How To Submit Your Data

Watch a short clip from a past workshop, or read the step-by-step instructions below.

All bumble bee and habitat data will be submitted to the community science website Bumble Bee Watch. 

1. Keep track of the time you spend on this part, you will enter this as volunteer hours into Bumble Bee Watch.

2. Curate your photos. Decide which photos you are going to upload for each bee entered on your data sheet. Make sure they are clear and the lighting is good. You can submit up to 5 photos per bee, so choose the clearest, best lit photos if you took more than that. If you are unsure of the plant you caught the bee on and have a photo of that plant, upload that plant as one of your 5 photos.

3. Login to Bumble Bee Watch.

4. Choose Record a Sighting, then click Bumble Bee Sighting (see images below for step-by-step guidelines)

5. ​Under Project select the appropriate Atlas. Selecting this your project will generate a section to enter habitat assessment data.

6. Enter your location information.

• RED - Above the map, search for the city nearest your survey area and then navigate directly on the map to find the precise area. Once you click on your survey area on the map, the latitude and longitude fields will automatically populate. 
• YELLOW - Enter in a Site Name of your choosing.
• BLUE - Enter the accuracy; meaning how close to your actual survey location is the selected map point?

7. Enter details from the top of your bumble bee data sheet

• RED - Survey Type, Collection Method, Size of Area
• YELLOW - Number of surveyors and time spent surveying
• BLUE - Weather information

8. Enter Habitat Assessment Information

• RED - Habitat type of survey area
• YELLOW - Top 3 habitat types of surrounding area (only 1 is required; third option will appear if you fill out the first two)
• BLUE - Percent of flowering resources in area and nearby habitat features
• Scroll down. For each of the eight management types, use the dropdown menu to select Yes, No, or Suspect.

9. Enter Plant Species in Bloom

• RED - Select how many different plant species you observed in your survey area
• The appropriate number of boxes will appear for you to enter in a common and/or a scientific name for each plant.

10. Enter Volunteer Information 

• RED - If this was a volunteer effort, select Yes and further boxes will appear for you to fill out. If you conducted multiple surveys on the same day, please only enter this information on one of your submissions.
• Hit Next in the bottom right.

11. Start Entering Bumble Bee Information 

• RED - You should see a green box appear in the upper right stating your checklist has been saved. If you are not taken to the next screen, scroll back up and look for any red text, chances are you forgot to complete a required question.
• YELLOW - Select the photos that match your first bumble bee observation. You can upload up to 5 images per bee.

12. Confirm Photo Upload

• RED - You should see a green box appear in the upper right stating your photos have been uploaded.
• Enter the floral host while photos are uploading

13. Identify Your Bee

• RED - if you don't know the species of bee in your images, click on the Identification Tool.
• As you select features that match your images, the identification tool will narrow down the list of species you may have.
• When you click on a species, the tool will close and you will be brought back automatically to the submission page.
• If you are not confident in your identification after using the tool, you can leave the species dropdown box as Sp. / Bumble Bee, experts will verify everything.
• Click Save! 

14. Click Save and Enter Information For Your Next Bee

• RED - Click Add Another in the bottom left after you have filled out the species for your first bee.
• Continue this process until you have entered all of your bee observations associated with this habitat assessment.

15. Finish  

• RED - When completely finished, hit Save at the bottom. A green box will appear in the top left saying your checklist has been saved.
• YELLOW - A timestamp will display showing your most recent save. If the time is correct, you may close the window.

Your data have been submitted, thank you!

Other Ways to Submit Data

We greatly prefer that you try to submit your data online. Similar research projects have found that this ultimately increases accuracy and improves the quality of the information collected. We also understand that sometimes this is not possible, or there is something about your data that is unique and may not fit into the web-based forms that we've established. If you have questions about alternative forms of data entry, contact bumblebees@xerces.org.