Just a little post to say thank you and welcome to our new members, and to let you know how much we appreciate your participation and observations. Remember, your observation photos need not include the native bee you saw on the plant -- but please be certain you saw a native bee and not a honey bee.

It can be difficult to photograph a native bee, because they move fast. But since we are very interested in the plants they use for food or nesting materials, all we require is a checkbox that verifies the sighting of a native bee.

Thanks again and we look forward to seeing your posts!!

Sonoran Desert Native Bees is pleased to welcome Rachel Traynor as our new Manager for this project, and hopefully we'll get things working properly now. Welcome to the project, Rachel!

Although we tried to keep things simple with a Collection Project (wonderfully easy to work with), it turns out that in order to gather just the data we need, the Traditional Project is what's needed.

What we are looking for in this project is photos of Sonoran Desert native bees as well as photos of plants and flowers on which native bees have been observed to feed, gather pollen, or cut leaves.

Stay tuned!

September 09, 2018
Refining our Requirements
Just a note to let our followers know that we'll be refining the project requirements to better focus our observations on native bees and the plants they use, here in Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Some observations may therefore end up being deleted from the project -- sorry about that!

August 30, 2018
Welcome to Native Sonoran Bees AZ!
Hi, and welcome to our new project! We hope to identify native bees observed here in the Sonoran Desert, as well as the plants they use and prefer.

Because it is so difficult to get good, clear photos of bees working their flowers, we also accept photos of plants you see native bees working on. Our study range is limited to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and we are most interested in bees other than honeybees, which are actually not native to the United States.

We're excited to get started before the spring 2019 wildflower season, when mining bees, leafcutter bees, and mason bees are all very active.

Thanks for your participation and observations!

Visit our website at:
https://sites.google.com/site/sonorandesertbees/home