I agree that “citizen science” can generate useful data and contribute to scientific inquiry in meaningful ways. Surely the annual bird counts are a good example. The passionate folks who climb out of bed early morning at Christmas each year are really our only source of long term monitoring data on avian species distribution and local abundance. 

The possibility of using some kind of citizen science methodology has been relevant to some of our research priorities here in Newfoundland and Labrador as they relate to inventories of Bombus and other non-Apis pollinator species.  Very little research has been conducted in relation to these species.  We know little about their distribution, abundance, nesting ecology, endemic pathogen profiles, etc. All of this is relevant to beekeepers given the evidence of pathogen spillover between A. mellifera and a number of Bombus species (see Colla, et al., 2006; Fürst, et al., 2014; Graystock, et al., 2013a; Graystock, et al., 2013b; Graystock, et al., 2015; Manley, et al., 2015; and McMahon, et al., 2015). It is particularly relevant to us at the moment given the lobbying efforts of the provincial Cranberry Association to import quads of Bombus impatiens for cranberry pollination. These are used bees that have come off the blueberry fields in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, and they are not native to the province.
  
A big challenge is to figure out how to establish a useful non-Apis pollinator baseline and then monitor their abundance and health over the long-term.  Could “citizen science” help us with this challenge?  My conclusion is no. We lack sufficient numbers of people who are self-educated or highly interested in Bombus species or who are willing to follow a protocol to the letter and make accurate observations. Furthermore, as noted by Lebuhn, et al. (2012:117) “Although identifying bees to species provides important data on the distribution, relative abundance, and, over long periods, the changes in individual species, it is time-consuming and only a limited number of specialists currently have the ability to correctly identify species.”  It seems that a robust Bombus inventory and monitoring program here requires trained personnel and monetary resources (most likely government).  Citizen science can’t do this job.  By the way, for an interesting discussion of the challenges of monitoring pollinator populations, see the aforementioned paper by Lebuhn, et al. “Detecting Insect Pollinator Declines on Regional and Global Scales.” CONSERVATION BIOLOGY. 27(1):113-120.

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