On average, she said, she would count five bees on one sunflower blossom within just the first five minutes of her 15-minute observation sessions. She said had she not been so busy this year during planting season, she would have joined in this year's count. She hopes to resume her participation next year. Button said she knows it is important work.

Biologist LeBuhn said estimates of the value of pollination services provided to humans by bees in the United States are $4 to $6 billion per year. “But,” she noted, “urbanization, climate change and a mysterious syndrome called 'colony collapse disorder' threaten these essential animals and the ecosystems they share with humans.” 

The project seeks to not only collect more information about the whereabouts and activity of pollinating bees, but also to provide the bees with more pollen resources. 

Participants who hope to lure bees to their yard for the project, and anyone who wants to nurture the bee population in general, are encouraged to plant Lemon Queen Sunflowers — which, according to LeBuhn, are “wildly attractive to bees” and grow well throughout the United States.  

Controlling the types of flowers observed in the study controls the effect that different types of pollen and nectar have on the bees visits. This, says LeBuhn, makes the data on pollination easier for her to compare from site to site around the country. 

Volunteers in her project report seeing a bee pollinate the plants every 2.6 minutes, on average, although 20 percent of the participants report never seeing any bees at all. LeBuhn said when she first launched the project, participants did not want to report their data to her if they did not see any bees, when, in fact, that is the most important data of all.

“It means,” she said, “they were receiving no pollinator services.” 

LeBuhn expected urban environments would have much lower pollinator services, but she said data collected by participants, to date, shows that not to be the case. That trend is something the scientist hopes to explore further to see if her findings match up with other studies. 

An associate professor of biology, LeBuhn studies the effects climate change and urbanization have on pollinators. While her Great Sunflower Project was originally conceived purely with research in mind, she said she is heartened that there has been an overwhelming interest in it on the part of school children.

She hopes the project will evolve from mere data collection to providing revamped guidelines and impetus for conservation. “We want to encourage people to include just one more square foot of new pollinator habitat in their yards and really get people to think about how to manage landscapes and their own personal space," she said.

There are 4,000 species of bees in the United States and California is home to almost one-third of them. 

To join the Great Sunflower Project, year-round, you can visit its website at http://www.greatsunflower.org or follow it on Twitter: @GreatSunflower.