Tracking large bees in open landscapes with active radio tags – advantages and challenges using stationary receivers.

1. Recent technological advancements have enabled to study animal movement of large insects, such as carpenter bees. Remote tracking devices reveal movement patterns by applying miniaturised very-high-frequency (VHF) tags on large insects, such as wild bees. VHF tags enable to study population dynamics and migration patterns and spatial distribution in ecologically relevant species supporting effective conservation strategies.2. We applied VHF transmitters on two European carpenter bee species, Xylocopa valga and Xylocopa violacea,with the aim to establish a remote tracking approach for large bees. We studied the effect of the tags on the species flight behavior and their movement patterns within an open grassland landscape in Central Europe.3. Here, we provide a detailed description of the transmitter application on the dorsal body of the bees. We give a step-by-step guide from purchasing the material to constructing stationary receivers. We discuss potential pitfalls of stationary receivers and how to overcome them in the field. Further, we provide a data set and a script to process the information collected by the receivers with open-source programs.4. Our results indicate the importance of preliminary tests on the flight behaviour of the tagged bees as even miniaturized tags significantly affected the flight duration and time.