For the last several years, my lab has been working to increase the literacy of native bees in the South Thompson Region. Much of this work has been completed in partnership with the Thompson-Shuswap Master Gardeners.

During Summers 2017, 2018, and 2019, undergraduate researchers,  Aneka Battel, Megan Abbott and Mae Frank, compared the abundance of native pollinator guilds  found in Kamloops uncultivated green spaces with the abundance of pollinator guilds recorded by citizen scientists in home gardens.  

The first two reports submitted to the City of Kamloops can be found here and here.

In addition to our citizen scientist monitoring, Elaine Sedgeman and I have been cultivating bee literacy in local schools with a series of hands-on science/art workshops focused on the inter-relationship between flowers and bees.  This work has been funded through several TRU’s Mind the Gap Awards.

Finally, the TRUSU Eco Club and my lab were awarded a TRU Sustainability Grant to develop TRU’s Bee Happy Garden which can be found at the west end of the Ken Lepin (Science) Building on campus.