July 10, 2023 - Northern Amber Bumblebee
Summer is in full swing. Today it is raining, quite hard, so we aren't out collecting bee data, but boy oh boy have we had some great finds already this summer!
We have been most excited by the sighting of three northern amber bumblebees (B. borealis), which are critically imperiled in New York State.
From the NY Natural Heritage Program website: There is a single record from central NY post-2000 as well as the 1990s (Richardson 2013 and Yanega 2013). The species was previously primarily known from the Adirondacks, although there are no records from there since 1980 despite sampling effort. Vermont survey efforts in 2012 suggest this species could be stable to slightly increasing in this neighboring state (Vermont Center for Ecostudies 2013); however, it appears to never have been a common species in NY and the limited data suggest a strong decline. Its decline has been attributed mainly to threats such as habitat loss, pesticides, and urbanization (Schweitzer et al. 2012) as well as pollution and invasive species. It does not appear to be experiencing high susceptiblity to the N. bombi pathogen as with Bombus and Thoracobomus sub-genera.
Short-term Trends
There is a single record from central NY post-2000 (Richardson 2013 and Yanega 2013). Vermont survey efforts in 2012 suggest this species could be stable to slightly increasing in this neighboring state (Vermont Center for Ecostudies 2013); however, it appears to never have been a common species in NY and the data suggest a strong decline (95% decline short-term, Richardson 2013 and Yanega 2013).
Long-term Trends
There are three occurrences in NY since 1980 (Richardson 2013 and Yanega 2013). The species was primarily known from the Adirondacks, although there are no records from there since 1980 despite sampling effort. B. borealis appears to never have been a common species in NY and the data suggest a strong decline (96% decline long-term, Richardson 2013 and Yanega 2013).
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