Dr. Melathopoulos talks with Dr. Hannah Gaines-Day (University of Wisconsin–Madison) about WiBee (W-I-B-E-E), an app created after conversations with Wisconsin apple growers who wanted to know whether wild bees provide enough pollination or if honeybee rentals are needed. The app has users stand still and record insect visits in a standardized 3x3-foot area for five minutes, tallying easy-to-identify functional "morpho groups" (honeybee, bumblebee, large dark, small dark, green bee, and non-bees) while also logging weather, habitat, and flower abundance. Validation work compared Wibee visitation rates with pollen deposition in apple and cranberry, finding a tight relationship in cranberry but not apple due to pollen source ambiguity; a follow-up will test relationships with fruit set, and pumpkin data are pending. Wibee has been widely adopted by Master Gardeners, has generated about 15,000 publicly viewable surveys, and may be compared with camera-based monitoring in future work.

Essential Links: WiBee Official Website: pollinators.wisc.edu/wibee

The Gratton Lab: gratton.entomology.wisc.edu

Hannah Gaines-Day - Faculty Profile: https://entomology.wisc.edu/directory/hannah-gaines-day/

00:00 Bee Survey Setup

00:53 Podcast Intro

01:24 Meet Hannah Gaines-Day

02:27 Why Bee ID Matters

03:31 Wisconsin Crops Focus 

04:30 Wibee Morpho Groups

06:16 Functional Group Logic

07:53 How To Use Wibee

10:06 Sampling Strategy Tips

10:59 Validation Experiments

13:37 Apple Vs Cranberry Results

16:14 Beyond Wisconsin Use

18:22 Citizen Science Adoption

20:30 Pollination Threshold Goals

23:02 Future Tech Comparisons