The Bee Report: Will state policies predict national action to protect pollinators?
Will state policies predict national action to protect pollinators?
One thing I've enjoyed tracking and following this year is the seemingly increasing number of state-level initiatives to protect bee and insect populations. The Saving America's Pollinators Act is a bill that's been introduced several different times at the federal level but has, once again, stalled out in committee. The current national political conditions seem much more conducive to state and local actions when it comes to taking bees and other insects into consideration.
Earlier this year, Damon Hall and Rebecca Steiner published a paper cataloging and analyzing the policy innovations that have been introduced at the "subnational" level in the United States. Most interesting to me in this paper is the categorization and quantification of the various policies enacted. Based on the state-by-state results that Hall and Steiner present, our country looks something like this:
Minnesota clearly stands out as the most pollinator-friendly state, given its focus on actions such as creating habitat, addressing pesticides and encouraging research. The state's payment assistance to homeowners to convert their yards into habitat is the only program like this that I'm currently aware of in the United States. And the continued attention being given to the rusty-patched bumble bee might be an indication of the positive impact that Minnesota's efforts are potentially having.
Hall and Steiner provide some encouraging analysis and thoughts at the end of their paper: In a politically divided nation, state legislatures across the spectrum have passed 110 "pollinator relevant" laws over the past 17 years. "These laws," write the authors, "represent legal trends as well as piloted policy actions that constitute political common ground for lateral and vertical policy transfers as templates for future laws." In others words, the growing appeal and passage of state-level pollinator policies set the foundation for national action.
One day – perhaps soon – the Saving America's Pollinators Act might make it out of committee and receive the national attention it so rightly deserves.
Thank you for spreading the word!
In the previous newsletter, I put out a call for help to get new readers signed up for the Bee Report. And you, my friends, came through! Thank you greatly for encouraging your friends and colleagues to join our readership. For anyone who is waiting for their TBR sticker as a reward – please get in touch with me! Unfortunately, none of the new followers mentioned who got them onboard. Might be time to have *another* talk with your friends...
Highlight Stories
Here are a few stories that I found particularly interesting since the last newsletter. Thought you might be interested, too.
Robust evidence of declines in insect abundance and biodiversity
(Nature) Rumors of insect declines have been around for some time. However, much of this evidence has come from biodiversity databases — records of species sightings, mostly collected by volunteers, and usually gathered in a haphazard fashion. Seibold and colleagues finally fill the gap by reporting species richness, abundance and biomass for a wide range of arthropod taxa recorded using standardized sampling. The results show clear evidence of substantial declines in arthropod abundance and biodiversity.
The EPA has approved the first-ever bee-distributed pesticide for the US market
(Ars Technica) In August, the EPA approved the first-ever bee-distributed organic pesticide for the US market—a fungus-fighting powder called Vectorite that contains the spores of a naturally occurring fungus called Clonostachys rosea (CR-7). CR-7 is completely harmless to its host plant and acts as a hostile competitor to other, less innocuous fungi. It has been approved for commercial growers of flowering crops like blueberries, strawberries, almonds, and tomatoes.
Power lines may mess with honey bees’ behavior and ability to learn
(Science News) In the lab, honey bees were more aggressive toward other bees after being exposed to electromagnetic fields at strengths similar to what they might experience at ground level under electricity transmission lines. Those exposed bees also were slower to learn to respond to a new threat than unexposed bees were.
New England power line corridors harbor rare bees and other wild things
(The Conversation) To many people, power line corridors are eyesores that alter wild lands. But ecologically they are swaths of open, scrubby landscapes under transmission lines that support a rich and complex menagerie of life. New England researchers have surveyed bee communities in these corridors, finding numerous native species – including one of which is so rare it was thought to have been lost decades ago from the United States.
Stingless bee species depend on a complex fungal community to survive
(FAPESP) A new study shows that the larvae of the Brazilian stingless bee Scaptotrigona depilis depend on interactions between three different species of fungus to complete their development and reach adulthood. “The new findings demonstrate that the interactions between these social insects and their microbiota are much more complex than we can imagine. This should serve as a warning against the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture, since many are lethal to fungi.”
New fossil pushes back physical evidence of insect pollination to 99 million years ago
(Indiana University) A new study co-led by researchers in the U.S. and China has pushed back the first-known physical evidence of insect flower pollination to 99 million years ago, during the mid-Cretaceous period. The revelation is based upon a tumbling flower beetle with pollen on its legs discovered preserved in amber deep inside a mine in northern Myanmar. This discovery pushes back the earliest documented instance of insect pollination to a time when pterodactyls still roamed the skies – or about 50 million years earlier than previously thought.
Conservation
Rusty patched bumble bee discovered in Minnesota bluffland area
(StarTribune) The federally endangered bumble bee — a single male of the species — has been discovered at the Pine Bend Bluffs Natural Area in Inver Grove Heights, a positive sign for ecologists who have worked on restoring the area. Just one bee represents approximately 0.2 percent of the species’ known world population. Minnesota hosts the largest population of the bee in the world, with about 35 percent of the species buzzing about in the Twin Cities metro area.
How to turn cities into pollinator sanctuaries
(Next City) Curtailing light pollution, starting a seed library and other ways metro areas are bringing pollinators back.
‘Rewilding:’ One California man’s mission to save honey bees
(Reuters) An unconventional apiculturist is championing an approach he calls the “rewilding” of honeybees, allowing them to live as they did for millions of years — in natural log hives high above the ground.
Economics
Making better worker bees
(Bloomberg Businessweek) Argentine startup Beeflow says it has more than doubled its tiny workers’ pollen-carrying capacity by feeding them custom compounds. The nutrients enhance the bees’ immune systems to handle colder conditions and also increase their attraction to the particular flower the farmer wants them to pollinate – blueberries, raspberries, or the all-important almonds. The 2-year-old company tested its insect fuel this season in the fields of a major California almond farmer and on raspberry crops for Driscoll’s, America’s largest berry grower. On deck: cherries and avocados.
Researchers investigate the economic impact of colony collapse disorder
(Montana State University) Researchers set out to identify the economic ripple effects of colony collapse disorder by examining trends in four categories: number of commercial honeybee colonies nationwide, honey production, prices of queens and packaged bees and pollination fees charged by commercial beekeepers to growers. The team found some surprising results.
New tool improves beekeepers’ overwintering odds and bottom line
(USDA-ARS) This new tool calculates the probability of a managed honey bee colony surviving the winter based on two measurements: the size of colony and the percent varroa mite infestation in September. By consulting the probability table for the likelihood of a colony having a minimum of six frames of bees – the number required for a colony to be able to fulfill a pollination contract for almond growers come February – beekeepers can decide in September if it is economically worthwhile to overwinter the colony in cold storage.
Bees struggling to survive in Nebraska
(Omaha World-Herald) The official Nebraska state insect is feeling the sting of agricultural chemicals, unfavorable weather, flooding and mites, according to beekeepers big and small.
Policy/Law
How a rooftop meadow of bees and butterflies shows NYC’s future
(New York Times) Green roofs like the one in Greenpoint are expected to multiply under a city law that is set to take effect next month and will require new buildings to be topped with green spaces or solar panels.
City of Toronto program helps homeowners create pollinator gardens
(Times Colonist) While most homeowners are raking autumn leaves, neighbors in downtown Toronto are ripping up grass and filling their lawns with native plants meant to encourage bees and other pollinators to take up residence next year. They are tapping into a municipal grant program that gives participants $5,000 to make their homes a haven for pollinators.
Settlement requires feds to act on critical habitat protections for endangered rusty patched bumble bee
(NRDC) The Natural Resources Defense Council and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service settled a lawsuit over the failure to protect habitat necessary for the recovery of the rusty patched bumble bee, as required under the Endangered Species Act. The settlement will require USFWS to propose “critical habitat” by July 31, 2020, unless it makes a finding that habitat protections are not prudent. The Service must then finalize any habitat protections by July 31, 2021.
Beekeepers worried EEE spraying will harm bees in Indiana, Michigan
(WSBT) In Michigan, tens of thousands of hives could be impacted. Even if bees don’t fly around at night time, that doesn’t mean the pesticide won’t impact their colony. “We don’t have a good sense on how much can be drawn into the hives, because the bees do create airflow in the colonies at night. And we don’t know how much will be deposited on the flowers that the bees will visit the next day.”
Decade-long drought in Chile wipes out hives as bees are left without flowers
(Reuters) “There’s no water anywhere. The bees are suffering just the same as cattle, crops and people.” Concern over the impact of changing environments on bees has reached the highest levels of government in Chile. The country has already unleashed millions in aid for drought-stricken farmers. In August, it said it would include a line item in future agency budgets to account for the ‘costs’ of climate change.
Science
Urbanization delays spring plant growth in warm regions
(Florida Museum) The first appearance of bright green leaves heralds the start of spring, nudging insects, birds and other animals into a whirlwind of action. But a new study shows that urbanization shifts this seasonal cue in nuanced ways, with cities in cold climates triggering earlier spring plant growth and cities in warm climates delaying it. The study also found that the urban heat island effect is not the only culprit behind the shift, suggesting that other aspects of urbanization, such as pollution, changes in humidity and fertilizer runoff, may also influence plants’ seasonal patterns.
Bees can learn higher numbers than we thought – if we train them the right way
(The Conversation) Bees’ ability to learn number discrimination depends not just on their innate abilities, but also on the risks and rewards offered for doing so. In a structured experiment, honey bees that received feedback for both correct and incorrect responses successfully learned to discriminate between four and higher numbers; bees that only received feedback for correct answers did not show the same success.
Farmed bees are mating with native bees – and that could endanger them
(NewScientist) The hybridization can threaten the long-term survival of the native bees, says Ignasi Bartomeus at the Doñana Biological Station in Seville, Spain. “Diversity is the best insurance against [environmental] perturbations because it creates variability from which to adapt to new situations,” he says. “If we homogenize the genetic diversity of some species, we are losing this insurance.”
Deformed wing virus genetic diversity in US honey bees complicates search for remedies
(USDA-ARS) Deformed Wing Virus (DWV), one of the leading causes of honey bee colony losses, is much more genetically diverse in the United States than previously thought. The diverse lineages of this virus are all equally bad for bees, and they make it more complicated to develop antiviral therapeutics, which could be the basis for developing a vaccine for the virus.
Using probiotics to protect honey bees against fatal disease
(Western University) A group of researchers combined their expertise in probiotics and bee biology to supplement honey bee food with probiotics, in the form of a BioPatty, in their experimental apiaries. The aim was to see what effect probiotics would have on honey bee health. In the bee hives treated with probiotics, pathogen load was reduced by 99 percent, and survival-rate of the bees increased significantly.
Museum of Earth’s unique exhibit about solitary bees
(Ithaca Times) A special exhibit at the Museum of the Earth is dedicated to the interesting yet unknown lives of bees. The exhibit, ‘Bees! Diversity, Evolution and Conservation,’ will be open until June 2020 and takes a deep dive into the world of solitary bees.
Technology
Bees, please: stop dying in your Martian simulator
(Wired) Before astronauts and scientists head to the moon or Mars, they’ll prepare by living and working in space-analog environments on volcanoes, deep inside caves, at the South Pole, and even underwater. But this training isn’t just for humans: in a recent experiment, the potential space cadets were 90,000 bees. The goal was to see whether bees could join a mission to the moon or Mars, where these prolific pollinators could help sustain gardens attached to a base. The initial results weren’t great.
Drone company still offering orchards alternative to bees
(Syracuse.com) Dropcopter is a startup company that uses drones instead of bees to pollinate orchards. For the second year in a row, Dropcopter has found itself a finalist in a state-funded business competition. And if it’s lucky enough to be one of the winners again, it says it will use any money it receives to expand its staff.
Swarm of tiny drones explores unknown environments
(TU Delft) Researchers have presented a swarm of tiny drones that can explore unknown environments completely by themselves. The challenge of autonomous navigation was overcome by drawing inspiration from the relative simplicity of insect navigation.
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