My streak is broken.
So most of our data is observing bee behavior. However, we also need to weigh the hives to see how the colonies are progressing over the course of the experiment. The hives we have are neat in that they have these doors where you can shut them half way and bumble bees can enter the hive but can't exit. So technically, if you have shut the hives up properly, no bees should be able to exit and sting you. Now I need to preface this story by saying this: over the 4 years working

The birds and the bees (mostly just bees)
A couple weeks of data collection are under our belt, and it's going pretty well! Our week usually starts with catching wool-carder bees in the surrounding area to put in our experimental enclosures. We put 1-2 male wool-carders and 1-2 females in each experimental enclosure. The males usually set up a territory and begin defending it against bumble bees and/or other males within an hour of getting into the enclosure. They also partake in other important bee behavior ;). The