Pacific Maritime Big Book of Bees
Created and designed by Cait Harrigan & Kath Quayle
Big Book of Bees!
Our Big Book of Bees features a gallery of 284 wild bee species that have been documented in BC’s Pacific Maritime region at one time or another between 1854 and Apr 2024. The gallery is based on an annotated catalogue (reference list) of native bees in this region, aka the “Best List” (Quayle, Zand and Best, 2024, manuscript in preparation). This catalogue updates the information in the checklist published by Sheffield and Heron in 2018. It includes new findings since 2018 in published literature, iNaturalist (research grade), GBIF, the BC Bee Atlas Database, and the Galiano Biodiversity Life List.
Images have been collected from iNaturalist as well as from the Spencer Entomological Collection (SEC), to whom we give special thanks for allowing us to reproduce their specimen images for this book.
We indicate some attributes with the following badges:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Lower Mainland | Species present in the lower mainland south of Squamish: Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley |
| Coast | Central coast and Northwest: Islands and mainland coast north of Squamish, excluding Vancouver Island |
| Vancouver Island | Species present on Vancouver Island, or Southern Gulf Islands |
| Galiano | Species present on Galiano Island |
Why we made this book
We made this book to provide easy access to information that can help you identify native bees that have been found in BC’s Pacific Maritime region. The photo gallery lets you compare your bee picture or specimen to species known to be in the region, and links to GBIF and iNaturalist maps show you where and when different species have been observed.
We focus on the Pacific Maritime region, and link out to records of the same species if they’ve been spotted elsewhere in the world. Our goal is not to duplicate functionality of well-established aggregators, but to provide different options for organizing and visualizing the same data.
Example usage
The species pages are set up to help answer “When was this species last seen in the Pacific Maritime?”
- Select a species in the gallery
- Check out the GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) map where available
- Compare with your own observations to help identify bees
Observation notes
Bee pages have notes on historical observations curated from literature. See our references page for a complete list of sources.
An observation note is formatted as follows: Author et al., date of publication: (Name of observer), date collected, location collected. For example:
Guzman et al., 2023: (Gielens), 2010, Vancouver Island
Ecozones of British Columbia
This resource focuses on the Pacific Maritime ecozone in BC, Canada. For the exact polygon definition we used for this ecozone, see the GBIF data DOI link below.
See the Ecozones Framework of Canada for more information.
Bee families in the Pacific Maritime
These maps show observations from GBIF for bee families in the Pacific Maritime. Double click any genus to isolate it on the map. Several historical datasets are represented in our GBIF data, downloaded September 12th 2024.
Family coverage
Last updated: 2024-09-13 14:59:45
References
1.
Cannings RA. The ecozones of british columbia, with special reference to lepidoptera. 2016.
2.
Demarchi D. An introduction to the ecoregions of british columbia [Internet]. 3rd ed. 2011. Available from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/ecosystems/broad-ecosystem/an_introduction_to_the_ecoregions_of_british_columbia.pdf