Metadata for the data used in "Jackson et al. (2022) Climate change winners and losers among North American bumble bees. Biology Letters". This dataset comprises 649,407 specimen records from 48 species and spans 1805-2020. These records have been compiled from a variety of collections and sources with reputable origin. The data is a csv file with 49 variables: BBNA.code, data.restrictions, data.source, genus, species, sex, caste, observers, obs.notes, det.accuracy, det.as, det.by, det.notes.1, det.notes.2, month, day, year, date, dayno, continent, country, state.prov, county, location, site, latitude, longitude, elev.m.ETOPO1, geo.notes.1, geo.notes.2, code.1, code.2, code.3, code.4, code.5, notes.1, notes.2, notes.3, notes.4, notes.5, plant.host.common, plant.host.family, plant.host.genus, plant.host.species, plant.host.verbatim, publication, citation, geo.accuracy.m, Institution "BBNA.code" is a unique identifying number for each record (Character) "data.restrictions" determines if any data has restrictions (Character) "data.source" provides the original source of the data compiled (Character) "genus" is the genera for the species observed, for all species is "Bombus" (Character) "species" is the species name (Character) "sex" is the sex of the individual when known (Character) "caste" is the caste of the individual when known (Character) "observers" is the name of the observers (Character) "obs.notes" are notes taken by the observers (Character) "det.accuracy" "det.as" is the species name that individuals are determined to be (Character) "det.by" is the name of the determiner (Character) "det.notes.1"" and "det.notes.2" are the notes taken by the determiner (Character) "month", "day", and "year" are the day, month, and year when the individual was collected (Numeric) "date" date when the individual was collected (Date) "dayno" is the day of the year (julian date) for the colleciton event (Numeric) "continent", "country", "state.prov", "county", "location", and "site" refer to the collection site from the broadest spatial scale to the narrowest spatial scale (Character) "latitude", and "longitude" refer to the decimal latitude and longitude of the collection event (Numeric) "elev.m.ETOPO1" elevation in meters of the location of the collection event (Numeric) "geo.notes.1", and "geo.notes.2" are notes on the location of the collection event (Character) "code.1", "code.2", "code.3", "code.4", "code.5" are the original identifying codes (Character) "notes.1", "notes.2", "notes.3", "notes.4", "notes.5", are original field notes (Character) "plant.host.common", "plant.host.family", "plant.host.genus", "plant.host.species", "plant.host.verbatim" are name names (including common, family, genus and sepcies) of plant hosts if known (Character) "publication" Publication name associated with the occurrences (Character) "citation" Citation for the individual occurrences (Character) "geo.accuracy.m" Geographic accuracy in meters (Numeric) "Institution" Base institution of the records (Character)