Can you Smell the Buzz !

If you ask a kid to draw a bumble bee, chances are they will draw it sitting on purple, pink or yellow flower. Turns out those kids have the right idea and we should all be thinking about our native bumble bees in respect to their food sources, availability, diversity, abundance and safety.

The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis) has become the poster child for the other pollinators to be saved, right behind those charismatic Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus.) The B. affinis was the first bee that received the dubious status of being listed as federally endangered, with, well some of the protections that comes with that title. The recovery plan is very sketchy in protecting specific habitat for these bees as up until this year with the publishing of the studying of 3 new nest sites in the upper Midwest, we have almost doubled to 7 the verified nests observed of this species (Boone et. al. 2022.) Due to the lack of “home habitat” to be able to describe, the protections have actually been lacking in specific habitats, only saying that they should be preserved but stops short of saying what they are and to absolutely protect them (USFWS 2019.)

The difficulty in understanding the behaviors of an enigma such as this short tongued little fuzzball, is has not been easy for researchers. I count myself as one of the lucky ones to have held a federal permit to research these creatures, and found myself lucky enough to find, 2 in my research location. I spent an entire season handling thousands of bees, wading through prairies taller than me, swimming through grasses and flowers that were so thick they would hold you up, and yet after all that time, I found only 2. Since then, I am lucky enough to say I have found B. affinis in 9 locations, 8 unique sightings, and 6 were breeding colonies with large numbers present. I have gotten very good at finding these tiny bees, knowing what food source they will be on is the key! Knowing the habitat, they feed in, the habitat that needs to surround it plus the weather conditions to have optimal viewing (Hughes 2018.)

Historically these bees were found throughout the Midwest, into Canada, and parts of Eastern U.S., with only an estimated 23% range left today. B. affinis queens emerge at different times depending on latitudinal locations, but in the spring they are feeding on ephemeral flowers in the forests and edges. By the early summer they have set up nest sites near patches of flowers that have a great temporal range, blooming through the summer and fall to continuously feed the workers, males and bring food sources back to the nest. The use of pesticides, herbicides, habitat loss, introduced pathogens and climate change, are the biggest threats to these little pollinators (Boone et. al. 2022, Hughes 2018, Simanonok et. al. 2021, USFWS 2019.)

These medium fur bees will feed on a variety of food sources, but it’s not a large choice. Even if there is a high abundance and diversity of floral food source blooming at any given time, they will still be selective on their choices. In Illinois you should look for Monarda spp. (bee balms), Asteraceae spp. (joe pye weeds & asters), Physostegia spp. (obedient plants) or Solidago spp. (goldenrods) if you want your best chance to find one. Historically Asteraceae (joe pye weeds & asters) and Solidago (golden rods) have always been apart of their staple diet across all the regions. Some of the other choices are Melilotus spp. (sweet clover), Sonchus spp. (sow thistle), Grindelia spp. (gumweeds), Artemisia spp. (mugworts) and Securigera spp. (crown vetches), and I do agree I have seen these are still important for the remnant populations (Simanonok et. al. 2021, Walsh 2021.)

With more prairies being turned over, turned into airports, parking lots, buildings, or agricultural fields, we are losing the food sources that these bees rely on. These bees have started to show they are adaptable to human life, they can thrive in urban areas. We just need to welcome them to the table with the proper place settings, lots of bee balm, joe pye weed and goldenrods and then we can have the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee as our urban neighbors.

Boone, M.L., Evans, E., Wolf, A., Minser, H., Watson, J. & Smith, T.A. (2022) Notes from rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis Cresson) nest

observations. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 1–5.

Hughes, A. (2018). Survey of the critically endangered Rusty Patched Bumble bee (Bombus affinis) at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, (USDA-FS) Ill.

Simanonok, M. P., Otto, C. R., Cornman, R. S., Iwanowicz, D. D., Strange, J. P., & Smith, T. A. (2021). A century of pollen foraging by the endangered rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis): inferences from molecular sequencing of museum specimens. Biodiversity and Conservation, 30(1), 123-137.

USFWS, Bee, R. P. B. (2019). Draft Recovery Plan for Rusty Patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis).

Walsh, A. E. (2021). An Overview of Bumble Bee Conservation in Wisconsin and a Management Plan for Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife Refuge.