Despite their large size and striking markings, the identification of bumble bees (Bombus spp.) is surprisingly difficult. This is particularly true for three North American sympatric species in the subgenus Pyrobombus that are often misidentified: B. sandersoni Franklin, B. vagans Smith B. perplexus Cresson. Traditionally, the identification of these cryptic species was based on observations of differences in hair coloration and pattern and qualitative comparisons of morphological characters including malar length. Unfortunately, these characteristics do not reliably separate these species. We present quantitative morphometric methods to separate these species based on the malar length to width ratio (MRL) and the ratios of the malar length to flagellar segments 1 (MR1) and 3 (MR3) for queens and workers, and validated our determinations based on DNA barcoding. All three measurements discriminated queens of B. sandersoni and B. vagans with 100% accuracy. For workers, we achieved 99% accuracy by combining both MR1 and MR3 measurements, and 100% accuracy differentiating workers using MRL. Moreover, measurements were highly repeatable within and among both experienced and inexperienced observers. Our results, validated by genetic evidence, demonstrate that malar measurements provide accurate identifications of B. vagans and B. sandersoni. There was considerable overlap in the measurements between B. perplexus and B. sandersoni. However, these species can usually be reliably separated by combining malar ratio measurements with other morphological features like hair color. The ability to identify bumble bees is key to monitoring the status and trends of their populations, and the methods we present here advance these efforts.

Forest management is often practiced to enhance conditions for wildlife, including native bees. Evaluations of the effects of forest management on bees have shown that abundance and diversity are higher in newly created early‐successional conditions. To date, studies have restricted sampling to the forest understory; however, recent research finds that bee abundance is as high or higher in forest canopies than in understories, suggesting that previous observations of substantially greater bee abundance and diversity in recently managed areas could be an artifact of incomplete sampling of the vertical gradient within forests. To examine the potential implications of sampling biases associated with the failure of previous studies to include canopy samples in comparisons of managed and unmanaged forests, we sampled bees within a recently harvested forest as well as the understory and canopy of adjacent unmanaged forest. Bee abundance and diversity were an order of magnitude higher in managed areas compared to the unmanaged forest, even when understory and canopy samples were combined. These results suggest that not sampling the canopy is inconsequential with respect to the broadly reported conclusion that managed areas support more abundant and diverse bee communities than surrounding forest cover.

Our understanding of how bees (Apoidea) use temperate forests is largely limited to sampling the understory and forest floor. Studies over the last decade have demonstrated that bee communities are vertically stratified within forests, yet the ecology of bee assemblages immediately above the canopy, the canopy‐aerosphere interface, remains unexplored. We sampled and compared bee communities above the canopy of a temperate forest to the understory (1 m), midstory (10 m), and canopy (20 m) on the campus of the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States from April to August, 2021. Overall, we found that assemblages above the canopy had more bees than in the understory, were distinct in composition from all other strata, and included the greatest proportion of unique species. Bee abundance and species richness were highest in the understory throughout the spring (April and May) and decreased as the season progressed, while bee abundance and species richness at higher strata increased into the summer months. We also found that bees with preferences to nest in moist and rotting wood were largely restricted to canopy and midstory strata. We conclude that bee assemblages occupying the space above the forest canopy are abundant and diverse, and their unique composition suggests that this canopy‐aerosphere interface plays an additional role in the bee community of temperate forests. Alternatively, our findings question how forest bee communities should be defined while highlighting the need for research on fundamental processes governing species stratification in and above the canopy.

Native bees are an ecologically diverse group of pollinators in global decline due at least in part to invasive species, pesticides, and habitat loss. Although guidelines exist for land managers to restore pollinator habitat, these “best management practices” (BMPs) include other pollinator taxa that may have different requirements than bees, do not give particular attention to rare bee species, or describe practices that are impractical for land managers. Using co‐production science, our team of land managers and researchers sampled bee communities in 100 wildlife openings on six National Forests (NF) within the Great Lakes Basin of the United States during 2017–2019. We found that bee communities responded to site factors and management practices, including prescribed fire, mechanical methods (e.g., felling, brushhogging, mowing), herbicides, and pollinator plantings. Bee abundance, diversity, and rarity were strongly related to soil properties, landscape context, and the plant community, including small‐statured woody species, which collectively informed our BMPs. For instance, mechanical treatments were most beneficial for openings with clayey or organic soils while prescribed fire was most effective in openings with well‐drained soils. Our BMPs highlight effects of treatment combinations, including negative effects on rare species when herbicides were combined with plantings and positive effects on abundance and rare species when prescribed fire was combined with mechanical treatments. Since our BMPs were generated in collaboration with land managers, they better conform to their needs and constraints, contributing to more effective native bee conservation.

The ecology of the canopy–aerosphere interface within forested ecosystems remains underexplored largely due to the challenges of physically accessing this zone. Sky bridges, towers and other permanent structures are most commonly used to sample the forest canopy–aerosphere interface, but these methods are costly, challenging to replicate, and often alter and degrade the local environment during construction. Thus, there is a clear need for cost‐effective and replicable methods for accessing and passively sampling above the forest canopy. We designed and deployed an inexpensive and lightweight telescopic hanger composed of common materials to sample aerial invertebrates above the forest canopy. Deployment involved climbing into tree crowns and securing our hanger design to vertical branches. We sampled the invertebrate community above forest fragments on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA by suspending blue vane traps from hangers, which were extended to approximately 1 m above the highest terminal bud of the tree, continuously from April through August 2021. We also recorded the microclimate conditions above the canopy at each hanger, including temperature and light intensity. All hangers and traps remained in place and active throughout the study period. In May, we made minor repairs at two locations where the hangers were attached to the trees and, following an intense weather event in July, observed damage to one hanger that did not affect sampling effort. We include cost breakdowns of design components as well as detailed building instructions. This tool offers a durable and inexpensive solution for researchers to access and sample the forest canopy–aerosphere interface that has minimal impacts on the environment and is more easily replicated compared to previous methods. Assembly pitfalls and design alterations are discussed based on our experience with the installation and implementation of the tested design, as well as included prototypes.

We document the first New England records of the bee Perdita bequaerti Viereck. Perdita bequaerti is a specialist on Asteraceae flowers, especially Helianthus, and is native to much of eastern North America, where it is often associated with predominantly sandy habitats. Previous records indicated P. bequaerti reached the northeastern extent of its range in the state of New York, but in August 2019, during a survey of bees on Helianthus, we collected five specimens of P. bequaerti at two sites in western Massachusetts. Both sites were located on small-scale farms with abundant non-native Helianthus, on soils characteristic of sandy outwash plains and silty floodplains. These records constitute an extension of P. bequaerti's known range into New England.