The Great Native Bee Count

Join us to support the Bee Research fund

The Great Native Bee Count: Mapping California’s Bee and Plant Connections

California is home to more than 1,600 species of native bees, alongside managed honey bees that support our agricultural landscapes. The Great Native Bee Count is being developed to engage Californians of all ages as community scientists documenting the relationships between bees and the flowering plants that sustain them.

Gifts to our campaign will provide research support for the E. L. Niño Bee Lab, including our current priority of putting community science tools into people’s hands to generate valuable bee and floral resource data.

The project will guide participants in using their phones to record flowering plants, when and where they see them, and, when possible, photograph visiting bees. Together, these observations will help answer a simple question: What bee is visiting what plant, where, and when?

Our goal is to contribute useful observations to existing biodiversity and community science databases while building a richer picture of California’s bee and plant interactions across regions and seasons.

The project builds on UC Davis Bee Haven’s network of more than 5,000 community members, providing a strong foundation for statewide participation.

What we notice, we can better understand.

Your support will help put practical tools and science-based guidance into people’s hands while contributing to a growing understanding of California’s bees, flowering plants, and forage landscapes. This knowledge can benefit pollinators, native bee stewards, beekeepers, growers, researchers, land managers, educators, and communities statewide.