Screenshot of the map within Beescape.

Beescape

Get a bee's eye view of your landscape

Beescape is a web-based tool developed by Penn State University to help beekeepers, gardeners, urban planners, growers, researchers, and land managers assess the quality of their landscapes for supporting bees and other pollinators. Bees can fly up to 3 miles (5 kilometers) from their nest to find food, and Beescape provides an easy way for you to explore the landscapes surrounding your location.

Watch our instructional video on Youtube:

How to Use Beescape

After launching Beescape, select your location by entering your address or by manually navigating to your location using the web interface.

Screenshot of the Beescape location interface

You can select an area of interest in two ways:

1. Use the point icon. You can then move the range on the sliding scale bar, and drop the point in the middle of your area. Beescape will then draw the range chosen around the center point. If you select 2 miles, Beescape will draw a circle with a radius of 2 miles around your point.

Screenshot of the Beescape interface with the point icon circled.

2. Use the polygon icon. Select the polygon icon and draw the area of interest on the map.

Screenshot of the Beescape interface with the polygon icon circled.

Habitat Quality Factors

Beescape will provide the landscape quality scores for wild bee nesting habitat availability, levels of insecticide exposure, and seasonal (spring, summer, fall) forage quality. If you hold your cursor over the individual quality score bar, you can see the exact score.

Screenshot of Beescape habitat quality scores for the selected radius.

These scores are compared to the average scores found in the north central United States, so you can determine if your landscape is low, medium, or high quality compared to the average for this region.

Economic Value of Pollinators

Beescape calculates the amount of economic value pollinators provide to agricultural crops in your selected area. Some crops, like fruits, depend heavily on insect pollinators. Other crops, such as corn, are wind-pollinated. In areas with more pollinator dependent crops, the economic value provided by pollinators will be higher.

Screenshot of the Economic Value information in Beescape. In this example, Pollinators in this area contribute $201,759 annually to crop value.

Land Use

Beescape will summarize the land use types in your selected area. If you hold your your cursor over the smaller land use types, the name of the land use category will be provided.

Screenshot of the Land Use data from Beescape indicating this area is 64% developed, 19% forest, 9% pasure/hay, 4% corn.

Climate

Beescape will also provide the monthly average temperature and total monthly precipitation for the current year, compared to the 10-year average for your selected area.

Screenshot of Beescape temperature and precipitation data.

iNaturalist Observations

If you see flower or butterfly icons in your area, these represent records in iNaturalist of flowering plants or pollinators (bees, butterflies, flies, etc) that have been observed in the last 31 days. Click these to learn what has been observed, and follow the link to iNaturalist to get more information. You can sign up for iNaturalist to add your own observations.

Screenshot of a plant observation icon and the kind of information it displays. This observation was of a flowering mountain laurel.

Base map

On the lower left corner of the map, there is a button you can use to change the background map features to show the roads or satellite view.

Screenshot of the Beescape icon that allows you to toggle the base map.