How Many Bumble Bees Have You Seen This Year?

Mar 10, 2015

Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Quick! How many bumble bees have you seen so far this year?

For me, it's zero, zilch, nada.

They're out there, though. Talent insect photographer Allan Jones of Davis, shared some of his images that he captured this year.

Bumble bees, however, are declining throughout the world, and it would be "a frightening thought" if bumble bees were to go from declining to extinct, said native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis.

He and fellow bumble bee authority Sheila Colla of Eastern Canada are the co-coordinators of the North American (United States and Canada) Bumble Bee Species Conservation Workgroup for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Thorp and Colla are featured in a newly released Radio-Canada video on declining bumble bees.

The six-minute version was broadcast last weekend. You'll hear the news reporter speaking French and Thorp and Colla speaking English as they talk about the declining bee population:

F___8796 Abeille Dernier Bloc_V2.5.XDCAM.mp4

Bee breeder-geneticist Michael "Kim" Fondrk of UC Davis, now retired, is featured in a segment on honey bee instrumental insemination:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByTaUv9eMDXLR0RQRWVXUnFWU2M/edit

A one-hour show, also broadcast last weekend, and more about honey bees, is at

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/la-semaine-verte/2014-2015/

Thorp and Colla are two of the four co-authors of the newly published book, Bumble Bees of North America: an Identification Guide (Princeton University Press). They and lead author Paul Williams and co-author Leif Richardson guide you, the reader, in observing and identifying bumble bees and attracting them to your garden.

"There are nearly 20,000 species of bees worldwide, of which just 250 belong to the genus Bombus, or bumble bees," they write.

Let's hope that 50 to 100 to 200 years from now we don't hear "There are nearly 20,000 species of bees worldwide, but none in the genus Bombus. They are all extinct."

By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Author - Communications specialist

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Attached Images:

The yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, on rock purslane. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A black-faced bumble bee, Bombus fervidus (formerly Bombus californicus) on a coneflower. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

This is the Western bumble bee, Bombus occidentalis, which is declining rapidly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, with a load of red pollen. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)