Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Buzz on Bees,” a guide to Washington’s busiest residents and how to make them happy at home, with Sam Droege, biologist at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, developer of online identification guides to native bees, and guest lecturer at colleges and universities.
More than 200 species of wild bees reside in the District of Columbia, visiting cherry blossoms, wetland plants along the Anacostia, and the lawn of the White House. Although they live in every backyard, many hide in plain sight, invisible to us because they look nothing like the honeybees that everyone knows. You can step on or pass thousands of their nests every year without even knowing it.
Become much more aware of these small denizens of the D.C. with the help of Sam Droege, a nationally recognized bee expert and a photographer who produces stunningly detailed bee images.
In a talk illustrated with gorgeous high-definition bee pictures, Sam will tell bee stories, show gorgeous high-definition bee pictures, and suggest small steps you can take to help save bees and keep them pollinating vegetables, trees, and flowers.
He’ll discuss the habits of creatures such as the squash bee, which visits pumpkin patches, the miner bee, which is building tubular nests in the earthen structures at the Native American Museum, and the red-tipped Cuckoo leafcutter, a native of Egypt first found in the U.S. along the Anacostia River.
He'll be donating his proceeds from the talk to the Polistes Foundation, which provides support to scientific labs such as his own. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: The bee species Andrena gardineri. Photo by the USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program / Public domain.