Bumblebee workshop aims to find homes

With the weather warming up and bees soon flying and searching for a new home, the Medicine Hat Interpretive Program is hosting a bumblebee workshop on April 24 to build a landing spot for bees this summer.

This is a Citizen Science project through the Alberta Native Bee Council. Participants will build their bee box, check it around Canada Day to see if any bees have nested. If there are inhabitants in your bumblebee box, you’re asked to check it again in October, when all the bees are done their life cycle, and that information will be sent to the Native Bee Council.

“They check it out, identify what’s been living there and it’s just to kind of keep track of what we got,” said Justine Bolen, park interpreter at the Interpretive Program. “It’s just to get people kind of engaged and be a part of citizen science where we can be a part of seeing what nature is doing and giving real reports of what’s happening in our own backyard and see what kind of native bees hang around and come out.”

There is a $10 fee because Bolen says they want to engage people who will commit to taking part in the reporting.

Bolen says people that are interested must pre-register by calling 403-529-6225. Participants will be booked into an hour time slot starting at 9:30 a.m. on the workshop day until 3:45 p.m. She adds there are limited box material and space — they have three work stations set up, physically distanced, with no more than nine people working at a station at a time.

The stations are all at Police Point Park and Bolen says they provide all the material, including raw cotton the bees will be able to nest in.