The Great Sunflower Project

Dear Great Sunflower Gardeners,

We now have over 32,000 participants across the United States and Canada! What an amazing response. Thank you.

Collecting data! We have had our first data entered into the website so, the Great Sunflower Project is officially opened for buzz-ness.

We would like everyone try to sample on the first and third weekend of each month that they have flowers on their plants. That would mean that if you happened to have gotten seeds early and have flowers now, we would like to have you sample this upcoming weekend, June 7 or 8. We are happy to have data from other days if this weekend doesn't work because of weather or your schedule. You are also welcome to send us data from every week if you have the time. This is a project where the more data we get sent, the better the project.

You will want to sample on a warm, not too windy, sunny day. Many bees do not fly on cloudy days. Pick one sunflower plant and time the bees come to that plant (not just to one flower on that plant). You are welcome to stop timing after 30 minutes. Most of the people who have sent in early data, have not gotten five bees in the thirty minutes. I expect that will change as the summer progresses.

Let us know if you have any questions or if we can be helpful. You can enter data online or send the data sheet in to us. I'll also post a fax number on the website for faxing datasheets.

Public Gardens: If you have a garden that you are willing to allow the general public to use for participating in our project, please let us know at sfbee@sfsu.edu. We would then list your garden as a"public garden" and the address would be visible to anyone who accessed the website.

Supporting the Great Sunflower Project or how to spend your rebate! As a final note, we've had several people ask how they could make contributions to supporting the project. Wow, would that help. The money would help us finish getting the map up on the website, mail out the final seed packets and most importantly, create ways to make what we are discovering easily available to you. The university has set up a link for us that you can find at http://www.greatsunflower.org/en/Support-us.

Thanks!

Gretchen