The potential extinction of the endangered rusty patched bumblebee could change everything we know about our environment.
The day has started. The task: select a flower and transport pollen. There’s lavender, honeysuckle, wallflower, ivy….it’s a simple job, right?
To some, a bumblebee may seem like a pesky insect. A nuisance. A bug to avoid.
But to Muncie beekeeper Dale Schiedler, who has been keeping bees since 1998, they have always been fascinating creatures.
“As a child we would get colonies from a beekeeping friend, and that’s how I got introduced to it,” Scheidler says. “It was just interesting, watching them fly in and out of the different flowers.”
These delicate bees are essential workers to the environment. They’re directors and a vital part to maintaining a balanced ecosystem.
These key players are slowly disappearing from the wild. More specifically, the rusty patched bumblebee has been endangered since 2017 and is desperately needed.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the rusty patched bumblebee was once dispensed all throughout different sections of the United States.
Their distribution ranged from east to south in the United States, running all the way from Maine to Georgia, and even brushing the west, reaching both North and South Dakota. It also made a home in the upper region of the Midwest.
The rusty patched bumblebee reached as far north as Canada, being found in southern Quebec and Ontario.
This specific bee, once thriving in 28 states and two Canadian provinces, can now only be found in 13 states, Indiana being one of them, and one Candian province.
Bumblebees work as pollinators, meaning they collect pollen and nectar from different flowers, then gift that pollen to different crops, making them crucial to our environment.
According to World Bee Day, an organization devoted to the importance of bumblebees, bees, along with other insects who pollinate, contribute to producing almost three quarters of the plants that make up 90% of the world’s food.
Scheidler says it is difficult to say what future food production could look like without bees. They are required for the success of different crops like apples, melons, and cantaloupes.
“[Those crops] require a certain number of bee hives per acre,” Scheidler says. “So, if you have a big field of melons, you’ll need at least one hive per acre or more for good pollination.”
Bumblebees are also the only insect to pollinate for tomato crops.
According to the Agricultural Marketing Research Center, the tomato crop is a sought-after crop, being the second-most consumed vegetable in the U.S and raking in a total of $1.67 billion in 2017.
They even contribute to products in the medical field and beyond, with services like the healing compound propolis, beeswax and honey bee venom attached to their pollination process.
Honey bee venom has been proposed to treat conditions like tendinitis and shingles, according to Winchester Hospital.
Though more research is needed to show how effective propolis is in modern medicine, certain reports show the healing compound being used to treat gastrointestinal disorder. It has also been used to combat gingivitis and acne, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Bumblebees have a unique way of distributing their pollen, and have even been found advantageous over honey bees when it comes to this process because of how they execute their pollination process. According to the Student Conservation Association, bumblebees can feed off a variety of flowers and are experts at cross-pollination, a skill crucial for pollinating fruit trees.
They can carry larger loads and work in cold weather and rain.
World Bee Day reports that when pollination is effective, the amount of agricultural produce expands. The crop’s makeup improves, and it’s ability to fight off pests magnifies.
The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service reports that there is an estimated $3 billion economic value from pollination services stemming mostly from bees in the United States.
That’s enough money to almost buy 32,000 models of the Tesla Model X Performance car.
Not only do bumblebees play a key role in keeping certain crops alive, but they also ensure food certainty within ecosystems.
Bumblebees help feed a wide variety of animals, from birds to bears. They produce fruits and seeds for these animals, while also contributing to native wildflower reproduction. Without bees, certain crops, plants, and animals would struggle to survive.
According to World Bee Day, the amount of bumblebees can reflect the state of the environment.
Despite their versatility, the rusty patched bumblebee is rapidly disappearing, with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service noting their existence declining by 87% since the late 1990s.
Human interaction, disease, and climate change are all potential contributing factors for their fast disappearance.
Some ways humans are contributing to bee extinction include grasslands being converted to developed areas and the use of pesticides in farming.
According to the World Wildlife’s 2020 Plowprint report, from 2014 to 2018, grasslands across the Great Plains were being prepared to be used for farming at an average rate of four football fields every minute.
Pesticides are especially concerning to the rusty patched bumblebee, as usage can cause harmful and poisonous effects. Damage ensues when the bee takes the toxins in from its exoskeleton or from contaminated nectar or pollen, essentially killing the bee.
The rusty patched bumblebee also nests in the ground, making it susceptible to pesticides used in lawns, soils, and turf.
Disease also appears to be a contributing factor. Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment reports that because bumble bees undergo extensive travel to pollinate different crops around the country, a parasite is spreading.
The parasite is called a varroa mite. They commonly attack honeybees, but with the long transportation some bees endure, this parasite is extending to different bees, specifically to the rusty patched bumblebee.
Scheidler, who currently keeps honeybees, notes varroa mites are one of the biggest drawbacks to honeybee survival.
“Their population can build up rapidly and you have to manage those,” Scheidler said. “The varroa mites will transmit a number of the viruses to honeybees and it’ll just eventually not allow them to survive.”
Climate change is another contributing factor to the impending extinction of the bee. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service says factors like extreme temperature changes, an increase in droughts, early snow melt, and late frost events may permit bees to get diseases, have fewer flowering plants, and endure a variety of other pollinating issues.
Since the rusty patched bumblebee was placed on the Endangered Species Act in 2017, several efforts have been made by organizations and people to help preserve the species.
The USDA Natural Resource Conservation service is currently partnering with landowners in states like Michigan, Montana, Minnesota, and several others to plant cover crops and grow wildflowers and native grasses to make their land more bee-friendly.
According to Scheidler, an easy step for anyone who wants to help preserve the rusty patched bumblebee is by planting bee-friendly flowers such as lavender, honeysuckle, ivy, and sweet violets in any area available.
