Surveying wild bees in the City of North Vancouver
- Native Bee Society of BC
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Sampling
In 2023, City of North Vancouver Parks staff began a pilot project of habitat modification within Grand Boulevard Park, a large green space on the eastern side of the municipality, with the goal of increasing pollinator abundance and diversity. Strategies have included maintenance and expansion of established pollinator gardens with additional features to support pollinators such as mason bee nesting blocks, logs, hollow and pithy stems and mulch, and reduced mowing of a large area within the park that was seeded with a “bee-friendly” flowering lawn mix.
During the summer of 2024 volunteers for the Native Bee Society of BC BC Bee Atlas were invited to do what they do best - search for and identify native bees and the flowers they forage on; with a goal to establish baseline information about pollinator and plant biodiversity in the park. Parks staff can then use these baseline results to assess the effects of their habitat modification strategies in the future.
Bee Atlas volunteers were trained through the OSU Master Melittologist program in bee collection, allowing them to accurately record data and create museum quality records. Those records produced a native bee species list with specific information on the rare, common and introduced bee species using the park, as well as information on the plants supporting those species.
Bee diversity
Over 10 survey days we collected 43 bee species from 36 different species of flowering plants from 15 plant families. Notably, before our survey, only 13 bee species were known from the public record to inhabit North Vancouver parks. One of the bumblebee species Bombus flavidus, found in the pollinator garden, is blue-listed in British Columbia, which means it is of special concern and thought to be at risk. We also found nine non-native species among our collection.
Plant preferences
Most of the bee species we found are generalists, meaning they will forage on a variety of plants. However, we did find five “specialist” species, meaning they forage on only a small subset of available plants, often within one plant family. Among these, we found species that specialize on willow, mint, and plantains, as well as plants in the legume and daisy families. There are at least 45 flowering plant families growing in North Vancouver that are known to support native bees.
The relationships between different bee species in the park and the flowering plants they prefer can be shown in a pollinator network diagram that visualizes the most commonly accessed plants as well as the diversity of plants used by foraging bees.
What future strategies will help increase bee biodiversity in North Vancouver?
Flower abundance is directly related to sustaining bees and providing sufficient pollen and nectar to feed their young, so the more flowers, and the more diversity of flowers the better. Manicured lawns do not provide food resources to bees, so adjusting mowing schedules to allow “weeds” to bloom will improve the habitat. In addition, replacing ornamentals that don’t supply much pollen or nectar with accessible flowers of diverse shapes, colours and bloom times will support a greater diversity of bees. Importantly, including native plants in future planting plans will increase the likelihood that specialist bees are provided for, as well as providing diverse resources to generalists.
In addition to access to their preferred flowers, native bees also need undisturbed nesting sites that are close to their feeding grounds to successfully raise their young. Protecting and providing varied nesting sites will also help to increase bee diversity and abundance. This means turning a blind eye to patchy grass that allows ground nesters to access bare soil habitat, reducing garden clean up for at least a year that leaves pithy stems that are good for nesting in, and retaining stumps and decaying logs provides the tunnels and crevices that are the preferred home for some species. It turns out that “leave well alone” in the pollinator garden is a good motto for native bees.
Future Work for the BC Bee Atlas
The City of North Vancouver expanded their low-mow meadows and planting for bees in 2025, and the BC Bee Atlas, in partnership with the OSU Master Melittologist program, is working to continue surveys there. We are looking forward to this continuing partnership, and to helping additional municipalities learn more about their bee fauna and how to best support our vital native bees!
You can find out more about the survey and other results here.
The BC Bee Atlas is the flagship project of the Native Bee Society of BC. It empowers British Columbian community scientists to produce biodiversity data and make amazing discoveries about the provinces wild bees and diverse flora. Online education and data management are supported by the Oregon State University Extension Service Master Melittologist Program.
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