What is the Bumble Bee Recovery Program? Since the 1990s, bumble bee numbers have been plummeting, and that spells ecological disaster. Ninety per cent of all flowering plants — including most of the fruits and vegetables in your fridge — need these pollinators in order to reproduce.
Until the causes of these declines can be reversed, conservation breeding and reintroduction is the only way to safeguard at-risk bumble bees. Today, WPC is the only organization in Canada rebuilding wild bee populations through conservation breeding. Thanks to recent breakthroughs, we’ve figured out how to dramatically increase the number of queens we produce. Once they’re released into the wild, they can establish their own colonies, producing hundreds of pollinators to sustain the ecosystems around them.
I’ve been settling into my new job on WPC’s Native Pollinator Initiative for a few months now, and to say I’m having a blast would be an understatement. Most days, you can find me out in the field monitoring wild bumble bee populations, planning upcoming surveys, or at outreach events chatting with folks about native pollinators (and trying not to completely nerd out about how much I love bees!).
But the best part so far? Even after years of finding and identifying bumble bees everywhere I go, there are still new ones to meet.
A couple of weeks ago, I was doing a solo bumble bee survey at a site that, frankly, was a little underwhelming. There weren’t many flowers in bloom, and in the hour I’d been there, I had only seen one lonely bumble bee. I was just about to call it quits for the day when I heard the faint buzz of a bee behind me. I turned, net ready, expecting to see a Two-spotted Bumble Bee or maybe a Common Eastern — two of the usual suspects in southern Ontario.
But what I saw instead stopped me in my tracks.
Fernald’s cuckoo bumble bee. Photo by A. Wilcox.
Perched atop a purple thistle flower was a bumble bee that was just beautiful — a stark black abdomen with a clean yellow band, a cute little black face, and a tuft of bright yellow hair on the top of its head. My heart did a little backflip. This was a bee I’d never seen before!
I carefully caught it and practically sprinted back to my car to grab my trusty ID guide — Bumble Bees of North America by Paul Williams, Robbin Thorp, Leif Richardson, and Sheila Colla — which confirmed what I was hoping:
I was looking at a Fernald’s cuckoo bumble bee (Bombus flavidus), a species that’s been sitting high on my bee bucket list for years!
Fernald’s cuckoo bumble bee. Photo by A. Wilcox.
If you’re not familiar, cuckoo bumble bees are the stealthy imposters of the bee world. Instead of establishing their own nests, cuckoo queens sneak into the nests of other bumble species, overthrow the reigning queen, and lay their own eggs. The host workers then raise the cuckoo’s young instead of the original queens’. It’s a wild and fascinating strategy, and a reminder of just how complex the natural world is.
Unfortunately, cuckoo bumble bees like the Fernald’s that I giddily found face some serious threats. Bee populations have been declining nation-wide due to habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, and disease. But cuckoos are especially vulnerable, because their survival depends entirely on the health of their host species. When those bumble bee populations decline, so too do the cuckoos’.
But there’s still hope. Every time we plant native flowers, reduce our pesticide use, support pollinator conservation efforts, or protect natural areas, we’re helping not just the common bees, but the rare and specialized ones too. The fact that the Fernald’s Cuckoo is still out there, quietly going about its stealthy, secretive life, means there’s still time to make a difference.
There’s something truly magical about seeing a species for the first time, especially one as elusive and mysterious as the Fernald’s Cuckoo. It’s a reminder that no matter how much time you’ve spent in the field, or how many bees you’ve ID’d, there’s always something exciting buzzing around the corner. And with every patch of habitat protected or native plant added to the landscape, we create more chances for these rare encounters — for bees to thrive, and for us to keep being amazed by them.
Want to get involved? Check out our community science programs here: https://wildlifepreservation.ca/bumble-bee-community-science/
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