LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the arid, cracked soil of the Southern California desert, a tiny bee pokes its head out of a hole no bigger than the tip of a pencil.
Krystle Hickman crouches down with her specialized camera equipped to capture the tiny details of the bee’s antennae and blurry back.
“God, you’re so cute,” Hickman murmured before the sweat female flew off.
Hickman seeks to document hundreds of native bee species that are threatened by climate change and habitat loss, some of which is caused by the more recognized and agriculturally valued honey bee — an invasive species. Of the approximately 4,000 types of bees native to North America, Hickman has photographed more than 300. For about 20 of them, she is the first to photograph them alive.
Through photography, she wants to raise awareness of the importance of native bees to the survival of the flora and fauna around them.
“Saving bees means saving their entire ecosystem,” Hickman said.
Community scientists play an important role in bee watching
On a Saturday in January, Hickman walked among the early wildflowers in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, a few hundred miles east of Los Angeles, where clumps of purple verbena and patches of white primrose were blooming unusually early because of a wet winter.
Where there are flowers, there are bees.
Hickman has no formal science education and dropped out of a business program she hated. But her passion for bees and keen observational skills made her a good community scientist, she said. In October, she published a book documenting California’s native bees, supported in part by National Geographic. She conducted research supported by the University of California, Irvine and hopes to publish research notes this year on some of her findings.
“We fill a lot of gaps,” she said of the role scientists play in contributing knowledge alongside academia.
On any given day, he might spend 16 hours waiting by a plant, watching the bees wake up and go about their business. Pay no attention to it.
Originally from Nebraska, Hickman moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She started photographing bees in 2018, but soon realized that native bees were in greater danger.
Now, she is a full-time beekeeper.
“I think anybody could do it,” Hickman said.
A different approach
Melittologists, or people who study bees, have traditionally used the pan trap to collect and examine specimens of dead bees. To officially record a new species, scientists usually have to send several bees to labs, Hickman said.
There can be small anatomical differences between species that cannot be photographed, such as the underside of a bee, Hickman said.
But Hickman is vehemently against trapping bees. He worries about harming already threatened species. Unofficially, she believes she has photographed at least four previously undescribed species.
Hickman said he’s upset “a few melitologists before because I won’t tell them where things are.”
Her approach helped her create a path as an expert on bee behavior.
During his trip to Anza Borrego, Hickman noted that the bees won’t come out of their hiding places until around 10 a.m., when the desert starts to warm up. They generally spend 20 minutes foraging and 10 minutes back in their burrows to unload pollen, she said.
“It’s really shockingly easy to make new behavioral discoveries just because nobody’s looking at living insects,” she said.
Hickman still works closely with other melittologists, often sending them photos for identification and discussing research ideas.
Christine Wilkinson, assistant curator of community science at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, said Hickman is a perfect example of why it’s important to incorporate different perspectives in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
“There are so many different ways of knowing and relating to the world,” Wilkinson said. “Employment as a community scientist can also get people interested and passionate about making a real difference.”
Native bees in decline
There is one critically endangered bee that Hickman is determined to find – Bombus franklini, or Franklin’s bumblebee, last seen in 2006.
Starting in 2021, she travels annually to the Oregon-California border to search for him.
“There are quite a few people who think it’s gone, but I’m very optimistic about it,” she said.
Habitat loss, as well as competition from bees, has made it difficult for native bees to survive. Many native bees will only drink the nectar or eat the pollen of a particular plant.
Because of his success in tracking bees, he is now working with various universities and community groups to help find lost species, which are bees that have not been documented in the wild for at least a decade.
Hickman often finds himself explaining to audiences why native bees are important. They do not make honey, and the disappearance of a few bees may not have an apparent impact on humans.
“But the things that live here, they deserve to live here. And that should be a good enough reason to protect them,” she said.