Endangered bees

Just this week seven species of a unique bee group was declared endangered by US Fish & Wildlife. These are the first bees to be declared endangered in the US, and are from the genus Hylaeus and they live in Hawaii. Some of these little yellow-faced bees have undergone serious declines and are now restricted to one or a few spots from their historical distributions. 

In other news, the bumble bee Bombus affinis (see the nice video a few posts down) has now been proposed for listing as an endangered species. My work with Sydney Cameron and others and an earlier study by Colla and Packer (2008) provided some of the data that documented the widespread decline of this species from once common to now rare. It was kind of fun seeing statistics that I calculated showing up in news reports! 

If you are interested in bee conservation and the status of native bee conservation efforts, the Xerxes Society is a good group to follow: see their blog here.