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To understand why we need the little bumblebee, we need to understand how it helps us and why it is in danger. If the bee faces extinction, then the planet risks losing a great variety of foodstuffs.

We enjoy the beautiful flowers in our gardens but most of them need to be pollinated to survive. Without pollination, the plants would not be able to reproduce.

The recent decline in the number of pollinators is a sad fact in itself.

But did you know that bees actually pollinate about a sixth of the world’s crops, or around 400 of the agricultural plants we harvest?

According to the the US Fish and Wildlife Service that these insects contributed to the production of around nineteen billion dollars worth of foodstuffs in 2010 in the US alone.

This figure illuminates the true scale of this problem:

It amounts to about a third of all the food we eat.

Saying that there is a problem here is an understatement. But there are things that you can do to help. Read more…

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Throughout most of human history, Nature was a place that was by turns helpful, scary, dangerous, and unknown.  We know a lot more about it now, but not enough, apparently, to remember that it is what sustains us, and that protecting its value is in our economic interest, not to mention just simply sensible. 

The Administration has recently suspended a rule that would make a species of bee, the rusty-patched bumblebee, an endangered species, and that would mean that we are legally obliged to protect its habitat. I’m going to create a trans-species metaphor and mention that this bee is a miner’s canary. 

Bees are pollinators. Pollinators do jobs that most humans can’t, or when they can it’s laborious to the point where our population would not be supportable if we had to replace the humble services of animals that move pollen from plant to plant, allowing them to grow and reproduce. 

Insect pollinators—not counting birds, or any other kind of animal pollinator—contribute $29 billion to U.S. farm income.  That’s just the U.S., and that’s just insects.  The Nature Conservancy (TNC) reports that one-third of the world’s agricultural output depends on animal pollinators.  Moreover, TNC says, “Native bees are twice as effective as managed honey bees at pollination.” 

Hey, but this is just one small species, and it’s already endangered.  Can’t we afford to do without this one?  That’s dangerous thinking.  We don’t know enough about the functioning of natural ecosystems to understand the exact tipping point that renders a previously healthy system a failing and frail one.  But we do know that pollinators are disappearing, or threatened, all around the world. 

What’s happening to the rusty-patched bumblebee is not an isolated instance of “oh, too bad.”  It’s a symbol of a much wider problem.  Many native bee species are “sliding toward extinction,” according to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity.  That decline is alarming at many not-intuitively obvious levels.  Loss of pollinator services could exacerbate malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, and substantially lift the incidence of preventable diseases globally. 

[pullquote]The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the bits.  Delisting endangered species without solid analytical reasons to do so, and for that matter dismantling the protections of the Endangered Species Act, qualifies as unintelligent tinkering.[/pullquote]

One of my friends once decided, in the vortex of a curiosity whirlwind, to take his family’s air conditioner apart to see how it worked.  He had every intention of putting it back together.  He was, however, 12 years old, and being a normal 12 year old didn’t pause to label and catalogue every piece that got loose.  He also lived in Phoenix.  It was also July.  It turned into the start of the worst week of his life. 

The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the bits.  Delisting endangered species without solid analytical reasons to do so, and for that matter dismantling the protections of the Endangered Species Act, qualifies as unintelligent tinkering.  It’s fun, maybe, for some to caricature people as bunny-huggers for wanting to protect Furbish louseworts and snail darters, but when we think of these things as integral parts of a finely tuned machine, it changes the calculus.  These pieces have a great deal of value as parts of a working machine.  And occasionally, we find that they also have other economic value as themselves:  the compound Taxol, which has been used to treat advanced ovarian cancer, came originally from the bark of the Pacific yew, a threatened species; the drug can also be made with yew species from the Himalayas, but it too is considered endangered.

There are many other examples of specific contributions to economic value that were developed in nature’s R&D lab.  And it’s also worth mentioning that every one of them is part of an ecosystem that depends on many other organisms and natural systems—like clean water, soil, and air—to thrive.  The planet’s health and our economic well-being aren’t two separate things, and they’re certainly not antagonists.  If we think of them that way, and view environmental protection solely as a crimp on short-term pursuit of profit, we’re taking apart the air conditioner on a hot day in Phoenix. 

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It seems like every time I open my email or turn on the radio, I find the message: Save the honey bee – it’s an important pollinator and it’s in trouble. As someone who has spent a number of years working on the conservation of some of the not-so-charismatic (albeit extremely important) minifauna, I can’t help but feel a mix of emotion – while I am glad that the mainstream conservation community is recognizing the importance of bees and the perils of compounds like neonicotinoid pesticides, these efforts seem misguided.

I used to keep honey bees—and even wrangle swarms—and I have to admit that they make really charming pets. And, although there is little evidence that neonicotinoid pesticides are solely responsible for the recent losses that beekeepers have reported, the European Union has successfully used the honey bee (Apis mellifera) as a poster child to restrict the use of these extremely toxic and persistent chemicals. This is a welcome policy change that has not yet occurred in the US. That said, the honey bee was introduced from Europe into North America in the 1600s, and has since been wildly successful, in a manner similar to domesticated poultry, sheep, and cattle.  Although the honey bee industry has been facing significant challenges in recent decades, rarely do problems with other non-native farm animals garner the attention of conservationists working to protect wild places and the animals and plants that need them. Furthermore, managed and feral honey bees remain extraordinarily abundant and are not in any danger of extinction. While honey bees undoubtedly play a role in pollinating crops and wildflowers, they also compete with the thousands of species of native bees that we have in North America, and some recent research has even shown that honey bees transfer viruses and other pathogens to native bees.

Although most of our native bee fauna has not been studied well enough to know which species are endangered and which are stable, we do know that a number of formerly common bumble bees are highly imperiled – three species may already be extinct and a number of additional bumble bees are on the verge of extinction. Exotic diseases from commercial bumble bees are likely playing a role in the decline of at least some species, such as the rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis), a species native to the Upper Midwest and East Coast that has disappeared from 87% of its historic range in the recent past. Habitat loss, pesticides, climate change, and reduced genetic diversity are also likely playing a role in the decline of many of our native bumble bees.

If, as conservationists, we care about preserving the critical ecosystem service of pollination, which is integral to the base of the food chain, then let’s focus on the conservation of our diverse native bee fauna that has evolved within North American ecosystems. If our goal is to protect endangered bees, then let’s lend some support to defending the many bumble bees that are highly imperiled and desperately need champions, and encourage research efforts to determine the conservation status of many of our other native bee species. If, on the other hand, our goal is to use bees as a tool to get much-needed pesticide reform, then let’s remember that there is ample evidence that neonicotinoids are also really harmful to bumble bees, and that many native bee species may be much more sensitive to the effects of these pesticides than honey bees because of their different life spans, biology, and ecology. We should be asking the EPA not only to restrict the use of neonicotinoids, but also to revise their entire pesticide approval process by creating one that actually considers native bees – in addition to honey bees.

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Paul Shannon is a sportsman and beekeeper from Florida

“I have a problem with the farmers using pesticides in their groves, orchards, fields, etc. Many over-fertilize, then rainstorms come and wash the chemicals into our water systems. Unfortunately, here in SW Florida, this means the pesticides roll off into our rivers, which feed into our gulfs and bays. This causes the disastrous red tide, which kills fish and other aquatic species and negatively affects our health, fishing and tourism. I am also a beekeeper. From an organic perspective, we now have seed manufacturing, which are great for farmers because they kill weeds. However, these seeds contribute in the shortage in the bee population because bees feed off the engineered crops, ingest round up, and die. Mosquito control also heavily impact the decline of the bee population. Bees account for 80% of pollination. We need more stringent regulation to address these problems.”

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Ernest is a beekeeper and biointensive heirloom gardener from Maryland and has been educating people about the hazards of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides for over twenty-five year to little avail.

“Part of the problem I feel is humankind does not view itself as a part of nature, and that defines our ecological consciousness.”

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