Leif Richardson examines a queen bee. Grace Widyatmajda/NPR

Bumble bees need help and the California Bumble Bee Atlas Project is on it. Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for bringing it to our attention:

Krystle Hickman, a bee photographer and volunteer for the Bumble Bee Atlas Project, carefully places a bee onto a flower.
Grace Widyatmadja/NPR

Nets, coolers and courage: A day in the life of a volunteer bee conservationist

I never realized how fuzzy a bumble bee is until I got to hold one between my fingertips. It feels like a furry black and yellow bear, buzzing with its tiny body, wriggling with its legs.

The conservation biologist Leif Richardson, who handed me this bee a moment ago, has some advice for holding it. “You’re going to squeeze harder than you think you need to, but not so hard that you hurt him.”

And luckily the bee can’t hurt me either, because this is a male bee, and males don’t have stingers. But they do have a scent, Richardson explains.

“Your fingers are going to smell like a male bee when you’re done. It’s a little like geraniums, a little bit cheesy, sort of like cheddar cheese in a way.”

We are out in the wilds of far western Malibu, in the home range of a native bee called Crotch’s Bumble Bee, or Bombus crotchii. That bee is protected by state law, and it’s one of the many species under survey for the California Bumble Bee Atlas.

The Atlas is a sort of census for the state’s bumble bees, and Richardson helps lead the project for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Over three years, hundreds of volunteers will fan out across the state to do surveys like this one, with the goal of piecing together a picture of where wild bees live, and which species are in trouble.

“This is real data of the highest quality that’s been collected by these trained amateurs,” Richardson says, “and it is the best available data we have for making decisions about the conservation and management of these very important animals.”…

Read the whole story here.