Impact of Color and Size of Bowl Trap on Numbers of

Bees Captured
Sam Droege

Introduction

Through observations and field trials, creative bee researchers have discovered that plastic
salad bowls were fast, cheap and effective trapping systems for bees. In 200, the author ran
a number of trials comparing numbers of bees captured across a wide variety of both
ultraviolet (UV) and non-UV colors. The results indicated that yellow, blue, and white bowls
were indeed effective at capturing bees and that their UV counterparts could perhaps be even
more effective. In contrast bowls colored red, gray, clear, black, and green caught essentially
no bees. Those results will be written up elsewhere.

In this report I focus more intensely on 8 bowl colors: white, light blue, yellow, and blue and
their UV counterparts. Additionally I look at the effect of the size of the bowl to see if smaller
more efficient sizes could be used to replace the large 12 oz. bowls traditionally used.

I would like to thank the Coevolution Institute for their financial support and the aid of Harold
Ikerd, Betsy Jackson (who performed many of the size of bowl trials), Joann Alexander, Alex
Alfaro, Steve O’Brien, and Laura Hilden for their help in running trials, pinning, labeling, and
identifying bees and being of great help for little or no compensation. Frank Parker needs to
be mentioned here as the Godfather of the bee bowl and his encouragement directly led to
these studies. Thank you also to the Logan Bee Lab for their general encouragement,
inspiration, and willingness to answer many questions.

Methods

Bees were captured using bowls or cups filled with soapy water. Approximately 1-2
teaspoons of Dawn dishwashing liquid were added to a gallon jug of water and that mix
distributed to bowls in the field. Bowls were placed in transects on the ground 5m apart within
a uniform habitat. In the early spring habitats included forested ones, after the spring
wildflowers and blooming trees finished bowls were placed only in brushy or open areas.
Bowls were left out in the field for either 24 hours or set out prior to 9:30a.m. and picked up
after 3:00p.m. Each treatment in all trials was composed of 5 bowls or cups. Treatments
were alternated regularly within the transect. The bulk of the data were collected in Maryland
in between Baltimore and Washington, however, some trials were run in Texas, Colorado,
Maine, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The raw data can be seen in the
associated files: (Bowl Test Date Tables.xls). Data were collected from April until
September 2002.

Color Bowl Preference Study

12 oz. plastic Solo brand salad bowls were used. Solo colors for yellow, white, blue, and light
blue were chosen. As yet, spectral characteristics of these bowls have not been measured.
These colors matched generally match their descriptions with the exception of blue which
most people would describe as a dark blue. Matching ultraviolet (UV) colors for these colors
were created by spraying white Solo bowls with paint supplied by Nocturn Ultraviolet Visual
Effects (A unit of Xenotech-Strong International, North Hollywood, CA 91605). Thirty-seven
trials were run.

Size of Bowl Preference Study

The following plastic solo bowls and soufflé cups were used: 12 and 6 oz. bowls and 4, 3.25,
2, 1, 0.7 oz. soufflé cups. All were painted with yellow UV paint. Twenty-two trials were run.

Statistical Analyses

All analyses were performed using the Minitab statistical package.

Results

Color Bowls

A one-way ANOVA was used to investigate if the mean number of captures differed among
colors. As the tables below demonstrate, that indeed was found to be the case.

Analysis of Variance for Number of Bees

Source DF SS MS F P
color 7 1846 264 2.32 0.026
Error 281 31979 114
Total 288 33825
Individual 95% CIs For Mean
Based on Pooled StDev
Level N Mean StDev -------+---------+---------+---------
blue 37 6.33 7.97 (--------*-------)
blue UV 35 12.51 18.06 (--------*--------)
pale b 36 8.48 7.31 (--------*--------)
pale bUV 36 10.95 10.61 (-------*--------)
white 37 8.06 8.45 (-------*--------)
white UV 36 7.69 8.00 (--------*--------)
yellow 35 5.03 6.09 (--------*-------)
yellow UV 37 12.13 13.66 (-------*--------)
-------+---------+---------+---------
Pooled StDev = 10.67 4.0 8.0 12.0

Tukey's pairwise comparisons were performed to investigate which of these pairs of

colors differed significantly. Note that the UV colors (other than white UV, which,
interestingly, caught fewer bees than its non-UV counterpart) caught significantly
more bees than many of the non-UV colors. Also, in a bit of statistical irony, the
non-UV yellow had the lowest mean despite it being the bowl of choice in the old
days.

Family error rate = 0.0500

Individual error rate = 0.00264
Critical value = 4.29

Intervals for (column level mean) – (row level mean)

Significant Pairwise Differences are in Bold

blue blue UV pale blu pale bUV white white UV

blue UV -13.81
1.45

pale blu -9.73 -3.66

5.42 11.71

pale bUV -12.19 -6.12 -10.09

2.96 9.24 5.16

white -9.25 -3.18 -7.15 -4.68

5.80 12.08 8.00 10.47

white UV -8.94 -2.87 -6.84 -4.37 -7.21

6.21 12.50 8.42 10.88 7.94

yellow -6.33 -0.26 -4.23 -1.76 -4.60 -5.02

8.93 15.21 11.14 13.60 10.66 10.34

yellow U -13.32 -7.25 -11.22 -8.75 -11.59 -12.01

1.73 8.01 3.93 6.40 3.45 3.14

yellow

yellow U -14.73
0.53

The figure below graphs the mean counts of bees captured in 5, 12 ounce plastic
bowls of the following colors: blue, UV blue, light blue, UV light blue, white, UV
white, yellow, UV yellow that were filled with soapy water for a day. There is
nothing new in this graph, really, but I think a bit clearer demonstration of the
differences and much easier to use in power point talks.
Because there were 20 trials from Maryland, and those were taken throughout the time of year
that bees were flying, a two-way ANOVA was used to investigate both the effect of color and
of date. Color slipped to a non-significance level in this test while date was found to be highly
significant. An inspection of the means for the different colors again shows high values for
Blue UV and Pale Blue UV but not for yellow UV.

Analysis of Variance for numbers of bees captured

Source DF SS MS F P
datemd 17 8116.7 477.5 6.95 0.000
colormd 7 792.9 113.3 1.65 0.128
Error 119 8171.2 68.7
Total 143 17080.8

Individual 95% CI
datemd Mean -----+---------+---------+---------+------
04/02/20 5.9 (-----*-----)
04/04/20 18.6 (-----*----)
04/11/20 12.4 (----*-----)
04/12/20 1.9 (-----*-----)
04/18/20 8.1 (-----*-----)
05/24/20 2.2 (-----*-----)
05/25/20 2.1 (-----*-----)
05/26/20 1.4 (----*-----)
05/27/20 4.4 (----*-----)
06/10/20 3.0 (-----*-----)
07/06/20 15.6 (-----*----)
07/15/20 30.4 (----*-----)
07/16/20 15.1 (-----*-----)
07/29/20 5.2 (-----*-----)
07/31/20 5.9 (-----*-----)
08/01/20 8.2 (-----*-----)
08/09/20 2.7 (-----*----)
08/10/20 15.2 (-----*-----)
-----+---------+---------+---------+------
0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0

Individual 95% CI
colormd Mean -------+---------+---------+---------+----
blue 6.0 (---------*---------)
blue UV 12.0 (---------*---------)
pale b 9.4 (--------*---------)
pale bUV 12.2 (---------*--------)
white 8.7 (---------*--------)
white UV 8.8 (---------*---------)
yellow 5.1 (---------*--------)
yellow UV 8.3 (---------*--------)
-------+---------+---------+---------+----
4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0

Size of Bowl

The effect of size of bowl or cup was tested using a one-way ANOVA. The results are
below with the surprising result that no difference was found among the sizes. In
fact, the two smallest soufflé cups (about the size of spit cups) had the highest
means. If these results were standardized by the amount of water held in each cup
the differences would be quite dramatic.

Analysis of Variance for bees

Source DF SS MS F P
size 6 192 32 0.20 0.977
Error 147 23602 161
Total 153 23794
Individual 95% CIs For Mean
Based on Pooled StDev
Level N Mean StDev -----+---------+---------+---------+-
0.75 22 8.97 13.36 (------------*-------------)
1.00 22 10.97 18.94 (------------*-------------)
2.00 22 7.46 10.26 (-------------*------------)
3.25 22 7.68 12.45 (------------*-------------)
4.00 22 8.23 9.98 (-------------*------------)
6.00 22 7.77 8.29 (------------*-------------)
12.00 22 8.77 12.58 (------------*------------)
-----+---------+---------+---------+-
Pooled StDev = 12.67 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0

Again, a nice graph of the differences in means. Note the greatly truncated scale on the y-axis.
As with the colored bowls, a 2-way ANOVA was performed on Maryland data alone looking at
both size of bowls and date. Again, no significant difference among the sizes of bowls was
detected, however, date was significant.

Analysis of Variance for bees

Source DF SS MS F P
date 21 18105.4 862.2 19.76 0.000
size 6 192.0 32.0 0.73 0.623
Error 126 5497.0 43.6
Total 153 23794.5

Individual 95% CI
date Mean ---+---------+---------+---------+--------
03/28/20 5.4 (---*--)
03/29/20 6.7 (--*---)
04/2/200 6.5 (--*---)
04/3/200 28.6 (--*--)
04/30/20 43.9 (--*---)
05/8/200 7.6 (--*--)
05/9/200 1.0 (---*--)
05/24/20 7.7 (--*--)
07/3/200 30.7 (--*---)
07/11/20 9.4 (--*---)
08/11/20 5.7 (--*--)
08/13/20 6.7 (--*---)
08/15/20 4.4 (--*--)
08/17/20 1.6 (--*--)
08/23/20 0.9 (---*--)
08/25/20 5.7 (--*--)
09/5/200 3.2 (--*--)
09/12/20 0.7 (--*---)
09/17/20 1.6 (--*--)
09/24/20 1.3 (--*--)
10/2/200 3.7 (--*---)
05/10/20 5.1 (--*---)
---+---------+---------+---------+--------
0.0 15.0 30.0 45.0

Individual 95% CI
size Mean --+---------+---------+---------+---------
0.75 9.0 (----------*----------)
1.00 11.0 (----------*----------)
2.00 7.5 (----------*----------)
3.25 7.7 (----------*----------)
4.00 8.2 (----------*----------)
6.00 7.8 (----------*----------)
12.00 8.8 (----------*----------)
--+---------+---------+---------+---------
5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5

Discussion

The results presented here tantalize, but do not fulfill. There are clear indications that UV-
colors significantly increase the catch of bees in bowl/cup traps. Additionally, as is true in so
many places, it is also clear that bigger is not necessarily better, at least in terms of number of
bees captured. In fact, if follow-up tests uphold these results, small bowls have the
advantages of using less water, being easy to carry and deploy with one hand, costing less,
taking up less volume in packs and luggage, being less conspicuous and tempting to curious
citizens, and using less paint.

However, both these results are incomplete in that we do not know the species composition of
the catch. It possibly could be the case that one of the colors with low bee numbers was
proficient in the capture of species not found in other colors. Species identifications are still
being determined and will be presented elsewhere.