How do roadside environments impact Alberta’s bee population? A U of A student is working to find out

CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson talks to an Edmonton university student who is spending her summer examining how highway corridors affect bee populations.

A student at the University of Alberta is spending her summer trekking through ditches.

As part of a research project, she set up 22 traps along various highways outside of Edmonton.

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“There are a few criteria we had for our sites. One was that they had to be highways that were single lane, ranging between 4,000 and 7,000 vehicles per day as well as next to cropland, both across the highway as well as adjacent to the highway,” said U of A masters student Shea Giesbrecht.

She’s studying the ecological role of roadside environments on Alberta’s native bee population.

“We’re looking at how flowers and shelter belts, which are strips of trees next to crop land, possibly impact either negatively or positively native bees,” she said.

Each site has two tent-like traps so that insects can be caught from all directions.

“So we can see where the insects are flying to and from. So we can see if they’re coming across the highway, going to the highway or traveling along the highway,” said Giesbrecht. “At all of our sites we have noticed a trend of insects following along the highway rather than crossing or coming from them,” she added.

Giesbrecht also pays close attention to what is growing in the ditches.

“We will do a floral survey. So we count how many flowers and see what species are here,” she said.

Her goal is to provide insight on how to better manage roadside environments to support the bee population.

“So for growers or landowners we can either tell them to continue supporting or plant shelter belts or maybe discourage them from planting further shelter belts if they end up being negative,” said Giesbrecht.

“Native bees are incredibly important for growers. They actually contribute $2.8 billion to Canadian farmers annually,” she added.

The study will also provide valuable information to the people who manage roadsides.

“We can hopefully tell them flowers are actually really good for roadsides, maybe consider mowing at a different time. It has recently been mowed during peak flower season so maybe changing that and consider possibly also planting native flowers as well in ditches,” she said.

Giesbrecht will continue collecting data until the end of August and expects to have a detailed analysis complete by next year.