The two projects were undertaken by the USDA-ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory, USA and the Reference Centre for Environment Information (CRIA), Brazil, respectively.

The US National Pollinating Insects Collection is one of the largest collections of bees in the world, with an estimated one million specimens. The USDA-ARS Bee Laboratory team led by Dr. Terry Griswold now serves 308,074 bee records representing 3561 species though GBIF. These include representatives of all families and subfamilies and almost all tribes of bees. The records also represent 13,855 unique localities covering 92 countries. The United States, especially the western states, and Costa Rica are particularly well covered, with all bee specimens in the U S National Pollinating Insects Collection now digitised. To access the records: http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/1904/

Another team led by Dr. Dora Canhos of the Reference Center for Environnmental Information (CRIA) in Brazil has completed digitisation of bee specimens housed in the entomology collections of eight Brazilian museums, namely the Entomological collection of the Botanical Laboratory, the Bee Collection of the Museum for science and technology of PUCRS, the Bee Collection of the department of Biology – FFCLRP/USP, the Entomological collection of the department of Systematics and Ecology, the Pe. Jesus Santiago Moure Entomological collection (Hymenoptera), the Paulo Nogueira-Neto Entomological collection – IB/USP, the Moure and Costa Entomological collection and the Laboraty of Ecology and Biogeography of insects from Caatinga. The project has resulted in the mobilization of 190,785 records, including 4500 type specimens. Over 95% of the records are from the Brazilian states of Sao Paulo, Amazon, Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul and Paraiba. The cost per digitised record varied between 0.42 to 1.70 reais (Euro 0.17 to 0.71) per record. To access the records: http://data.gbif.org/datasets/provider/242