finding perdita nests

[asiajmurphy]

Hello all,

I've grown interested in finding Perdita nests, particularly P. minima. There are a few bunches of individuals around my house. I've been looking in the lit and seen that Perdita move nests daily, maybe even creating two nests a day. Is this true? Has anyone had any success in finding Perdita nests, have any tips?

Thanks!

[Joel Gardner]

I recall Julia Brokaw finding some in Minnesota by putting out large numbers of emergence traps, and I mean LARGE numbers.  The nests she found were tiny and the bees plugged the entrance with sand between entry/exits, so they would be almost impossible to find by searching the ground.  I don't know if she noticed them moving nests from day to day.

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[James Cane]

Few people other than Jerry Rozen have found Perdita minima nests, but you appear to have a chance at it. Over bare ground, I could see their shadows better than I could see the bee. Up close, their Neolarra cleptoparasite might lead you to a nest entrance, much the way Nomada lead one to Andrena nests. But this is of course all on a micro scale!!

Jim 

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James H. Cane

Native bee and pollination ecologist

Emeritus USDA-ARS Bee Lab, Logan, Utah

owner -  WildBeecology

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jim-Cane

https://www.zotero.org/jimbee

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"Knowledge and comprehension are the joy and justification of humanity"
 Alexander von Humboldt

[Rusty Burlew]

Last year, I found Perdita in a state park in central Washington. When I began to pitch my tent in the designated area, I found the entire site (fine silty sand, well trampled) was one huge aggregation. I waited until the bees settled in for the night before pitching the tent. In the morning, after I removed the tent, I placed the only equipment I had with me, an insect net, over the central area and collected quite a few samples.