Check out this recent post by Berit Erickson about a rare and declining bee species – Yellow-banded Bumble Bee – that found her pollinator garden and moved right in.
Berit not only took many photos of this bee, but also researched its current status – “special concern” and the reasons for its decline. “Some other bumblebee species’ numbers are stable, or even increasing. It turns out that flower preferences, and thus food availability, have also contributed to Yellow-banded Bumblebees’ decline. They will visit a wide variety of plants for pollen to feed queen bumblebees and bumblebee larvae. However, they are fussier about the flowers they visit for nectar, their fuel.”
Read more about this fascinating species and what we can all do to help its numbers increase: A lone Yellow-banded Bumblebee.
As Berit concludes, “For me, [the Yellow-banded Bumble Bee is ] a symbol of the beauty and fragility of nature, and of what we risk losing if we don’t get our act together and take care of the environment. But he’s also a symbol of hope. There is obviously a thriving Yellow-banded Bumblebee nest somewhere nearby that grew large enough to produce queens and males. That’s a good sign. If I can provide habitat for a lone bumblebee, together we can create habitat for many more.”