Using commercial bumble bees as pollinators is putting wild bees at risk
thebeereport.substack.com
In January, a coalition of scientists from various academic and conservation organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking the agency to take action on an unexpected threat to local ecosystems: bumble bees. The authors urged the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to start tracking movement of commercial bees throughout the United States. Doing so is critically important, they wrote, because commercial bumble bees have been implicated in spreading pathogens to a variety of wild bee populations and driving the decline of several native bumble bee species, as well as threatening the pollination networks that keep us fed.
Using commercial bumble bees as pollinators is putting wild bees at risk
Using commercial bumble bees as pollinators…
Using commercial bumble bees as pollinators is putting wild bees at risk
In January, a coalition of scientists from various academic and conservation organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking the agency to take action on an unexpected threat to local ecosystems: bumble bees. The authors urged the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to start tracking movement of commercial bees throughout the United States. Doing so is critically important, they wrote, because commercial bumble bees have been implicated in spreading pathogens to a variety of wild bee populations and driving the decline of several native bumble bee species, as well as threatening the pollination networks that keep us fed.