[HN Gopher] The American Bumblebee Has Vanished from Eight States ___________________________________________________________________ The American Bumblebee Has Vanished from Eight States Author : elorant Score : 252 points Date : 2021-10-09 19:40 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com) | eezurr wrote: | I am in Vermont and see bumblebees everywhere... am I mixing up a | common species with this one? | oingodoingo wrote: | you might be seeing feral bees or carpenter bees, those are the | two I commonly hear misidentified as bumblebees | 0des wrote: | Hello, it appears all of your comments have been | shadowbanned. I have vouched for this comment (and all | others) so that it can be seen. I'm still somewhat new at the | mechanics of HN's voting system, but more info can be seen | here: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news- | undocumented#shadow... | moron4hire wrote: | Carpenter bees look very similar to bumblebees, but are | actually larger, not as hairy, and don't form hives. They | binary maters! | tclancy wrote: | And, contrary to their name, are not good with wood. Plus | they attract woodpeckers. Carpenter bees at least make | attractive, perfectly round holes. The woodpeckers who follow | are not quite as neat. | spqr0a1 wrote: | There are dozens of bumblebee species in Vermont, but _Bombus | impatiens_ is particularly common. That 's much more likely | than _B. pensylvanicus_ mentioned in the article. | liquidise wrote: | Very helpful. I looked up the 2 species and the American | Bumblebee[2] is noted as having an increasingly southern | habitat, with borders denoting their former range/habitat. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_impatiens | | [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_pensylvanicus | protomyth wrote: | "The species has completely vanished from eight states, including | Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, | Wyoming, and Oregon, Ben Turner reports for Live Science." | | How exactly is North Dakota the highest honey producing state in | the Union? | | Also, a bit of a dispute of this study | https://www.beeculture.com/bumblebee-decline-claim-in-disput... | bagacrap wrote: | bumble bees are not honey bees | rasengan wrote: | We think with our weak technologies and chemistries that we can | play God. | | However, it is so far from the truth - in an attempt to create | more vegetation we have decreased a critical component needed to | help said vegetation grow. | | Technology should be used carefully when in the environment of | the unknown. Trials and observations should be conducted in | limited capacity with a long window of study. Only then can we | know of the consequences for our actions of disrupting naturally | evolved and perfected equilibriums - be it that of the Earth or | man's immune system. | randomopining wrote: | And the complex supply chains to supply these cutting edge | industries are so fragile, they would crumble easily when the | climate turns chaotic. | ethbr0 wrote: | > _Technology should be used carefully when in the environment | of the unknown. Trials and observations should be conducted in | limited capacity with a long window of study_ | | A laudable goal. | | And yet, without the agricultural revolution of the 1960s, we | wouldn't have grocery stores today with well-stocked shelves. | | Cautiousness has its own price. | quotemstr wrote: | > And yet, without the agricultural revolution of the 1960s, | we wouldn't have grocery stores today with well-stocked | shelves. | | It's not that we wouldn't have well-stocked shelves: it's | that we wouldn't _be alive_. We can feed as many people as we | do because of the incredible advances we 've made in | agricultural sciences. Without those, there just wouldn't be | enough calories to go around. Does the sum of all the joys of | billions of people mean nothing to everyone who denounces | modern agriculture? All this invective against technology is | sophomoric, short-sighted, and fundamentally unserious, and | if we followed the recommendations of people to whom science | is a bad thing, just "playing god", then a huge number of us | would simply cease to exist. | carapace wrote: | Ecology is a science. | | > Does the sum of all the joys of billions of people mean | nothing to everyone who denounces modern agriculture? | | The thing about that is that the story isn't over yet. Yes, | billions of people owe their lives to the Haber-Bosch | process (et. al., I'm obviously simplifying here) but if | billions of people die due to ecological and economic | collapse, is it really all worth it? | | As a concrete counter-example to modern mass agriculture | there are ecological systems of food production that result | in high yields while increasing fertility, biodiversity, | and biomass (such as Permaculture, Syntropic and | Regenerative agriculture, etc.) So we can have our both | well-stocked grocery shelves _and_ healthy ecosystems. | bmitc wrote: | Additionally, it seems the production of industrial | ammonia is a major CO2 emitter. | | https://cen.acs.org/environment/green- | chemistry/Industrial-a... | bmitc wrote: | Do you have any references for these statements? I have | never even heard that things were apparently so dire in the | 60s. | | Does your sentiment that we apparently couldn't feed | ourselves take into account population growth? What if the | population had simply not grown as it did? | | My current understanding is that the U.S. overproduces what | it needs, exports the excess at dirt cheap prices, killing | off developing countries' farmer livelihoods. So in the | U.S., there's multiple birds killed with one stone. | markdown wrote: | Have you seen the grocery stores today? I mean really stopped | and taken a good hard look at what's on them? | | Mostly garbage. Garbage. And then you have this: https://www. | reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/q4aeuc/e... | californical wrote: | It's totally true. I've always liked the advice that you | should mostly walk around the perimeter of the store, and | only go into the middle part (aisles) when you have some | specific need (canned veggies, beans, pasta). | | It obviously depends a bit on your store's layout, but I've | found the advice to be almost universal. The aisles contain | all of the junk (an _unbelievable_ amount of junk), and the | good fresh ingredients -- fruit, veggies, dairy, breads, | meats -- are around the outside. | Retric wrote: | That was ~60 years ago, it's perfectly reasonable to use a 20 | year time horizon for testing changes to the food supply etc. | | Progress isn't just about whatever the new thing is it's | about finding something actually _better_. | melony wrote: | says Lysenko. | tootie wrote: | Honestly, we are really pretty good at playing god. Killing off | a species of bee is sad and may have some unintended | consequences but it hasn't put a dent in our ability to | engineer the earth to suit our needs. The problem is motives | and objectives. We have created the incentives to extract | resources and not to protect organisms. So that's what we do. | 09bjb wrote: | > but it hasn't put a dent in our ability to engineer the | earth to suit our needs | | We'll see about that when most soil is barren and most bees | are gone. That is, very shortly. | quotemstr wrote: | > We think with our weak technologies and chemistries that we | can play God. | | We can play God, do play God, and will continue play God. | People used to think of electricity as the rage of an angry | God. Now you're raging against progress on a device that | harnesses lightning at a quantum scale in ways unthinkable even | 50 years ago. Do you have no appreciation whatsoever for how | much good it does to expand humanity's capabilities? Can you | see only the downsides? The people complaining about technology | and progress should propose actual fixes for the problems that | appear instead of braying from the sidelines about how nobody | should ever do anything. | 0942v8653 wrote: | Not even limited trials with a long window of study (how long?) | will prevent this. Science itself is a non-holistic way of | looking at the world, blind to what is not measured. Concerning | this example, it seems like a predictable effect of pesticides | and global trade -- not unexpected, though perhaps not hoped | for. Instead, the principle of caution must be applied when | using technology. Pesticides that increase yield or decrease | risk by only 10% may not be necessary at all. | | Any industrial action will disrupt Earth's equilibriums given | the high level of consumption those in the developed world | currently enjoy. | speedybird wrote: | > _Science itself is a non-holistic way of looking at the | world, blind to what is not measured._ | | This is unfortunately a broad class of error; qualitative | metrics which are difficult to measure and quantify get | brushed aside by people who want to make rational data-driven | decisions. Robert McNamara became infamous for this; the | 'data driven' way he tried to manage the Vietnam War focused | on hard quantitative metrics, like bodycounts, and de- | emphasized or ignored qualitative metrics like popular | opinion in Vietnam and America: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy | | In the software industry, those that would rely on | instrumentation and telemetry to guide product development | often repeat the same mistakes. Many times I've seen user | feedback ignored, derided, and demeaned. _" Users are dumb, | they don't know what they want. Ask users what they want and | they'll ask for a faster horse."_ These ostensibly rational | data-driven designers are ironically irrational because they | ignore the well established limitations of their data-driven | approach. | randomeat wrote: | It's ok everyone diversity is our strength. Only a bumble bee | supremacist care about bumble bees remaining around. They can | make way for other species | 0des wrote: | Can you point out what's being implied here? I want to | understand the nuance in this comment, and I get that it is | some type of critique, but at the moment what that could be | escapes me. | yongjik wrote: | GP is being grossly off-topic and comparing bumblebees to | white people, repeating the trope that "diversity" is a | liberal agenda toward extinction of white people. | whatshisface wrote: | Associating the demographic trend discussion with white | people only is a little reductive, because Hispanic | fertility rates are below replacement, black fertility | rates are about the same, native American fertility rates | are almost exactly the same, and Asian American fertility | rates are even lower. | | Apparently this chart thinks that we will all be Native | Pacific Islanders in the fullness of time. :O | | (Obviously, don't let the sarcasm be lost on you, these | trends will change as circumstances change.) | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/226292/us-fertility- | rate... | | I have also read about small tribes and languages that are | slowly going extinct. | 0des wrote: | If I may bring some light to the situation, culinarily | it's hard to be mad at that! | Dylan16807 wrote: | Also, they seem to not understand what the word diversity | means? | whatshisface wrote: | An enormous number of ethnic groups have below-replacement | fertility rates. Drawing the lines straight forward on the | graphs predicts that diversity will fall over time. This | being the truth of the matter, I also can't explain this in | any honesty without reference to a certain group of people | who are very upset about that fact, oftentimes because their | own ethnic group in on the list. If someone is bringing up | human ethnic diversity on an article about bumble bees that | might be involved. | | In the US almost every ethnic group has below-replacement | fertility, so _in the abstract_ this isn 't a racism issue; | but it can be interlinked with racist propaganda in practice | so you kind of need to be aware of that. | prirun wrote: | When I was a kid in the 60's, every yard was full of white clover | and bees. Now most everyone around me has beautiful, perfect | grass with no weeds and no clover. And no bees. | justicezyx wrote: | I also know another species: American Indian, has vanished from | almost all states... | speedybird wrote: | Is it feasible for organic farming techniques to feed 8 billion | people? In conversations about the environment like this one, | pesticides and fertilizer (runoff particularly) get raked over | the coals for causing huge environmental disasters. But in other | conversations more focused on social issues, Malthusians get | mocked for not anticipating those very same technological | developments that have allowed us to feed billions of people. | pfdietz wrote: | Not easily, because the nitrogen has to come from somewhere. | Getting it from nitrogen fixing plants would cause a huge hit | to productivity. | carapace wrote: | Short answer, yes. We can feed billions without destroying | ecosystems. | | From the POV of the science of ecology agriculture (from | ancient to modern times) is about the dumbest way to interact | with Nature. It turns out that, once we understood more about | how living systems actually work, we can design ecosystems that | improve soil fertility and increase biodiversity and biomass | over time while providing dense harvests (comparable to or even | greater than modern destructive farming.) | | Look at Permaculture, "Food forests", Syntropic agriculture, | regenerative farming... | | A good start might be "Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with | Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health" | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A | Centigonal wrote: | Not sure whether organic farming techniques can feed everyone | (may be possible), but there's a vast gulf between "completely | organic" and "broadly toxic to the surrounding environment." | | Australia, Spain, the Netherands, and (increasingly) China have | had a lot of success using physical exclusion with nets, | greenhouses, and high-tunnels. They have their own unique | problems (plastic waste, rainwater runoff), but these systems | get incredible crop yields without significant synthetic | pesticide or herbicide use. | | I really think highly automated, hydroponic, mostly non- | vertical indoor farming is the future of vegetable agriculture, | and represents huge potential added value (economic and | otherwise) in the coming 100 years. | | If you're interested in seeing some of these facilities, check | out these videos: | | 1: Australia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fq6PQl7fr8 | | 2: Netherlands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM8Qz-fzJ6M | rootusrootus wrote: | Interesting. It hasn't been _that_ long since I 've seen a | bumblebee. Are there different kinds? I'm in Oregon. | Cryptonic wrote: | Glyphosat | cratermoon wrote: | neonicotinoids | redprince wrote: | It has been implied in the death of honey bees but it appears | that the surfactants in common formulations are to be blamed | and not the glyphosate itself. | | https://www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-its-not-the-glypho... | neolefty wrote: | That's an herbicide, best not to conflate, if only because | people will use it as evidence of ignorance. The article | mentions pesticides: | | > States with the most significant dip in bee numbers have the | largest increase in the use of pesticides like neonicotinoids, | insecticides, and fungicides, per Live Science. | [deleted] | gigatexal wrote: | damnit -- humanity continues to depress me. | update wrote: | > Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North | Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon | | Are the eight states from the title. Though it seems New York | should be included since it says "The bumblebee species have | declined by 99 percent in New York." | | Also noteworthy | | > In the Midwest and Southeast, population numbers have dropped | by more than 50 percent. | | To nobodies surprise, the culprit is pesticides. Interestingly | the west's bumblee population isn't listed as being in trouble. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | Iowa, haven't seen one in years. | cratermoon wrote: | > the west's bumblee population isn't listed as being in | trouble | | What do you call Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon? | bombcar wrote: | "The West" means "California" to many. | whartung wrote: | Well, at one point, "West" meant Ohio. | ISL wrote: | Well, that's incorrect :). | speedybird wrote: | North Dakota is generally considered the mid-west, no? I | suppose mid-west is a sort of west, but I tend to think "the | west" starts when the Rocky Mountains start; about half-way | through Montana. | bagacrap wrote: | by this definition still 3 of the 4 states listed are in | the West | cratermoon wrote: | One common definition is west of the 100th meridian, or | about halfway through North Dakota. Montana is firmly in | the west, as are the other 3 states mentioned, plus | Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and | Washington. | cratermoon wrote: | So New Mexico is not part of the West? | | There's a definition based on climate that's used widely | https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th- | merid... | olah_1 wrote: | I read somewhere that we used to use nicotine-based pesticides | in the past and the bee issue happened when we switched away | from that. | | I guess China still uses nicotine-based pesticides? | ambientenv wrote: | Neonicotinoids - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid | StanislavPetrov wrote: | Anecdotally I live in New York and have seen plenty of | bumblebees this year. | pc86 wrote: | Is this type of comment helpfully, generally? Ancedotes are | typically ignores because they don't show the full picture. | If we have verifiable evidence of a staggering decline in | population of a given species, "yeah well I've seen plenty of | 'em!" doesn't seem particularly useful - to the larger | discussion, toward any sort of objective "truth," or | really... anything. | t-3 wrote: | Anecdotes can be useful in aggregate, where they can | validate or give reason to question a claim. There is a | _lot_ of sloppy science and reporting on environmental | subjects like these - look at the stuff about feral cats | being a danger to songbirds estimating annual predation | levels higher than the regional songbird population. | msrenee wrote: | Can I get a link to the feral cat info you're talking | about? My Google skills are weak. | C19is20 wrote: | As much for the full picture, i come to hn for the | anecdotes. So yes, 'useful', to me. | | And, just to be super-clear, i come for the comments, and | rarely the articles. | msrenee wrote: | So even though you have no way of knowing if the species | of bee this person is seeing is the same one in the | article, you find the information valuable? | msrenee wrote: | There are a lot of species people call bumblebees. This one | particular species, Bombus pensylvanicus, has disappeared | from much of its range. You may be seeing insects that are | called bumblebees, but not likely the species being talked | about in the article. If you do have the knowledge and | experience to be certain that you are seeing lots of Bombus | pensylvanicus in particular, get in contact with your nearest | Fish and Wildlife Service office. That's a big deal. | pfdietz wrote: | Probably Bombus impatiens. I see them all over my property in | the Finger Lakes. | 5faulker wrote: | This is another example of "progress trap" that we didn't see | coming until it's too late to act. | metagame wrote: | We've known what we're doing to all types of bees for a long | time. Here's a paper from 01999 talking about pesticides and | their toxicity to bees: | | https://ucanr.edu/sites/uccemerced/files/40411.pdf | | There are many articles that have found viral audiences | throughout the 02000s about how other bee species are on | extinction spirals because of the American agriculture | industry's lack of regulation. This happening to the | bumblebee is not a real surprise and we've definitely seen it | coming within the window to act. | data_ders wrote: | Very interested in your year notation. This is the first | I've seen of it before. Is this to inspire readers to take | a more long-term view? | mbil wrote: | Yes, The Long Now Foundation[0] uses the same notation. | [0] https://longnow.org/ | adolph wrote: | So long now uses strings instead of integers for year? | That seems shortsighted. | bombcar wrote: | I will start the Long Long Now Foundation and support | years with fifteen leading zeros. Much better. | shagie wrote: | That's already part of a proposed "standard" - | https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2550 | carapace wrote: | I'm not the person you're asking, but FWIW I first heard | of it in connection with the Long Now Foundation | | > The Long Now Foundation uses five-digit dates, the | extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will | come into effect in about 8,000 years. | | https://longnow.org/about/ | bqmjjx0kac wrote: | An unintended consequence is that it confuses C | programmers, who expect an octal literal to follow the | leading 0. | metagame wrote: | I just saw an e-fluencer use it, so I decided I might as | well also. No hidden agenda here. | | But yes, that's the intention behind the action here: | https://blog.longnow.org/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five- | dig... | torstenvl wrote: | 1169 A.D. ??? | bamboozled wrote: | Why do you pad years with an added 0? Looks weird. | metagame wrote: | Y10K compliance, of course. | tptacek wrote: | Fun fact: one of the pressures put on Bombus bees are honey bees, | which are themselves an invasive species. | abeppu wrote: | > If the bee is placed under federal protection, farmers or | developers who harm the insects could face up to $13,000 in fines | each time one is killed, Live Science reports. | | Note that the article identifies systemic causes (use of | neonicotinoids, habitat loss) as causes, and correlational | evidence ("States with the most significant dip in bee numbers | have the largest increase in the use of pesticides like | neonicotinoids, insecticides, and fungicides"), but the | enforcement mechanism they mention is centered around individual | actors after specific killed insects where it's presumed that | attribution is clear. Does this make any kind of sense? | | 1. Would we know when bees are killed? The evidence that we know | how to gather, so far as I can tell, is mostly counting live | bees, not finding dead ones. Are there examples of small, highly | mobile insects with ESA protection where we're actively seeking | out and finding dead individuals? | | 2. Is it typically possible to attribute bee deaths to single | actors? If a bumblebee is found at location X, we might guess | that it would have ranged over an area with radius r around that | (but we're not sure what its actual territory would have been) | which includes N properties, N_d of which have been developed and | N_p of which use pesticides, who is responsible? | | 3. And if the best scientific understanding is about broad | practices (habitat destruction, pesticide use, ...) am I correct | in my belief that we don't have any real mechanism of holding a | class of individuals (e.g. Maine farmers who used neonicotinoids | during a given time period) responsible for an impact to a bee | population (e.g. it's estimated by experts to decline 5% in a | given year) in the absence of a specific pile of dead bees? | | With this, as with a number of other large issues, I think we | need new concepts around group responsibility. We have a concept | of class action lawsuits, where a large group identified by a | criteria (e.g. people whose data was exposed by Equifax) can be | plaintiffs, because individuals meeting that criteria can elect | (or not) to be represented in that group. We do _not_ have a | concept of a large group of people identified by a criteria | (farms using particular pesticides, developers of properties in | the urban-wildland interface) being held responsible for harms | that proceed from that criteria. | Woberto wrote: | I don't understand why they're not fining the | developers/manufacturers/sellers of products that harm the | insects. Isn't it easiest to stop this at the source? How | likely is it that individual farmers will make their own? I | guess there's such thing as moonshine but I don't know how | similar this case is... | | Regardless, this seems like another instance of putting the | responsibility on consumers/individuals, and not on companies | that introduce these products with no regard to the potential | downstream side effects. Guess it maybe ties into to | "regulation" and "individual rights", like how instead of | regulating fast food companies, it's been decided that it's the | consumer's choice whether to eat fast food. I'm getting off on | tangents that maybe aren't related, and I'd be interested to | hear other perspectives. | tinco wrote: | In The Netherlands there is an area that is a key part of the | lifecycle of a specific bird called the "Grutto". It is not | really endangered, but it is at risk, and if The Netherlands | did nothing to protect it, then we would be the cause of its | extinction. | | The way we protect it is that all farmers can report a Grutto | nest on their land. Then the government sends volunteers to | find the nest. If the volunteer finds the nest, the farmer gets | 1200 euro. | | It's a simple scheme but I think it's very effective. It's a | significant amount of money, the farmer will be looking out for | the nests, and will make sure they don't get caught in their | machinery. | | I'm not entirely sure what the economics would be for bee | hives. 1200 euro to put some stakes in the ground and make a | small detour with your tractor, sacrificing maybe 10m2 of | harvest makes sense. Not treating an entire field with | insecticides might not. | admax88qqq wrote: | If the insecticides are what's killing with the bees though, | staking out a 10 m2 section of your field will do nothing to | preserve them. | tinco wrote: | Exactly, the incentive would have to be much larger to get | farmers take the risk and save the bees. | pempem wrote: | My observation is that issues requiring a true shake-up of | those currently in power or strong financial holding (usually | correlated) leads to actions being individualized. This | includes: | | climate - shake up of industrial winners if new policy is | introduced so its on us to 'buy smart' rather than collectively | 'produce smart' | | schools and their performance - shake up of privilege funnels, | tax bases, positions etc. if an equal division of funds is | introduced so its on each family to find school and support | rather than a system wide effort to make sure every kid has an | educational experience that sets them up for success and | participation in our democracy | | immigration - shaking this up would have economic impacts we | don't understand as the entire US economy is at least partially | dependent on affordable/cheap labor or some form of second | class worker to support supremely variable industries like | farming. so its on you to immigrate correctly and complain | about off-shored jobs instead of on the people who are | offshoring them or hiring people without the 'correct' papers. | coliveira wrote: | The oldest ruse in capitalism is to individualize | responsibilities for systemic issues. So, it is aways | responsibility of the individual to avoid problems that were | caused by capitalism as a system, for profit. It always tries | to protect the environment that created the problem and | criminalize the victims. | jmclnx wrote: | I am sure many people are saying "great", one bug gone. But | bumblebees are rather harmless. As a kid they were everywhere, | and a few would land on me. I never got stung by them and I | thought they were fun to watch them fly between flowers. Sadly I | have not seen one in a very long time. | | Just another notch on mankind's pole I guess. | R0b0t1 wrote: | They are docile and fun to investigate. I'm not sure you should | _play_ with them, but they won 't go out of their way to harm | you. | jes wrote: | I can't imagine any thoughtful people thinking this is great. | newsclues wrote: | How many people are thoughtful? Beyond themselves... | hetspookjee wrote: | I'm amazed at the fact that nearly everyone around me really | despises the Eurasian Magpie, the only bird so smart that it | is able to recognise itself in the mirror. Yet the myth that | they exclusively prey on young birds and rob their nests | presses onwards and everyone dislikes them. If they'd | dissappear from the land and you'd tell them, most people | would be happy, of which quite some I consider thoughtful. | Trying to say that even thoughtful people can be extremely | shortsighted. Look around you, how many people still visit | zoo's with primates? Or marinas with cretaceans? All these | extremely clever animals trapped in a desperately small | enclosure yet so many still think it's fine to visit them and | enable this. All in all I think quite some people would, | sadly, be happy with the news that a stinging bug is gone. | hammock wrote: | >the myth that they exclusively prey on young birds and rob | their nests | | Sparrows do this. They are an invasive species and overtake | native songbird population. Never seen anyone hate | sparrows. | | Magpies, people do hate them, not sure why but they are a | type of "trash bird" near population centers. | worik wrote: | I do not like sparrows | | Mice with wings | arrosenberg wrote: | > Never seen anyone hate sparrows. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign | decebalus1 wrote: | Unless there's a way to make a case for it to add shareholder | value, I'd wager that the American Bumblebee is fucked. | animal_spirits wrote: | The cited article is here: | https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/29/2021-20... | Pxtl wrote: | They also used to be a regular sight here in Ontario... I _think_ | I saw one last year. | | Now the only bees we see around regularly are big ol' carpenter | bees. Honey bees and bumble bees that used to be common are now | rarely seen around my city. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-09 23:00 UTC)