I’d first read about the plight of bees in 2006, when people started noticing that honeybees were dying in large numbers but didn’t yet know that the cause was colony collapse disorder (CCD). Usually when honeybees die, beekeepers find their bodies sprinkled outside the hive. With hives affected by CCD, adult worker bees that usually fed the colony seemed to vanish from the hives overnight, leaving behind a queen and a few nurse bees caring for the larvae.
All the talk of honeybee decline has made people aware that pollinators are important to our food system; curtailed use of certain pesticides, like neonicotinoids, that have been found to be particularly harmful for honeybees; and encouraged farmers who rely on pollination to be more careful with their pesticide usage and timing. But it largely hasn’t helped native bees.
The rusty patched bumblebee didn’t disappear because of pesticide use; it’s in trouble because of a disease transferred by managed bee species. “Saving the bees” — when it means putting in honeybee hives or transferring other managed species like mason bees, blue orchard bees or even bumblebees from one farm to another — is what’s helping kill the ones in the wild.
