May Berenbaum and her colleagues have identified a mechanism that could explain the variety of ill effects seen in Colony Collapse Disorder.
The Xerces Society's most recent Citizen Monitoring newsletter listed a number of ways citizen scientists can get involved -- and highlighted the Bombus affinis discovered by a Bee Spotter as an example of positive results from citizen scientist endeavors!
BeeSpotter is a partnership between citizen-scientists and the professional science community designed to educate the public about pollinators by engaging them in a data collection effort of importance to the nation. It is a web-based portal at the University of Illinois for learning about honey bees and bumble bees and for contributing data to a nationwide effort to baseline information on population status of these insects.
A couple of notes for those who are new to the BeeSpotter website:
We have been receiving a number of queries from people wondering how they can get involved in this initiative. The best way to get involved is to get out there with your camera and capture some good pictures of bees! We want to get a better idea of bee demographics in the state of Illinois, and we can't do it without your help. In order to get your bee pictures on our website, just create an account and then add your bee spotting.
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