(ABC 6 News) – The number of honeybee colonies is rising in Iowa, due to growing interest from farmers and gardeners, but that doesn’t mean all bees are doing better.

Some of the state’s native bee populations are dwindling, four of them considered to be endangered.

Now, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is partnering with Iowa State University and a conservation society, asking Iowans to contribute to the bumblebee atlas, a tool that tracks what bees reside in a particular area.

“The idea is to get even distributions of people looking in these grid cells so that we can say for the state ‘Hey, where and what bumblebees do we have?’ and ‘How does that compare to historical data and data from the surrounding states,” said Matt O’Neal, an Iowa State entomology professor.

The DNR hopes the data can be used to better inform conservation practices in the future, so native bees can see the same success as honeybees.