Date: May 18th, 2019
Time: 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Where: Fletcher Wildlife Garden
Andrena dunningi collecting pollen from willow flowers. Photographed by Christine Hanrahan on 15 April 2009 at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden
Led by Jessica Forrest, researcher at Ottawa U (see Forrest Lab)
What is (and isn’t) a bee? What is pollination? How diverse are wild bees, and how do they live their lives? Which wild bees have we observed? Are bees struggling? What can we do to help them?
We will explore these questions, and others, before heading out into the fields to observe wild bees in action.
Expect to see early-emerging bees, like Andrenids and the flowers they pollinate, such as Bloodroots and willow blossoms. We might find a queen bumble bee looking for a place to establish her kingdom. And we might learn to identify some of those tiny “little brown jobs” of the pollinator world.