According to recent research, European bumblebees are most likely to be threatened in the next 40–60 years.
Now you might be wondering what would be the key factors for this cause. Before we could get into this, let me share some information about bumblebees.
Family and Class
Bumblebees belong to one of the bee families. There are 68 bumblebee species in Europe.
It belongs to the kingdom “Animalia”, the class “Insecta”, family is “Apidae”, genus is “Bombus”.
Let’s know their physical measurements
The bumblebee size may vary depending on the species or even within the species. The queen bees will be larger than male bees and worker bees. The “Bombus Dahlbomii” (also known as Moscardon) which is the largest bumblebee in the world measures up to 1.6 inches long. Another species “Bombus terrestris” queen bee grows up to 0.9 inches long and male bee up to 0.6 inches. Bombus Fragrans is considered Europe’s largest bumblebee. Bombus Hyperboreus is the second largest one.
Compare honeybee with bumblebees
So far, you have got some information about bumblebee and hope it’s useful as well. There is no wonder in case you would like to know does honeybees differ from bumblebees.
Certainly it does. When we compare these two.
Bumblebees have larger, broader, stouter bodies than honeybees. Honeybees are slimmer and shorter than bumblebees.
Bumblebees have a long tongue to garner the nectar, while honeybees have short tongue to pollinate the open flower. Bumblebees have fewer stripes and part of the body is covered in black fur. Honeybees have many stripes on the abdomen.
Honeybees are team workers, friendly with their colonies, and communicate constantly with one another. In short, honeybees are tight-knit team. On top of that they have a designated role, nurse larvae, keep the hive cool. Bumblebee, on the other hand, they are social creatures as well that live in a nest yet they are much more independent. In the colder month queen will emerge and leave the hive independently to start a new one.
How bumblebees are beneficial to the environment?
Bumblebees play a pivotal role in the pollination process and in securing food production. They let the plant reproduce and improve the production of crops, vegetables, fruits, and seeds. They highly contribute more than 22 billion euros to European agriculture per year. Out of five predominant pollinators three are bumblebee species. Their contributions to food security, and maintenance of wider plant biodiversity are an essential part of Europe’s national capital.
Let’s dive into the bottom line — The threats to this species
Climate changes, intensification of agriculture, and alteration in agricultural lands are the major threats.
Pollution from agriculture waste, and urban development’s consequently leads to the lose their habitat. Bombus Hyperboreus listed as vulnerable, only lives in Scandinavian tundra and extreme north of Russia. Bombus cullumanus(Or Cullum’s bumblebee) found in Europe and Asia immensely decreased in the last ten years by more than 80% in the population. In the light of human activity is identified as the key factor of the degradation of habitat. The increase in temperature implicates the collapse.
Conflict of species to survive
Because of the invasive species of “Bombus Ruderatus and Bombus terrestris” threaten the “Bombus Dahlbomii”. This Bombus Ruderatus and Bombus terrestris were imported from New Zealand to Chile for the commercial pollination in agriculture in order to pollinate red clover during 1982 and 1983 period.Bombus Dahlbomii are slow fliers and take their time to collect nectar when compared to these non-native bumblebees and find it hard to survive there.
Environment Commissioner and researcher’s says
“The plight of European bumblebees is a problem that needs to be tackled on all fronts. The European Union, recently banned the use of certain pesticides that are dangerous to bees and is funding research into the status of pollinators” said Janez Potocnick, EU Environment Commissioner.
The researchers from Universite Libre de Bruxelles examine the past, present and future ecological suitability of bumblebee. From 1901–1970 which is about the past, the regime between 2000–2014 present, around 38–76% of bumblebees are non threatened. However, it would shrink atleast 30% by the time of 2061 to 2080.
To conclude, bumblebees are not endangered but it threaten in the future. We may lose our special natural pollinator.