Nets, coolers and courage: A day in the life of a volunteer bee conservationist

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/ [login to see] /bumble-bees-animals-survey-conservation
"I never realized how fuzzy a bumble bee is until I got to hold one between my fingertips. It feels like a furry black and yellow bear, buzzing with its tiny body, wriggling with its legs.

The conservation biologist Leif Richardson, who handed me this bee a moment ago, has some advice for holding it. "You're going to squeeze harder than you think you need to, but not so hard that you hurt him."

And luckily the bee can't hurt me either, because this is a male bee, and males don't have stingers. But they do have a scent, Richardson explains.

"Your fingers are going to smell like a male bee when you're done. It's a little like geraniums, a little bit cheesy, sort of like cheddar cheese in a way."

We are out in the wilds of far western Malibu, in the home range of a native bee called Crotch's Bumble Bee, or Bombus crotchii. That bee is protected by state law, and it's one of the many species under survey for the California Bumble Bee Atlas".