Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee: An Abstract Artist

In this episode of Rarefied, host Meredith Meeker explores the precarious situation of the rusty patch bumblebee. Meeker is joined by Elaine Evans, an Extension Educator and Researcher at the University of Minnesota, and Mary Powley, a PhD student in the Native Bee Lab at the same university. Together, they discuss the unique characteristics, habitats, and life cycles of the rusty patch bumblebee. They delve into the factors causing its decline, including disease, habitat loss, and climate change, and highlight ongoing research and community science efforts to help save the species. Through engaging anecdotes and detailed explanations, the episode promotes awareness and conservation actions that individuals can take to support these essential pollinators.

https://www.bumblebeeatlas.org/ 

 https://beelab.umn.edu/rusty-patched-bumble-bee 

 https://www.fws.gov/species/rusty-patched-bumble-bee-bombus-affinis     

 https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/icad.12564     

00:00 Introduction to Rarefied Podcast

00:26 Meet the Rusty Patch Bumblebee

01:00 The Decline of the Rusty Patch Bumblebee

02:49 Identifying the Rusty Patch Bumblebee

07:24 Habitat and Nesting Behavior

13:40 Threats and Conservation Challenges

24:24 Research and Citizen Science

31:02 Personal Stories and Field Memories

40:56 Why Care About the Rusty Patch Bumblebee?

45:58 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser

Transcript

Theme Song 0:00

In every stream, in every tree, a story lives, a legacy. Let's listen close, let's take a stand, to keep the wild across the land. In every stream, in every tree, a story lives, a legacy.

Meredith 0:23

Welcome. You found us. Let the adventure begin. This is Rarefied, the podcast where we're going to learn to love some of our rarest and most imperiled species. I'm your host, Meredith Meeker, and this week's episode, we are grabbing our cameras and our clipboards to join researchers looking for the rusty patch bumblebee. Globally, this species is considered imperiled, and in Canada, it's considered critically imperiled. Just one ranking up from being potentially extinct. In many states, this species has already disappeared, but is hanging on in a couple of strongholds. This steep decline has caused many people to ask, what can be done to help the rusty patch bumblebee? I have a poster of Ontario pollinators up in my office, which happens to have the rusty patch bumblebee on it. And as I have added more native species to my garden, I've been amazed by the number of bees that have showed up. I planted coneflowers, and I'd go out in the early mornings and notice bees checking them out. So then I added Annie's hyssop, and I have never seen so many bees in my life. I have tried to get good photos so I could start learning to ID them. But it is hard, but thanks to this week's guests, I have some good tips that will help me get started this spring. So this week I sat down with Elaine Evans and Mary Powley from the University of Minnesota. Elaine is their Extension Educator and Researcher working on pollinator education and research relating to bee conservation. After having completed a master's and PhD in entomology at the University of Minnesota, Elaine has worked to connect people and pollinators through public engagement in monitoring, sharing conservation action steps, and researching the impacts of these conservation actions. Mary is a second year PhD student in the Native Bee Lab within the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota. The first portion of her research focuses on modeling the rusty patch bumblebee in one of its last remaining strongholds in the upper Midwest. Prior to graduate school, Mary has worked as a research technician on a variety of bee focused research projects throughout the country. It's safe to say we have two passionate experts with us today to guide us through the tiny but fascinating world of the rusty patch bumblebee. Amazing. Thank you guys. And we're here to talk about the rusty patch bumblebee. Very excited to talk about this pollinator. Maybe not what everybody thinks of when they think of pollinators. Maybe they're thinking more like your honeybees. So could you tell people who aren't familiar with beautiful creature, like what it is?

Elaine 3:08

So the rusty patch bumblebee is a native bumblebee in, in North America. So people may be aware or may not be aware that honeybees are not native. They've been imported. We have the Western honeybee was imported from Europe long, long ago is used a lot in Agricultural areas that need more pollinators for pollination but bumblebees are are native here in the U. S. They do pollinate a good number of different kind of crops that are out there, but they also pollinate a lot of the, the native, plants, native wildflowers. Rusty patch bumblebee is one species of bumblebees. So we have many different bumblebees here in North America. It is a species that is of conservation concern because it used to be very common and then populations dropped around 2000. So there has been a lot of increased interest in them since then. They've been listed as a protected endangered species since 2017. but so, so people are putting a lot more effort into figuring out where they are, how they're doing, and what we can do to protect them.

Meredith 4:28

All things that I'm excited to jump into. But for people who like, oh, I, I have a bunch of bumblebees. I wonder if I've seen one before. What do they look like? How does somebody know they've seen a rusty patch bumblebee?

Mary Powley 4:42

So, Rusty Patch Bumblebee derives its name from that rusty patch on its second abdominal segment. So, if you're looking at, you know, you've got your head, your middle segment, and then the abdomen is that third last segment. If you're looking close to where the thorax, that middle segment, and the abdomen are connected, you'll see generally a patch that's rusty, kind of red, burnt orange color, surrounded by yellow on your workers and males. That's kind of the namesake of Rusty Patch Bumblebee. The Queens actually don't usually have that Rusty Patch which I find to be fascinating. They generally just have all yellow on that second segment. And, you know, they're, they're fairly large for the Queens in terms of size. And then the workers tend to be about the size of the first digit of your thumb, I would say. So you have some size variation. But if you key in on that Rusty Patch that's probably the best giveaway that that's what you're looking at.

Elaine 5:40

Another is on the thorax, there is this kind of thumbtack shape, so they'll have kind of a black stripe going between their, their wings, and a little bit of black going back towards their thorax there, there are some other bumblebees that have this pattern too, but a lot of the bumblebees will just have kind of a, a black patch, a center black patch surrounded by yellow. So when you see that black going between the, the wing bases, that's another clue to take a look at what's going on on the abdomen.

Mary Powley 6:14

Yeah. And I will say too, if you get a good look at the face, if you're looking, you know, face on at that bee head on they have really short faces relative to some others. I'm thinking Bombus pennsylvanicus, the American bubblebee tends to have a very long face. So if you are just looking at the head and you see a very short face, another clue that, Ooh, this might be a rusty patch.

Elaine 6:36

just to say they're definitely not the only bees with some rusty color on them. So you have to pay attention to that, that arrangement of where that rusty color is. And, you know, just taking photos trying to, that, that show those different parts showing the face and the thorax and the abdomen and And sharing them with, with other people will help you, you hone in on, on whether what you have is a rusty patch or not, especially since rare.

Meredith 7:03

Yeah. So sounds like multiple angles, a couple of, you know, key features to look at. that's really great. And I know we're going to talk more about community science, probably a little bit later on. And what maybe if you're taking photos of bumblebees, what you can do with some of the things you can do with those photos. But firstly, if we're Yeah. If you're looking to test those ideas, or you're trying to get some photos of some good bumblebees, or rusty patch bumblebees specifically, should I be looking? Like, are these going to show up in my garden? Am I going into the wilderness? Where am I going to find a rusty patch bumblebee?

Mary Powley 7:40

So, depending on where you are ever since populations declined and they have been listed, thinking first, like, where in the U. S. might you find these these Rusty patch bumblebees. There's two locations, the upper Midwest. We have strong populations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. So that's, if you're in that area there, you might see one. And then the other population stronghold actually occurs in the Appalachians out in West Virginia, Virginia area. So the, that mountain range, we have two kind of distinct. populations that are still extant. I do a lot of work in the upper Midwest. I haven't seen one out in the Appalachian populations, but in the upper Midwest, you can find them out walking in your state park, your state forest, or in urban areas, your, your urban parks, even your backyard. There was even a nest found recently in someone's backyard out in Iowa. One of the few nests seen post listing. That someone just happened to, to send a picture of, Oh, I have this, like, bumblebee coming out of the ground, Like, in my backyard, and it was a rusty patch nest. So, out in the upper Midwest just keep your eyes peeled. Wherever there are flowers, wherever you see bumblebees. Forging around you could potentially see one and then I don't know as much about the Appalachian population because I'm not working there But those tend to be a bit more out in those forested ranges out in those national forests I don't think there are good urban strongholds that we are aware of yet.

Elaine 9:10

And just to say this used to be a common, you know, kind of from where it from East across through through southern Ontario and then that kind of stretch down into the Appalachian. So, you know, they haven't been seen recently in a lot of those parts of the east, but they used to be there and they could still be there. just just kind of you know, if they're super rare, it's going to be hard to find them. So so yeah, there's, there's a chance they could still be in, you know, places like Michigan that haven't seen them yet, but they used to be there, so they could show up again.

Meredith 9:45

I really want to talk about what's threatening these species and what's caused that range shrinkage, but first, because you brought it up rusty patch bumblebee nests, because I think everybody thinks of hives or the paper wasp nest. We see what does a bumblebee or rusty patch bumblebees nest actually look like? What's their nesting behavior?

Mary Powley 10:07

So Just broadly rusty patch bumblebee tends to nest in abandoned rodent burrows or man made cavities They won't excavate their own nest, but they'll take over abandoned rodent burrows. They tend to nest underground. So they tend to be holes in the ground, kind of in deciduous forest type areas. But post listing especially, we really don't have a good handle on where they're nesting. Like, nests are very few and far between. So, well, we have a couple of incidences where we're able to kind of say, Oh, you know, we found it here. There's still a lot of future research that can be done with nests. And then Elaine actually has kind of dissected a couple of nests. So she can tell you a little bit more about the inner workings of said nest.

Elaine 10:52

Yeah, so they do tend to to be pretty flexible, it seems in where they're nesting. So they do seem pretty adaptable to

Meredith 11:02

Yeah.

Elaine 11:11

was kind of noted that a lot of them are nesting kind of, you near people's houses. So a couple of the nests that I've, that I've seen have been just right next to someone's house or actually in their house or they can just be underground. There have been a few nests that have been found on the surface, but it's not very common. in general, bumblebees, when they're making nests, They are finding you know, kind of a open space that is protected and has some kind of insulating material in them. So that's why they tend to really like rodent nests, because rodents have holes and they bring a bunch of stuff in there. But they can also just like, you know, insulation in the side of someone's house. If there's a hole and they can get in there and then there's insulation that's there. They, they like that. So that's the kind of space they like. And then once they have that. space. They're making their own nest structure within there. So, so bumblebees have wax glands that they use to secrete wax. So a lot of people are familiar with beeswax from honeybees that people take out of the hives and, you know, make into candles and all that kind of stuff. Bumblebees make their own wax through glands they have on their abdomen. But then they, they take that and shape that into, into their structures that they use to lay eggs in. They make little pots that they collect nectar and pollen into as opposed to nest where it's all, you know, all these cells are perfect. People have seen these, you know, perfectly evenly sized hexagonal cells that are this, you know, beautiful symmetrical stuff. The bumblebee nests are a lot more like abstract art where they're just kind of all these miscellaneous sized lumps all over the place that change day to day as as the young grow and. As they bring in more nectar or pollen they, they sometimes will make a wax envelope to kind of cover everything over to try to, to keep things warm or cool and protect them a little bit. So, they, they just kind of get that space from those rodent nests and then they, they make their own, they make their own kind of shelters in, inside there with their, with their wax structures.

Meredith 13:22

So it doesn't sound like they're the pickiest nesters from what you're describing. They've got a few factors and it sounds like they're also able to like collect nectar and food from a variety of different plants and they can be found in like a couple of different habitats depending on where in the country you are. So if they are sort of adaptable, why are they at risk? Why have their numbers plummeted so hard? what it's

Elaine 14:08

So they're all in the same sub genus. So bumblebees all belong to the the genus Bombus. And then there are a bunch of different subgroups in that before you get down to the species level. So this subgenus group is actually subgenus Bombus, so Bombus bombus. there were three species, the, the Western bumblebee, Bombus occidentalis. the yellow banded bumblebee, Bombus terricola, and then the, the rusty patch bumblebee, Bombus aphanus, that around the year 2000, of those species experienced declines pretty close to the same time. And they kind of started from the Western bumblebee populations dropping and the Western bumblebee is a bee that was being raised commercially. And before the, the collapses in the wild, there were problems in those commercial facilities with, with disease and with their commercial populations being lost. And so it's, You know, the thing that makes the most sense timing wise is that it could have been this you know, related to, to disease. We have seen increased levels of diseases in particular. There's this microsporidium kind of kind of like a fungus that, that impacts the, the guts of the bees can, can be really hard on them. There've been increased levels of, of that found in. Rusty patch and some of these other declining bumblebees, but we don't really have a direct connection, so we don't really know. It's not really there hasn't been good evidence that there is, you know, a different strain of this disease that, that started impacting them. There's some indication that populations might have been Dropping even before that point in time, and it just kind of reached the tipping point then. And that's when we noticed it. So there's, there's other theories too about you know, there, there've been changes in pesticides that are used. There could be particular sensitivity in, in some different groups of bumblebees to pesticides. could be different sensitivities to, to climate. The rusty patch bumblebee is a bee that is. out for a lot longer than a lot of other bumblebees. So in general, bumblebees have this annual life cycle where they're kind of, they, they start new colonies in the spring and they go through, you know, midsummer or the end of summer. Rusty patch bumblebees, their queens tend to come out earlier than other queens. Their colonies tend to last longer into the fall than other colonies. So having that longer colony length. makes them, could make them more susceptible to some of the climate impacts that are happening with, with you know, strange happening with, with springs and falls, you know, those kind of shoulder seasons are kind of having more, more changes happening to them due to, to climate change.

Mary Powley 17:14

And I will add to habitat. You know, they're not particularly picky in terms of nesting or the floral resources that they're using. But given the long span that these colonies are out and about, if there is some sort of mismatch between When these bees are coming out and then the flowers might be a little bit early or late relative to the spring queens coming out Looking for resources to start these colonies up in part to just because you know They are central place foragers Once you have established a nest that Queen will go a certain distance away from the nest But she's not moving consistently like thinking about a deer She's not bedding down at a different place every night. So, as you start to maybe say, lose habitat, lose floral resources, or even a combination of when these resources are out and where they are on the landscape, that can be challenging for nest establishment in the spring with queens, and even just then having the colony continue as those workers start going out and foraging in place of the queen, if they can't get resources, that colony will starve, essentially. So there's just so many synergistic factors at play here.

Elaine 18:23

there's there's kind of a couple different things that we think about in terms of these kind of. Things that are impacting the rusty patch bumblebee. So it's really, really hard to go back in time and figure out what happened, especially when a species is really rare on the landscape to be able to, even, you know, with the bumblebees rusty patch bumblebees that are around now, there's not a lot of them. So to, to find them and study them and figure out what's going on, you know, with their, with the diseases or pesticide sensitivities, all that is really difficult. But we do know that kind of all of these things are stressors for the, for the populations as we're looking at what's left and trying to get those populations to recover. So like even, you know, habitat may or may not have been the cause of the, the initial decline, but we know that habitat loss is a stressor on the bees that are still here. So when we're looking at what we need to do to help those populations recover, looking at those. You know, kind of all of those things that could have caused decline as being things that, that we need to deal with. And they all, you know, dealing with all of those problems will, will hopefully help those populations recover.

Meredith 19:34

Before we get into, like, what needs to be done for colonies, like what's the colony size of a rusty patch bumblebee, like, what are the dynamics

Elaine 19:45

these colonies are all, you know, starting from an individual single queen that has

Meredith 19:50

you

Elaine 20:03

a few hundred. Bumblebees, but actually one of the nests we were able to look at that, that we found about found five years ago had a thousand bumblebees that were produced by this nest. And so and that was actually the largest that's ever been recorded. So so we know that the colonies can get to be pretty good size. But, but it varies a lot depending on just how. how many resources they're able to bring in. Sometimes for, for some species and, and for rusty patch bumblebee too, if there, there's other nests we've looked at that have you know, only have like 50 bees in them. So it really depends on on, on how successful they are. A pretty good range of, of how many bees could be in that colony.

Meredith 20:51

So wait, it's only the queen that survives the winter and everybody else. So do queens live multiple years or is it just through the,

Elaine 21:02

Yeah.

Mary Powley 21:03

So

Meredith 21:03

more about the queen. Okay.

Mary Powley 21:07

yeah, so we've kind of talked about the cycle, but you know, you have your single spring queen who will start in the spring, she'll go out, she'll start gathering resources, she'll find her nest, she'll start provisioning that first brood of workers, and then those workers will take over the foraging duties, allowing her to continue to lay more workers. And then towards the end of the summer, you know, early fall, something signals to this queen to switch from producing workers to producing males and to producing the next generation of queens. And, you know, I'm not super keen on all of those details, but there is something that causes them to switch, right? And then those new queens will go out, they'll fly around, they'll mate with the males of that season, but then the colony will perish. And only those newly mated queens from the fall who have mated will survive through the winter. What they'll do is they'll find a little hibernation spot. We call it a hibernacula. So they might dig down into soil or hang out in some leaf litter. So, you know, you hear leave your leaves. That's in part because bumblebees might be using those to help insulate themselves from those winter temperatures. And then those queens will emerge next spring and start the cycle over again. At least in North America, there are no bumblebees that have queens that will persist for multiple years. I think there is one species in the tropics down in South America that's been recorded to do that. Granted, down in the tropics, we, they don't have winter. So, this is kind of allowing them to, at least here in North America, to survive the winter. You know, you have fewer individuals that need to survive.

Meredith 22:51

That sounds like, yes, great, fewer individuals need to survive, but also makes them really vulnerable if the queens don't survive. So you could have populations or colonies to exist because the female or the queen didn't make it through the winter.

Mary Powley 23:08

Yep, and in part I believe some things that link overwintering success include how well provisioned that queen is, like how much fat does she have on her body? And then, you know, we talked about So first, this queen has to mate in the fall, she has to be mated in order to establish her next colony, she has to have enough food reserves, fat reserves, essentially, to then overwinter, and then she has to survive this winter, but then on top of all that, needs to be able to find a nesting location and then have enough resources to get those workers going so then she can start really focusing on producing more workers and building up the strength for the colony to make sure that her daughter queen's that she'll lay. Or that will emerge in the fall, even have a shot of being able to make it. So there's a lot of points of vulnerability for bumblebees.

Meredith 23:54

I hope this gives people like a new appreciation of when they see bumblebees just like bouncing around garden, because I don't want to say they, they kind of, they're bumbling, like, you know, they just kind of seem like they're going through the world, bouncing around, but it's a lot for them to even get out there and emerge in this. Bring in summer. So I hope people really take that away. And then we talked a little bit about what needs to be very briefly what needs to be done to help recover these species. But what parts, I mean, research has to be part of that. So what are you, what part of the recovery of rusty patch bumblebee or what are you guys looking at in your research?

Elaine 24:35

Yeah, so one of the projects that, that we have going on right now is, is working on getting more information about bumblebee nesting. So we, we mentioned that we have, you know, a few of these, I've had the chance to go and see some rusty patch bumblebee nests over the last last few years. where people just kind of find them in their yards and, and contact contact us or they can, you know, get in touch with the Fish and Wildlife Service and we figure out where they are. But given that we still don't have a lot of information about just where they, where they are in general, where they're nesting out on the landscape. So we have a project where we're inviting volunteers to help us for bumblebee nests. Just trying to, to get more people out there on the ground looking to see if we can figure out anything more about, about the kind of habitats they use, you know, so it looks like they're using a lot of different habitats for nesting, but but if we could fine tune that, that would be really helpful for being able to make management recommendations for, for you know, for, for both. Protecting habitat and for you know, creating more habitat that that would be beneficial for them.

Mary Powley 25:53

And then on my side, like a lot of my research, so the first two years of my PhD have focused more on understanding where these bees are on the landscape. So thinking about the upper Midwestern population, we've You can find them out in more natural areas, but you can also find them in a lot of developed and urban areas. And if you, you know, look at Bombas Apenas records on iNaturalist, if you look for rusty patch records, you can kind of see these associations with these developed areas, Twin Cities, Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay. And that mimics what the Fish and Wildlife current distribution maps for these extant populations show. But the problem with urban areas, or not the problem, but one of the things associated with urban areas, is there's just more people on the landscape. So if you're thinking about people might be looking at bumblebees, taking photos, and then submitting those photos to iNaturalist wanting to find out more, well then that's showing, oh wow, there are a lot of rusty patch here, just because you have more eyes on the landscape that may be able to detect them, versus Some more rural areas say your state parks, you're not getting that same amount of people on the landscape. So what my research for the past two years have focused on is trying to untangle this association with urban areas. Is it just the result of detection bias? More eyes on the landscape? Or is there something about these urban areas that biologically Rusty Patch Bumblebee is either drawn to or allows them to persist where other populations haven't been able to persist in more rural areas.

Meredith 27:29

Obviously, that's really important work. If you want to know where to protect these species and inform some of these management decisions, you've got to know, is this a bias is, or is there true correlation with like, oh, no, this is just really good habitat and it can help you identify. What is good habitat and maybe help you find more nests or concentrate that effort. But what other sort of things need to be considered when going into this management of this endangered or this species? And you know, what, what can be done to help recover it?

Mary Powley 28:02

So from my work just even getting out on the landscape and recording data, even if you're not, say, looking explicitly for rusty patch bumblebees. Say you're just out and about and you happen to see a bunch of bumblebees in an area and taking photos and submitting them to Programs like Bumblebee Watch, Bumblebee Atlas I worked in Wisconsin, they have the Wisconsin Bumblebee Brigade and even just iNaturalist, all of that data will then help scientists like me, who, I, I'm only one person, my team, we had a very small crew, we can only get to so many areas, so just getting more information, you know, submitting bumblebees if you see them, or especially if you think there's a rest of the patch, will really help us Learn more because there there are resource limitations and then thinking more to just how might we be able to help bumblebees more generally? Creating habitat for them is something that I think a lot of people can do and not only does it help the bumblebees I think it just is really nice to have a yard that might say have more native flowers and resources and resources throughout that entire growing season, you know, have some resources in the spring, say your spring ephemerals or your trees have a couple blooming trees and then transition. So have a little bit of color throughout the spring, summer and early fall. And that will really help combat some of these stressors we've talked about. You know, we might not be able to eliminate pathogen risk. But we can help with, say, habitat Resources that these bumblebees need and also leaving just little messy piles in your back corner of your yard for all you know, that could be a hibernacula for a bumblebee or that could be a new nesting location the next season. So I think that's some of the easiest things people can do to really make positive impacts.

Elaine 29:49

There's some little bit of, of tuning of some, some newer things that we're kind of figuring out where there are some plants that do have chemical compounds in them that can help bumblebees to fight off certain diseases. So that's kind of You know, it hasn't been directly connected with rusty patch bumblebee, but we know that plants like turtle head and sunflowers That the the pollen has some some compounds Pollen and the nectar can have compounds that that help the bees fight off disease. So You know, kind of the main thing there is just really having a diversity of plants. So besides just kind of that diversity through the season, having having a bunch of different kinds of plants for the bees to choose from can help them get what they need.

Meredith 30:38

And it sounds like it's not just beneficial for the bees. It's, you know, going to make a more pleasant environment for people too. So I think that's, like you said, pretty low hanging fruit, but could be, you know, really important for not just our pollinators, but for our cities and our urban areas and just helping increase the biodiversity. So that's great advice. And sounds like you guys also still get out into the field. A decent amount, which, you know, can be one of the struggles of being in this field, the more you do, you know, the less you actually get out to do, and the more you're behind a computer, but do you guys have a favorite moment or field memory or story of working with the rusty patch bumblebee?

Mary Powley 31:20

Yeah, well this past field season, I'm still lucky I get to be out in the field. I I still have to data crunch a lot in the winter, but you know, my focus in the summer, especially for my previous project was just getting out and, you know, getting that data. Are we seeing them or not? The first rusty patch I actually got to see in 2024 was a late spring queen, which was incredibly unexpected. I was not prepared for it and I had a team with me this year and that was a really just strong starting point to be like, okay, our first rusty patch bumblebee was actually a queen. And with the permits that we work under you can't net the queens generally when you're under recovery permits issued by the fish and wildlife. They actually do want you to net. These bees, the workers, and the males, so we can get really good photos. We can, you know, record body condition. But with queens you can't do that. But they still want photos to verify, because a big thing is being able to verify records, and having records that then other researchers can access, you know, future researchers being able to access them, really important. So of course, I'm throwing all my gear, you know, every which way, and I'm just trying to get these photos, because The bees are fast, you know, they, they are bumblebees, right, they do bumble a little, but they're still pretty fast, and to get good clear shots, so there is no kind of, oh, well maybe that wasn't a rusty patch bumblebee, especially the queens that tend to lack that. I'm just throwing gear everywhere. I almost rolled my ankle, but and then of course I had to text Elaine And I'm like Elaine, please confirm this because I was not prepared for it I'm like am I hallucinating here a little bit, right into the beginning of field season But it was it was a pretty exciting moment well,

Meredith 33:03

Okay. All right.

Elaine 33:27

for the Xerces Society, which is an insect conservation group, and worked actually on Rusty Patch Bumblebee with them, worked on a status review. And as part of that project. they were listed, before iNaturalist was going, or Bumble Bee Watch was going, we were just like, we need to know where these bees are! And so we had a campaign where we just, we made posters and sent them out to people, take pictures, you know, it was a wanted poster with the Rusty Patch Bumble Bee on it. We want you to, you know, take photos and send them in. And and then as a result of that, in In the fall of, I think it was the fall of 2010 there was somebody who submitted a photo of rusty patch bumblebee from a park in Minneapolis. And, you know, I'd been looking all over the place for rusty patch bumblebees. Since they declined, you know, I've been doing surveys all over the place, you know, for a few years and hadn't seen any in any of the places where they used to be. So I was very excited about this, this finding that was pretty close by and I called the environmental coordinator for the Minneapolis parks and said, Hey, do you know you've got an endangered species that showed up in your park? And she was very excited and said, Well, why don't we do a public event about pollinators? So we organized our first annual pollinator party. And we were in the same park where this first rusty patch bumblebee, you know, that, that the first photographic evidence I'd seen of a rusty patch bumblebee in Minnesota, you know, in like 10 years we, we had this public event at the park. And as part of this public event, we had. All kinds of different booths about pollinators. I had a table where I was just sending people out with little Tupperware cups to go get these and bring them back to me. That's part of how I was doing surveys in those days. And I had this little girl come back with a cup. With a rusty badge bumblebee in it. And so at this public event, that was my first rusty badge bumblebee that I got to see in 10 years was brought back to me by, you know, like an eight year old girl who was out helping us find bumblebees. And so it was yeah, really inspiring just to, to see that they were still there and to have it be at this, you know, public event. So then I, you know, went around with those. Tupperware cup with the rusty batch bumblebee for for a while showing everybody. It was before they were listed, so we didn't have to have permits to handle them, but we knew they were in trouble, so I didn't, didn't, didn't delay her too long, but but a very exciting first sighting.

Meredith 36:08

Yeah, it's so fun for you and for the little girl who caught a rusty patch bumblebee. That should be a highlight and who knows, maybe she's a future. Bumblebee expert in the making, you know, could be a formative memory. Touched on it a little bit, but like, I just want to dig a little bit deeper into how important citizen science is for your work and how important it is for pollinator conservation in general and kind of what, what role is.

Elaine 36:38

So, yeah, I started you know, back in 2007, I started engaging people to help me look for, for bumblebees you know, after having done this for the Surge City Society, where I was, as part of my status review, I was just trying to get all of the information that I could on anybody who had done surveys for bumblebees. And a lot of, it was a lot of piecemeal stuff. So there are, you know, a few years of surveys here, a few years of surveys there, no long term surveys anywhere. And at that point, I was like, well, You know, the only way to start having long term survey data is to just start doing long term surveys. So I started just going out to places around the Twin Cities where we had historic records. And I was just going out on my own and surveying bumblebees and you know, fitting it in as I could. then I, I was mentioned to, to a friend that I was doing this and she was like, Hey, you know, other people might want to do this too. You know, that sounds fun. I would like to do that. So I started reaching out to some, some different people that I knew at this point, it was kind of before. Social media was really much of a thing. So it was kind of email lists that I had. And I started, and as soon as I started telling people, people started showing up. So I started just having more help at my individual surveys. You know, eventually, you know, social media came in and I was able to do more advertising, coordinate with different parks that wanted to have these surveys done. This was still just around the Twin Cities. But then, You know, I could see that this could be done. We were getting important data. We started getting more places where we're finding rusty patch bumblebees, being able to kind of track them year after year. And then I was able to expand that statewide and started a Minnesota bumblebee Atlas. in 2013, where we were able to just train volunteers to go out and look for bumblebees. So the nice thing about bumblebees is in general, they're not too hard to tell apart from each other for most of the species, if you are able to take those good photos. There's a few species that are, that are hard to tell apart. Fortunately, rusty patch is not too hard to tell apart. So we were able to train volunteers how to take photos. How to go out and do these surveys and we're able to get people doing these kind of consistent effort surveys across the state. So things like like iNaturalist where people just take photos and randomly put them up. Those are great for knowing this is where this bee is. But if we want to know you know, how many of them are there relative to other species, we tend to get a lot. More of those rare bees. So if we look at the just the bumblebee species, just the bees in general that we get in Minnesota that people share on iNaturalist, the rusty patch bumblebee comes in like number seven or something like that. It comes into the top 10 because when people see photos, they take a bunch of photos, they share them. That's perfect. We love them to do that, but it doesn't let us know how the population is. So by having volunteers that go out and consistently survey the same amount over the same area, we can know more about their populations. this same model that I was using has been adopted broadly. Bumblebee atlases that are now present in a lot of different states across the U. S. So they're in the Pacific Northwest, down in the Southeast, through the Great Plains. So if you go to bumblebeeatlas. org, there's a lot of, of places where people can take training and join us to to get this kind of information. And so this is helping us know, you know, where some of these rare bees are, how they're doing. It also helps us learn a lot more about those habitat questions as we look at where bumblebees are, where are they doing well. We can make a lot better recommendations for for their conservation.

Meredith 40:46

And I, I mean, I'm sure a lot of people are just signing up for these because they love bumblebees, or they love getting outside. But, I mean, people are volunteering their time. They're, you know, trying, I guess, trying to get people interested in it, but why should people care about the rusty patch bumblebee? Like, why should they get out there and volunteer their time or, or take photos?

Elaine 41:08

There is You know, there's, there's a few different that you can provide to people for, for, you know, why to care about bees in general. So you know, they're, they're really important pollinators of not just food on our plate, but also by. pollinating wildflowers. They're also providing food for, you know, birds and frogs and all kinds of different things that we go, as we go up the food chain. So by supporting those plants, it's roughly 80 percent of plants that are depending on animals for pollination and bees are doing most of that pollinating. But as, you know, an example with the rusty patch bumblebee, they, back in the 90s they were the, the most common pollinator in, in some of the cranberry bogs, like out in New Jersey, the cranberries out there. If you go out there, most of the bumblebees you saw pollinating were rusty patch bumblebees. Rusty patch bumblebees disappeared. other bumblebees showed up and pollinated. So if we're just thinking about pollinating, we still have other bees other than just exactly the rusty patch bumblebee that can provide that service and kind of fill in some of those gaps. But there are, you know, there's so much, so many unique things about each individual species, and just the, it gets into more the, the intrinsic value of, of, of species. You know, if we don't care about the loss of this one species. What happens next, you know there, there's going to be some point where we lose enough pollinators that we're, that there's not going to be somebody who can fill in like they did for the, for the rusty patch bumblebee and those cranberries. One of my favorite quotes from Aldo Leopold, to keep every cog and wheel is Let's see, I'm not going to get it completely right. It is the first rule of intelligent tinkering. Something like that. We want to, you know, we don't know what all these things do. We don't know necessarily how all the pieces fit together, but if we're just throwing pieces out willy nilly we're not going to be able to, to make sure that we have that functioning ecosystem. So we know that ecosystems that are healthy have all these different pieces that are fit together in ways that we don't even understand. And so if we're going to be smart about how we're interacting with the world around us, we're going to want to try to, to keep all those pieces.

Meredith 43:42

And I think, you know, keeping species for their intrinsic value and their uniqueness, like can be underrated. But I think, like you said, keeping all those cogs and wheels is just as important and maybe to wrap up what is your favorite unique thing or favorite thing just about the rusty patch bumblebee?

Mary Powley 44:01

you know my my favorite thing i've kind of touched a lot on it is just how easy it is to identify, it makes it very accessible. And then also just the differences in the queens versus the workers and just kind of that, you know, that's something to ponder, something to think about, how does that come to be? But then also, you know, queens can sometimes be a little difficult. And with rusty patch bumblebee, this allows me to start asking questions about queens versus workers versus males and no definitively like, okay, that was a rusty patch queen right there. And then I can even appreciate that more because I'm like, 100 percent that was a queen. This is something that's even rarer than seeing, say, a rusty patch worker on the landscape, but, you know, just, I don't know. I love all bees, to be fair, so.

Elaine 44:47

I really love how this this B is gives people a chance to you know, where we're still seeing it. A lot of times, it's just in people's backyards. It's this chance for people to get to know an endangered species and have a chance to see them just where they live and kind of realize that That, you know species conservation, it's not just polar bears up in the Arctic or, you know, frogs that are in the rainforest or orangutans you know, Indonesia, there's this world, this teeny tiny world that is all around us and and if you just plant some flowers, you know, they can show up. You can do these really, you know, pretty simple, small actions and have real conservation impacts for an endangered species just in your yard. So I, I love the opportunity that, that the Rusty Patch Bumblebee provides for people to directly connect. and see the the impacts of their conservation actions.

Meredith 45:56

And you know what? That is the perfect note to leave this on. So thank you so much, Elaine and Mary for, for sitting down with me. I loved learning about the Rusty Patch Bumblebee and it was great getting to talk to both of you.

Mary Powley 46:07

Well, thank you for the opportunity.

Elaine 46:10

Thanks for your interest in the rusty patch bumblebee. We always love to get more people on the rusty patch bumblebee train.

Meredith 46:16

And that's a wrap on this episode with Rusty Patch Bubble Bee, Elaine Evans, and Mary Powley. A massive thank you to both of them for taking the time to chat with us. And if you loved this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. It helps Rarefied reach more people who care about the planet's rarest creatures. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at rarefied. pod, and sign up for our newsletter on our website for updates and behind the scenes content. Next time, we'll be looking to the night skies to chat about a mammal that doesn't get enough love. You won't want to miss it. So, until next time, get out there and explore the wild, because every species has a story, and every one of us can make a difference. Thanks for listening. Happy trails.