Rusty Patched Bumble Bee

Intro: 00:05

Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.

On today’s show we consider The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee.

Species Information: 02:05

The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, is a critically endangered insect, native to North America, mainly in the midwestern United States.

The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee is a medium-sized bee, with six legs, two pairs of wings, a pair of antennae, and a three-part body consisting of a head, thorax, and abdomen. The reddish-brown patch of fur located on the second abdominal segment of worker and males inspires the bees common name.

Rusty Patched Bumble Bees range in size from 1/4 to 3/4 of an inch.

They have five eyes: two large compound eyes, situated on either side of the head, and three simple eyes arranged in a triangle on the top of their head.

A compound eye is composed of numerous light-sensitive units, each a separate visual receptor, with its own lens, cornea, and photoreceptor cells. That results in a kind of mosaic, kaleidoscopic seeing adapted for motion detection, light sensitivity and a wide field of vision.

The bee’s three simple eyes are thought to be used for light detection and lateral orientation.

The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, is covered in dense fur that aids in thermoregulation, helping the coldblooded insect maintain a stable body temperature. Their fur is electrostatically charged, which aids in pollen collection, the charged hairs attracting pollen. And some hair on the bee is adapted for sensory input, detect vibrations, airflow, and even electrical fields.

Historically, Rusty Patched Bumble Bees thrived in a variety of habitats across Eastern and Midwestern North America, including prairies, woodlands, marshes, farmlands, and even urban residential parks and gardens. Places with a temperate climate, diverse and abundant flowers, as well as safe nesting sites near their food source.

Their historical range extended from Quebec and Maine in the north and east, to Minnesota to the west and to Georgia in the south. Today its population and range is fractured, and much smaller, with the largest concentrations of bees found in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois.

Rusty patched bumble bees live in colonies and are eusocial, meaning they demonstrate an advanced and complex social structure that includes cooperative care of young, overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and nonreproductive groups. For the rusty patched bumble bee, those groupings typically involve one egg-laying queen, many non-reproductive female workers, and a caste of reproductive males (called drones) and females (called gynes).

The queen, of course, is responsible for initial reproduction and colony management, workers gather pollen and nectar and protect and maintain the nest, and the drones and gynes are responsible for expanding the colony and the next generation of bees.

colony can include as many as: 1000

The nest consists of a cluster of irregularly shaped wax cells, are used to store pollen, nectar, and to rear developing young. Bumblebees do not make honey, and so unlike the rigid hexagonal combs of honeybee hives, bumble bee nests are less structured, not perfectly uniform, and the overall shape of the nest varies based on the hole it’s in.

The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee has a seasonal, annual life cycle. In the spring, a queen emerges from hibernation and starts a new colony, building the nest, laying eggs, and raising the first batch of worker bees. These workers then take over the tasks of foraging for food, caring for the young, and maintaining the nest.

Through the year, the colony grows as the queen continues to lay eggs and raise workers. In late summer, new gynes and drones are born. These reproductive bees leave the nest forever to mate and launch new colonies.

Bumblebees mate sexually, the drone inserting his reproductive organs into the gynes abdomen. The gyne stores the sperm in her body and uses it to fertilize eggs throughout her life. This single mating event is sufficient for her to produce all the offspring she needs to establish and maintain a new colony. The drones, having fulfilled their reproductive role, typically die shortly after mating. While the new queen finds a safe place to hibernate for the winter. The following spring, the cycle begins again with the new queens emerging from hibernation to establish their own colonies.

Rusty patched bumblebees typically live a year, or less.

Rusty patched bumble bees primarily communicate through pheromones, chemical signals conveying information. Queens use pheromones to control worker behavior, while workers use them to mark visited flowers and signal the nest's location.

Tactile communication through antennae sensing and physical interaction has been observed. Buzzing and vibrations also convey information, with louder buzzes thought to indicate excitement and threat.

Unlike honeybees, bumblebees cannot communicate the precise location of food sources but can indicate general direction and quality. As such workers tend to forage nearby, within a few square miles of the nest.

Rusty patched bumble bees rely on pollen and nectar for all their nutrients. Pollen supplies lipids and proteins while nectar provides carbohydrates. They quickly starve without nectar and so often seek out flowers with high sugar content. Pollen is equally important, providing the bees with all the amino acids they need to survive. It also provides organic compounds that aid the bees in hormone production, communication, and disease protection. Different flowers offer different pollen types, each with varying protein and lipid ratios. And so the Rusty patched bumble bees have a diverse diet, feeding on numerous species, including nightshade, milkweed, clover, bleeding heart, sunflower, willow, asters, and peas. They also play a crucial role in pollinating many important crops like tomatoes, currants, cranberries, blueberries, peppers, and squashes.

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In the dream, the flowers sing and speak and dance and draw me to them uncanny and it is pleasure and purpose to feel petal against skin, pollen in my hair, to drink from their sweet basket. To be held and nourished and trusted, I want for little else in my life. Except of course to fly. In the dream, to fly.

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Rusty Patched Bumble Bee behavior and activity is influenced by air temperature and weather. They do not fly in rainy, foggy, or freezing conditions, though they are able to tolerate colder temperatures compared to other pollinators due to their thick, furry bodies. They tend to be most active around dawn and dusk.

Rusty Patched Bumble Bees are generally docile and less aggressive compared to honeybees, or wasps, and only defend the territory immediately surrounding their nests and only when provoked by predators or other disturbances.

Researchers have observed evidence of play in bumblebees, seeming to interact with objects just for the fun of it. Scientists at Queen Mary University in London placed a group of 45 bumblebees in a container where they could follow a straight path to a tasty sugar solution, or take a detour to a space filled with small wooden balls. The bees repeatedly chose to go out of their way to roll the balls around seeming to play, sometimes for 30 seconds or more. There was no obvious incentive for the bumblebee’s to even go to the wooden balls, let alone roll them about. But the behavior was even repeated after initial curiosity was satisfied. The researchers can offer no other explanation other than that the bees somehow found the game rewarding.

Human encroachment leading to habitat degradation and loss pose a major threat to the rusty patched bumble bee. The conversion of prairies and grasslands across the u.s. into monoculture farms, and sprawling suburbs has drastically reduced their natural habitat.

Other invasive farming practices like the widespread use of pesticides disrupts their foraging and reproduction. And the industrial agriculture practice of importing other pollinators leads to the spread of disease, pathogens and parasites that weaken bee populations and make them more susceptible to other threats.

Human induced climate change compounds existing and presents additional challenges. Rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events can affect the availability of flowering plants, nesting sites, and foraging opportunities.

It is hard to overstate the fundamental and vital role that bumblebee play in their native ecosystem. In the course of their own pollen gathering, they also spread pollen, fertilizing flowers and trees, contributing to the reproduction and diversity of local plant species, ensuring the growth and longterm health and viability of plantlife in their ecosystem. This, in turn, supports other wildlife that depends on those plants for food and shelter. Bumblebee species loss has a substantive ripple effect throughout its habitat.

With many of the species we discuss on our show, it can feel like there is little immediate day-to-day impact we can have on that species’ wellbeing. Though in the case of the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, for many of us, some relatively small efforts can help encourage their rebound. Maintaining a garden, even just adding a flowering tree or shrub to our yards, can make a difference. At the most basic, Rusty Patched Bumble Bees need nectar and pollen to survive, and plants native to their habitat like asters, milkweed, and local wildflowers are excellent sources of food. We can avoid planting invasive and non-native plants and also create untouched areas in our yards, leaving sections unmowed and brushy which can help provide safe nesting sites. While of course avoiding pesticides and chemical fertilizers that harm bees and other pollinators. And lastly, when possible we can try to avoid purchasing produce grown using the monoculture and industrial farming techniques that have undermined the bee’s habitat, that overuse pesticides, and spread disease.

tically endangered species in: 2014

Though we do not have precise individual counts, it is estimated that the rusty patched bumble bee population has declined by 92% in the last 40 years.

In a moment I would like to perform some music, in hopes of opening a space to be in contemplation of the other lives with whom we share this earth. But first I want to try to clarify a nuanced idea. This music is not like for the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, I don’t think of the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee as like a vessel from which I extract meaning or put meaning upon. It is a living being who’s wisdom and desire is unknowable to me. And so I want this music to express my very human awe, and be a means to consider my own relationship to other life, in particular as that life nears extinction. I will sit in this space of sound, awe, contemplation, reflection. I warmly invite you to join me.

Citations: 22:07

IUCN – https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/44937399/46440196

US FIsh and Wildlife Service – https://www.fws.gov/species/rusty-patched-bumble-bee-bombus-affinis

Animal Diversity Web at the University of Michigan – https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Bombus_affinis/

BBC Wildlife Magazine – https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/insects-invertebrates/facts-about-bumblebees

Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_affinis

Music: 23:40

Pledge: 35:10

I honor the lifeforce of the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee. I endeavor to hold its name, in awe and remembrance, gently on my tongue. I am grateful to have shared time on our small bright planet with this amazing little being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species.

And so, in the name of the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to address the costs of my actions and inactions. I pledge to plant something flowering here in the springtime. And I pledge to name and resist the harm of any kin or their habitat, by corporations and governments.

I pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.

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