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[dramatic piano music]

[music intensifies]

First and foremost,
I want to thank

everybody for being here.

This is, by far,
the biggest turnout

I've seen in helping us
track down Franklin's Bumblebee.

Franklin's Bumblebee was
last seen just up the road,

where we're gonna head
in a couple of minutes, in 2006.

And the more boots on
the ground, the more people

we have looking
for this particular critter,

the better the chances are.

Even though it hasn't

been observed recently,
I am optimistic

that it's still out there,
we just haven't found it.

[Ellen] If I see
a bee with a black abdomen,

I'm gonna
suspect it's Franklin's.

[Tyler] It's as black
as they get, really.

We gotta get-we gotta
show this one to Linc, too.

-[Ellen] Hey Linc!
-[Tyler] Linc, come here.

-[Lincoln] Uh-oh!
-[Tyler] I think we got another

-good one, here.
-[Lincoln] Yes, Tyler,

did it again.

[intense orchestral music]

[dramatic string music]

[narrator] The bumblebee.

Known by its scientific name,
Bombus.

There are over 250 species
harvesting nectar and pollen

from flowering
plants across the globe.

Bumblebees
populate the flowers

that produce
some of our richest crops.

Such as blueberries,
raspberries,

cucumbers and tomatoes.

I like bumblebees because
they're charismatic and lovable.

I even love their name.

I mean, think about it,
the people who gave them

the name "bumblebee",
they were onto something.

Because when you watch them,
they're big, they're buzzy,

they're fuzzy,
they're not especially elegant.

They're kind of bumbling along

as they go
from flower to flower

but it's part of that awkward,
clunky, large behavior,

their-- their flight on flower
after flower after flower,

that makes
them good pollinators

because they are
so buzzy and big

that they are good
at transferring pollen

from flower to flower.

[narrator] Over
the past thirty years,

there has been
a steep decline of the number

of bumblebees
observed in the wild.

This recent
decline is concerning,

due to the important role
that plays to our agriculture

and flowering plants
that occupy our landscape.

♪

Around a quarter of
the bumblebees in North America

are facing some degree
of extinction risk

and the indication
that we have there

is that they're just
not found in the--

in the areas
where they used to be.

[David] Many
of the bumblebee species

are struggling to keep
their place in the world.

[narrator] In
the past twenty years alone,

25% of North America's
bumblebee species

are considered endangered.

This same trend
is being observed

all around the world
by research scientists

and conservationists.

Here's a bumblebee.

Yep, going too fast,
it's gone.

[narrator]
Professor David Kleijn

has been
studying the bumblebee

for several decades
and is one of the world's

most knowledgeable
experts on the bumblebee.

[David] This is the bee hotel.

So, most of
the solitary bee species

nest in the soil
and many of them

like these vertical walls.

[sentimental string music]

They are such a cool
study group to work with

because on one hand,
they're incredibly important

for people functionally
because they pollinate

all our plants,
they pollinate the crops.

And on the other hand,
they are threatened

in their existence
in the Netherlands

about 56% of the species

are on the national
red list,

indicating that they are
threatened in their existence.

Of all the bumblebee species,
you have a couple that do

really well and are still
amongst the most common

wild pollinators that you
can find out there

and then you have this big
other group that struggle,

that go extinct,
that decline severely.

Of course, then,
the researcher in me

becomes really interested,
I want to know why.

Currently in the United-States,
there's two bumblebees

that're protected under
the Endangered Species Act.

There's
the Rusty Patch Bumblebee

which lives in the upper
Midwest and the northeast.

Most recently,
Franklin's Bumblebee

has been added
to the endangered species list.

Getting a species listed
actually takes a long time

and, get this, the average
time it takes is 12 years.

Frankly it's
an unacceptably long time,

species are supposed
to be listed after one year.

There have been 47 species
that have gone extinct

while waiting to be put
on the protection list.

[Rich] Something like
the Rusty Patch Bumblebee,

which upon a time lived
roughly from North Dakota,

to Maine, south to Georgia,

roughly think
about that as a triangle.

That was it's historic range
and it's now disappeared

from, you know, probably
90-97% of it's range.

It's just not
found in any of the areas

where it once was
and that's-- that's how we know

that some species
are in decline.

[narrator]
Several bumblebee species

are being observed
by the scientific community

as slowly disappearing.

Or, like one particular species,
Franklin's Bumblebee,

is possibly extinct.

Good morning everybody,
my name is Jeff Everett.

I'm a biologist with the Fish
and Wildlife service.

I'm the lead biologist
for Franklin's Bumblebee.

The species expert,
Robin Thorpe,

who passed away unfortunately
a couple of years ago,

believed that the best way
to find Franklin's Bumblebee

was to intensively survey
the last known location

at what is historically
the peak of colony activity.

When, in theory, the colonies
are at their largest,

the most number of workers
are out on the landscape

and our detectability
is highest.

Franklin's was
relatively easy to find,

back when it was
abundant on the landscape

in the 80's,
into the 90's

and then about
the early 2000's,

the species
started for decline

and for reasons that are
pretty poorly understood.

There are several
hypotheses

about what exactly
happened to Franklin's,

in that it was a combination
of introduced disease

and a variety of other threats

to the species that,
acting synergistically,

just kinda wiped
them out over time.

There's over,
about 200 species of bumblebees

in the world
and depending on where you draw

certain taxonomic
lines we have 46 or 48

here in North America.

Franklin's Bumblebee
is unique compared to all

the other bumblebees in that
it is very narrowly endemic,

which means it was only
ever found in a very small area.

Three counties
here in southern Oregon

and two in northern California.

Most bumblebees
are very, very widespread

across
their native habitats.

Franklin's was
always narrowly endemic

and it's something
that we didn't understand.

Why was it not more widespread?

It wasn't limited by geography
'cause it's been found

at mountain elevations
like this,

at places higher
than some of the passes

to the south and to the east
and also to the north,

up into the Willamette Valley

so, it could have
spread but it didn't.

Also, it wasn't tied
to a specific host plant

like certain pollinator
and plant interaction.

It's been documented using
a variety of floral species,

many of which are found across
the western United-States.

So it wasn't
held here by geography,

it wasn't held here because
of some special habitat niche

or forging requirement
or something like that.

So we really
don't know why Franklin's

was always extremely
limited on the landscape,

compared to all the other
bumblebees that we have,

most of which are
really quite widespread.

[tense, somber music]

Even with a relatively
narrowly distributed bumblebee,

something that uses
a variety of habitats,

even though we're only
talking about an area

that's about
13,000 square miles,

there's a lot of this habitat
that is higher elevation,

federally-owned
and has never been

systematically
searched for bumblebees.

So Franklin's
could still be out there,

it's just that we're
not necessarily looking

in the right
places at the right times.

This survey that we do
this week is again carrying

on Robin's tradition of looking
at the last known location,

at the peak of colony activity
when you'd think

detectability
would be at its greatest.

♪

I wanted
to introduce Lincoln Best,

from the Oregon Bee Atlas.

And I also wanted
to point out Joe Angler,

who is all
camouflaged up over here.

These two gentlemen are some
of your taxonomic authorities,

if we find something
that looks like

what we are after, or something
that you can't identify,

these guys can help you out.

So, one of the things
we'd like not to do,

is further
the spread of pathogens

throughout our bee communities

and so we will
be up the road here,

setting up a station where you
can sanitize your nets.

If you haven't
already done that,

it's just a quick bleach,
soak and a rinse

and then air-dry,
which won't take long today.

And we also have alcohol wipes
available to sanitize

capture-vials
and those kinds of things.

So we wanna
do what we can to limit

the spread of pathogens
amongst the bee communities.

I haven't seen
a rattlesnake up here

but it's not outside
the realm of possibility,

so just be mindful
of where you're stepping.

Alright, I think
we're in pretty good shape.

[tense, adventure music]

You don't have
to do it all day,

you can do it for an hour,
it doesn't really matter,

but when you're
counting the bumblebees,

you wanna count
every bumblebee you see.

So we can look at the bumblebees
of conservation concern,

of course we have
two museum specimens.

A Bombus Franklini,
from the 1950's

and we have a worker
and a male

and so the tail
has a little bit of off-white

on the very tip
of the abdomen and then,

on top of the thorax
the yellow extends

about two thirds
of the way back.

And those are
the diagnostic features

that we're looking
for today.

♪

[Jeff] Great turnout,
this is really pretty exciting

to have this many people
looking and this many people

interested in what we're
doing and why we're here.

First time I did
this we had maybe 20 people

join us
and we're close to 70.

It gets a little
bit bigger every year,

and really like
the diversity of it, too.

There's the federal
biologists

and conservation organizations
but there's also grassroots,

local land-owners, local
conservation organizations.

Just citizens,
scientists, volunteers,

a couple students
and the state agencies

are quite well represented
this year as well,

so it's really exciting
to see the enthusiasm.

♪

[indistinct chatter]

[man] The way
to identify Franklin's,

he was saying,
the main thing to look for

was a little bit
of sparse whiteness on the tip

of the tail,
the last couple segments.

They're kind of,
usually notched,

like usually black
in the middle.

[Lincoln] But just, the fact
that the "L" comes further back

than just the shoulders,

but it's probably
hard to recognize

in a lot of cases.

So in Occidentalis and a lot
of the other bumblebees here,

it's just the interior
of the shoulders, really,

but on Franklin's,
that yellow extends

two-thirds back on the thorax.

And so, it's not
easy to recognize, really,

but if you see something
like that then bring it back

and we'll take
a look and see what it is.

Yeah, there's tons of,
you know, convergence

in their mimicry
in this region, so.

There's like, eight species
that look almost all the same.

[laughs]

It's really challenging
to tell bumblebees apart.

They have
big, bright colors,

they're a big bee but you
have to look really closely.

Sometimes for some of them,

they have perfectly
black abdomens

with a yellow stripe
right across the tip

in exactly the same place

and they're
two different species.

You actually have
to look under a microscope

and see how long their cheek is,

the difference
from their eye to their jaw

and on a bumblebee
that's really small-- [laughs]

--so telling
the difference,

it takes-- it takes looking
at hundreds and hundreds

of bees and then, suddenly,

your brain is--
you know, it learns.

It figures out how
to see what you're seeing.

If I see a bee
with a black abdomen

and virtually
no color on the abdomen,

I'm gonna suspect
it's Franklin's

and then I'm gonna
take it to Linc.

[laughs]

You know, Linc's the man,
so, we'll, uh, always confirm.

So, trust but verify, right?

[laughs] Yeah.

[uplifting string music]

[Lincoln] If you
guys wanna go hike,

it's-- there's a bowl
down there, it's super nice.

The vegetation should be,
like-- it's really nice.

Yeah, tons of flowers,
beautiful,

and if you're adventurous,
you can go down to the bottom

of the bowl where there's
different plant communities.

Just be loud.

There's bears, it's okay, just,
you know, make some noise, and--

Don't try and, sus--
you know, surprise them.

Ha, that's a bear!

There's a big ol' black
bear that lives down here.

So, there's often a lot of,
um, black bear activity,

especially down near the bottom.

You can see
where they've been rolling logs,

foraging for ants.

Well, you can
see it's a big one.

[laughs]

-[woman] There?
-[Lincoln] Yeah. Full size.

♪

I do, or I certainly
think it can be.

It inhabited a really wild
and diverse region

of the country in which
relatively few people live.

And the areas that we've
searched for it are really,

for the most part,
the most highly impacted areas

where bees probably generally
aren't doing that great.

But there's a bunch of mountains
in northern California

that are wilderness,
that haven't been touched

by agriculture
and there's really no--

you know, no reason why we would
expect a rapid population crash.

I'm hopeful that someone
will re-find this bee.

[Jeff] Franklin's Bumblebee
is important

because if we can figure out
exactly what happened to it,

why did we see
that really steep decline

in the bee and what changed
in how this critter

interacted
with it's habitat

and learn what happened,

we can then apply
meaningful conservation

from the lessons that we learn

towards
other pollinator species,

including a couple of bumblebees
that we're concerned about.

♪

[Jeff] One
of the other bumblebees

that we're interested
in is Western Bumblebee,

which we still
have on the landscape

but has seen
significant declines

and we do find
them here most years.

Not every year but most years.

Yeah, two years ago, this--

I found the Western Bumblebee,

like, right over the edge
of this little ridge here.

The Western
is very rare out here,

in the western side of Oregon
and Washington, it's very few.

I was the only one to find
a Western Bumblebee here,

out of everybody
like two years ago

and we didn't find the Western
Bumblebee at all last year.

But overall,
it's population is down

something like 95%
across its range,

which really spans
the whole western United-States.

[Jeff] And then,
Suckley's Cuckoo Bumblebee

is another bee that
we've been petitioned to list

under the Endangered Species Act
and that hasn't been seen

in Oregon
in the last five or six years.

[Lincoln] And here
comes Mr. Bushman

with something in his net.

Do you got a bumblebee?

Let's take a look.

So, everyone,
watch your footing,

it is-- uh, it's pretty steep.

[birds tweeting]

So, male bees
don't have stingers

and so I can tell
this is a male bumblebee

because it has
really long antennae.

It's got long,
skinny hind legs

and it has an extra long
and skinny abdomen.

This is a male Cuckoo,

so the female Cuckoos
are really big.

Their bodies are really
thick and well-armored

and, like a Cuckoo Bird,
they sneak into the nest

of their host and lay an egg
and then the host's

workers raise
the Cuckoo's egg for them.

What do you got, Henry?

[Henry] It's interesting.

[Lincoln] This is the female
Cuckoo Bumblebee,

all of the females
of this species look like this.

They'd all be large and all be
capable of invading a nest.

[Jess] These Cuckoo Bumblebees

are rare and special
and they're also in decline.

Which is why the center's
petitioned for protections

for Suckley's Cuckoo and
the Variable Cuckoo Bumblebee.

[Lincoln] If we catch
a female Bombus Flavidus,

which is the other kind
of Cuckoo Bumblebee up here.

It has a big stinger
but it also has S6,

the apical sternite
modified into a big,

curved spine
and presumably to open

the abdominal segments
of the queen it's battling,

to be able to sting it
more effectively.

So, Cuckoo Bumblebees
don't collect pollen,

they don't really
manage their own nest,

it's just reproductive
females and males.

And so, this is one of the males
and we can just let him go.

[gentle music]

When there's tons of forage
around, you don't travel far.

You wanna forage really
efficiently, um,

and so, you know,
up on Mount Ashland here,

we have tons
of great flowers

and so, these bees
shouldn't really need to,

you know, travel kilometers
on a foraging bout.

Um, they'll stick
as close to home as they can.

Are these huge
things Delphinium?

Wow! These
are all giant Delphinium

and they're
probably still

a week away
from blooming as well

but these things
will go six feet high.

Red flowers are usually
not for bees, however, y'know,

bees, bumblebees and
solitary bees will visit

the Red Paintbrush
and yesterday, y'know,

I was suspicious
that any bees visited Columbine.

Yesterday,
we were up at Table Mountain

and we saw a little
Sweat Bee crawl up the corolla

of the Columbine, so,
y'know, in some cases; yes.

♪

The story of Franklin's
Bumblebee is really interesting.

[Jeff] They declined very
quickly over a very short amount

of time and we don't
know exactly how abundant

the overall population-- how
healthy the populations were,

until we started
noticing that the species

was becoming rarer and
rarer and harder to find.

[David] And this we see, for
many, many species and this sort

of confirms our belief that many
of the bumblebee species are

struggling to sort of, y'know,
keep their place in the world.

[Jess] Even though it hasn't
been observed recently,

I'm optimistic that
it's still out there,

we just haven't found it.

♪

[Lincoln] It's one
of my favorite things to do,

to be honest, is to go out and,
like, hunt for this bee.

I'm looking at
thousands of bees every day,

trying to look for
this one bee that's, like,

just a little bit different
from all the rest of them.

That would just be
so exciting, if we found,

I think that-- I feel
like that's front page news.

♪

So there's not a single
issue that explains the decline

of bumblebees,
it's a complex of factors.

Most important ones are:
habitat destruction and loss.

So simply,
y'know, natural habitat

has been converted into
built-up areas or herbland.

The second one is:
pests and diseases.

The third one is: loss of food.

So, the disappearance of flowers
from the countryside and,

more recently,
it's exposure to pesticides.

And the reasons for
bumblebee decline are

poorly understood and
very complicated because

it's not any
one particular thing.

If you take a colony
of bumblebees and you load

that colony
with a number of diseases,

bumblebees fall victim to
a number of pretty nasty stuff.

There's mites and
parasites and fungus and all

kinds of other things.

All of which act
to weaken the bee,

make it's job harder to do.

Make it sick,
make it harder to forage

and fly, all those things.

And then you throw
pesticide applications,

broad-spectrum insecticides
and those kinds of things.

Many of which are
really bad news for our bees.

You're beating up
their immune systems,

you're beating up
their ability to interact

with their landscape
and grow and reproduce and then,

you throw competition
for managed bees on top of

it and a number of other
factors: large-scale habitat

alterations and those
kinds of things and it's

sort of a "death by
a thousand cuts" over time.

[David] Many of these bees are
threatened because they fail to

reproduce successfully and then
the numbers dwindle and decline.

They fail to
reproduce because of lack

of floral resources within
a foraging range of their nests.

Of course, y'know,
bees are fixed to their nests,

so any food needs to
be available within, say,

five hundred
meters of their nests,

otherwise it becomes
too costly to collect it.

An interesting fact
that many people don't

know is that bees are
just about the only species

group that rely on
flowers for everything.

So they need the nectar
themselves to fuel them and

they need pollen and
nectar to feed their offspring.

It's the only thing they need,
flowers, so it's increasingly

difficult for
bumblebees to find food.

They have this colony that lives
for two months up to six months

and throughout that whole
period, there needs to be food.

If there's a gap of two weeks,
for example, the colony dies

and then they won't
produce a single new queen.

With other bee species,
that's much simpler,

they can reproduce immediately
but with bumblebees they need

this continuous period of time,
with floral resources.

Bees are exceptionally important
for the pollination of plants,

and pollination of plants
simply refers to the process

where pollen from one
flower is being transferred to

another flower and
pollen is required to

fertilize the other
flower and thereby produce

the seeds or the fruits
with which the plants reproduce.

There's a number of
statistics you can hear

when you start looking
at pollinator conservation

that you hear soundbites like:
"three out of every four

bites of food that we take are,
in one way or another,

dependent upon bees."
Whether it's honeybees,

or bumblebees or other
species of managed bees.

And so pollination is
fundamentally important to

the human existence because
it provides such an incredible

ecosystem service in
terms of food production for us.

[David]
So, there is this statement

going around
that if the bees go extinct,

then four years later
people will go extinct.

It's not as black and white
as that, fortunately for us,

but we will lose many, many
wild plant species and we will

lose all kinds of animals
that depend on these bees.

Yes, we will suffer
as well because we have

a lot of
the really nice foodstuffs.

Especially the fruits
and the nuts and the oil crops,

that produce more when
they are pollinated or produce

products of a better quality
and that, of course,

will become worse
if we don't have bees anymore.

[Jess] And it could
be that some places will

become less suitable
for bees in general because

there's not
as many flowering species.

[David] If the bees disappear,
then the plants don't

reproduce as well and
then they might decline as well.

So sometimes,
individual bee species just

forage on one single plant
species and then you can imagine

that if you lose that species,
then this particular

plant species will
suffer the consequences.

It looks like we're pretty
good for floral resources here.

This is corn lily,
this is lupin.

[Lincoln]
You can always tell when

something's foraging
on the lupins because

they have these neon
orange-red pollen stashes.

And there's a variety of
other things blooming here.

The stuff over here that's
got these little white flowers,

is a favorite
of Western Bumblebee,

that's bistort.

That's a good place to
look for target species.

If you're looking for
Western Bumblebees, that's one

of the flowers you might
pay pretty close attention to.

Not only is this
the last known location for

Franklin's Bumblebee
but as far as bumblebee habitat,

this is about as good
as it gets in this area.

This is really
high quality stuff.

'Cause higher elevation
and federally owned,

there's a lot of
naturally occurring wildflowers.

There's not a lot of
disturbance, or anthropogenic

impacts, development,
those kind of things.

There's also very little,
if any, pesticide use and other

things that can really
harm our bees but in particular,

at this elevation,
this whole hillside here,

there's some naturally occurring
springs that are in here and

the steeper slopes that have
this kind of geography,

they tend to hold moisture
very late in the growing season,

when a lot of this stuff dries
out and the lupin can be as tall

as I am and the bees
will pile into those areas.

♪

[Lincoln] Oh, here's
a different bumblebee: a mixtus.

-[Ellen] You got a mixtus?
-[Lincoln] Yeah.

And so, soon as we see this
different kind of flower,

we get a different
kind of bumblebee.

She has a pale tail but
you can see, y'know,

compared to
the bees we've seen so far,

which primarily just have
yellow shoulders and then

some yellow markings
near the end of the abdomen,

this one has
extensive yellow on the thorax.

Although there's not hundreds
of species of bumblebees,

there's tons of variation
in their color-forms and so

that makes it actually
really difficult to identify

a lot of bumblebees
because you have to become

accustomed to seeing
these subtle differences.

You hear me
today talking about: "Oh,

this bumblebee
has yellow shoulders."

Well, like
eight bumblebee species

up here have yellow shoulders.

So just little differences
that you can learn over time.

Linc always laughs
when the new OBA students

say: "Oh I'm gonna start
on bumblebees 'cause they'll be

easy and to a person it's
like: "Bumblebees are so hard!"

[Lincoln] Oh yeah,
I think you can add this

one to your list too,
look at how big this one is.

I don't think I've
seen one quite so yellow.

It's a trophy,
it's-- and it's also,

like a little bit bigger, so
it feels like its "let's look!".

[Ellen] Do you think
it's a queen or a worker?

[Lincoln] It's
probably a worker, to be honest.

[Ellen] Oh,
you think it's a ???

[Lincoln] It's appositus.

[Ellen] Yellow further down.

[Lincoln] Yeah,
White-Shouldered Bumblebee.

The shoulders aren't
super white on this one

but western Oregon
sometimes has a novel

color form with more
yellowy-orange shoulders.

[Ellen]
What was your big tell on that?

[Lincoln] So,
nevadensis has black on T4 and

T5 and this bee obviously
has more yellow...

-Yeah it's yellow on--
-...apical on the abdomen.

Yeah, apical part of
the [indistinct].

That's a big one and yeah,
I've never seen-- I've seen

appositus before but
never a big one--

This is actually
an appositus worker,

so the queens are another
a full size bigger,

-they're huge.
-Holy moly.

♪

[David] What makes
bees a bit vulnerable is

that they are tied to a nest.

So they,
in the nest, they provide food

to their offspring,
usually eggs and they have

to find food within
foraging range of that nest.

This is usually no
more than five hundred meters,

so if there are no
flowers within that distance

from the nest entrance,
then they will not survive.

We can find bumblebee nests,

colony sites but they're
remarkably difficult to find.

[Lincoln] So this is it,
it's just a little hole

into the ground and
you might see bumblebees

going in and out of there.

And that's, y'know, could
be the entrance to a colony.

[David]
Many bumblebee species nest

below ground
in abandoned vole's nests.

And, of course,
in many parts in the world,

we don't have those
anymore because we manage

the land with these
big machines and they sort

of flatten
everything down below.

And so, one
of the things that makes

this high
quality bumblebee habitat

is pretty granular,
loose, easily dug soils.

It's really remarkably dry,
as we know but there's a ton of

naturally occurring
rodent activity here and so,

as we walk around
and look through here,

you'll see lots and
lots of rodent holes.

Those are primarily
what a lot of these bumblebees

use for their nesting sites.

There we go,
this would be a great

bumblebee nest right here.

They're not very deep,
they don't have to be,

it could be just a couple of
centimeters below the surface.

A fully grown
bumblebee colony wouldn't

necessarily be any
bigger than a softball.

[Rich] Over the last
twenty years or so,

we've helped install
y'know, in the neighborhood

of a million acres
of pollinator habitat and

invertebrate habitat on
farms throughout North America.

Bees and other
pollinators need food,

they need shelter and they also
need a place to over-winter and

that place to over-winter
is different than their nest.

They actually will dig a hole,
underneath the ground,

just a couple
inches below the ground,

we believe under leaf litter,
underneath pine needles and

that's where
they spend the winter.

So, half of their life is sort
of spent in this solitary life

phase and then they need
these sites to be connected.

So, we need to be working
not just at a homeowner scale

but we need to be working at
a neighborhood, at a community,

at a city-wide,
at a state-wide scale,

to allow connectivity between
these islands of habitat.

Nesting is one of
the big unknowns for bumblebees.

Like, we know almost
nothing about--

especially at
a species by species level,

we almost know
almost nothing about

where they nest,
what components are

important or
where they over-winter.

Once a species
is protected under

the Endangered Species Act,
it regulates activities that can

happen in
the spaces that they live.

Whenever a federal
action has the capacity

to harm an endangered species.

So, like,
you might think of road-building

or building
a railroad or something.

These have the capacity
to destroy habitat,

which might
harm endangered species.

A species could be designated
critical habitat, which protects

a certain piece of it's habitat
from development or other harms.

And most of those impacts are
where there's a federal nexus.

So, on a project that's being
funded by the federal government

or on federal lands,
those animals are protected.

♪

Well certainly, it's
arguable that municipalities

have access to more idle
lands that could be put to use

for bee conservation
than most of us do and

these involve acres
that are otherwise unoccupied.

It's the margins along a park,
the margins along a fence row,

power right-of-ways,
which tend to be mowed.

These could very easily be,
instead, converted into bee

forages, perennial flowers,
clovers at the very least,

that come back and re-seed
themselves each year and provide

forage for land that's
otherwise a pollinator desert.

This is a good thing
municipalities can do:

the roadsides,
the medians in between

four-lane highways could
be converted into forage space.

Grass doesn't do pollinators any
good but if it's this blooming

plant, like clovers, this
is one step above just grass.

♪

♪

[Lori] My daughter and I,
Allie, thought: "We need this.

A community garden
that will give to others.

We put together
a business plan and what

it would take and
materials and budget and

then we contacted
somebody in the city.

He took it to the town
council and the mayor,

they got behind it,
set aside the land.

The garden reports
to the tree commission,

within the city of Acworth.

If people donate money,
we put it all into the garden

and then we take all
the produce and we donate it to,

right now,
we're supporting one subsidized

senior apartment complex;
we hope to have two next year.

Mark has become our leader
in plant health and happiness.

He is the reason we are
at 1000 plus pounds this week.

His talent and his dedication
to keeping this organic,

no-till garden alive and
thriving through the heat and

the drought and the watering and
the non-watering and his talents

help the garden take
off at the other end.

[Mark] My background is
almost entirely construction

but I've always
loved to garden.

I've been gardening
the entire time I've lived here,

gardened when I was a kid.

I got, I dunno,
seventy or eighty house-plants,

I love plants and actually
Lori set up a plant-swap,

take a plant,
leave a plant kinda thing.

I came down there, they were
signing up volunteers and I was

like: "Oh this is perfect,
it's half a mile from my house."

And I came down here the first
day when they were literally

building the beds and I guess
I arrived way more prepared than

everybody else did, I had
a full set of tools and, y'know.

'Cause I understand
the plants and the construction.

Look at him,
jumpin' right on the flower,

that'll be
a raspberry in three days.

These were just a few seeds,
you can see the stumps

that we had to cut,
over there and over there.

That was okra,
how tall was our okra?

-[Mark] Ten, twelve feet.
-[Lori] Big,

gorgeous beautiful blooms

and we interspersed
zinnias in it.

You can see the stumps,
I mean, that's a massive

new okra plant.

We just threw
so many seeds down,

I mean we're probably on
seed overload but

it created
such a full, thriving,

diverse pollinator
section and some of the--

we get some campers here and
we host little programs.

What I say to
the kids is "the pollinator

bed is the party,
it's the dance.

All the bees and the wasps and
the butterflies and ladybugs,

they come to party and
they party hard down here.

And then they're
lookin around and they go 'Oh!

Hey! What's over there?'

And then they all
move into the garden.

So it draws-- this big section,
kinda draws them in

and they just hop on
right through the fence.

[Mark] Hidden under
some of this is the native

milkweeds and then
we've got merit golds

-and I don't even know--
-[Lori] Zinnias.

-[Mark] Zinnias.
-[Lori] Cosmo.

Eighty percent of everything
here was grown by seed.

Those were just two little seeds
that plopped in the ground.

I guess it must be
about ten feet tall,

'cause our fence is eight
feet tall to keep the deer out.

[Mark] Yeah, we do
have a problem with the deer.

[Lori] So that was our biggest
reason why we had to have such

a high fence and when you
see this in full bloom

-it is just amazing.
-[Mark] It is amazing,

and then we plant some in
with the plants as well,

so there's always something

blooming because if
there's always something

blooming there's
always bees 'cause you want

those bees there 'cause
they're really good for

tomatoes, melons,
'cause they need something

that really shakes it and
bumblebees do that for sure.

And actually,
they stay out here, in the cold

mornings you can come out here,
they're asleep in the flowers.

They don't
even leave the flowers,

they stay out here overnight
and wait for the sun to come up

and come back to life
and start eating again.

They'll sleep on the flowers,
I've seen it all the time.

And in the afternoons, it's
hundreds and hundreds of them.

They're everywhere,
they're buzzin' around.

Clearly,
the addition of the wildflowers

was the key right there.

The cucumbers did really well,
we got 130 pounds of cucumbers

from that one eight by four bed.

'Cause cucumbers and everybody--
every member of that family has

male and female
flowers and they're individual.

So, if a bee doesn't come along,
hit your male flower and then

hits your female flower,
you get no fruit and they are

covered in blooms, I mean,
hundreds are open all the time.

They're not open that long,
either, they're only open for,

generally three,
four hours in the morning.

So, the bees getting at
it first thing in the morning

is crucial to get in that fruit.

In the squashes here, any kind
of squashes here, the flowers

are huge, there's a bee in every
single bloom in the morning.

So we don't have to
worry about comin' out

here and doing it ourselves.

♪

[Lincoln]
So, what's this one, Jess?

[Jess] Oh, you're
putting me on the spot here?

[Lincoln] Yeah,
I'll put you on the spot.

[Jess] Oh man, I'm
probably gonna get this wrong.

My first guess is
melanopygus but...

[Lincoln] Yeah, so the local
morph of melanopygus

looks very much
like this but if you see

on the posterior thoracic band,

it's bisected with
a little bit of black.

-[Jess] It is, yeah.
-And this is a queen, too.

This is what was formerly
known as bombus bifarius.

So now this would
be considered bombus

vancouverensis and
the subspecies nearcticus,

which is widespread
through the west.

She's really mad about
being in there.

-[Ellen] Oh yeah.
-[Lincoln] She thinks she can

get out of there, but...
so we're gonna let her go,

she was visiting this cool
little flower that's

just covering this hillside.

There she is
just crawling around,

crawling into
the vegetation to escape.

Here's a good example
of how the bumblebees will

use multiple different plants.

This bumblebee here
has it's pollen baskets

full of lupin pollen
but it's nectaring on this

other plant
to get some carbohydrates.

The reason for that is,
lupin's don't have any nectar,

so this bee is collecting
the lupin pollen and then coming

over here to
drink nectar and fuel up.

♪

[Jeff] It takes a lot
of skill and control for this

thing to fly efficiently,
so when we do find them resting

because bumblebee flight
is very energetically expensive,

we also find
them grooming as well.

It helps keep them as
efficient and clean as possible.

Also, a lot of these bumblebees,
like we were mentioning earlier,

have naturally occurring
pathogen and parasite loads

and so grooming
helps keep things down,

like mites and other nasty

things that tend to live on
and hitch rides with bumblebees.

[Jess] The decline of
Franklin's is interesting

and I think one major
issue was definitely disease

spread from
honeybees in the area.

[Jeff] They really
started seeing widespread

population declines
and losses of entire hives

and a lot of people
who were paying attention to

the honeybees really
started raising the alarm.

I think the first colony
was thinkin' about swarming.

[Keith] Oh really?
That would be a spectacle.

I think they are swarming!

This is a real--
you need to get this!

This is a rare event!

What we have happening here,
is a honeybee colony

that is swarming and
swarming means colony division.

It's a colony's way of
splitting and forming a new one

and this colony is--
they have reared a queen,

this blue hive there on the end,

the new queen stays
at the parent nest but the old

queen flies away with about
half of the worker population.

And you can see that cloud
of bees up in that tree,

they're forming a visual
focal point and they're going to

consolidate on a limb up
there and they will cluster

there temporarily for
about an hour or so and then

the cluster will eventually move
away to a more permanent site.

[Keith] When I started
keeping bees in the 1970s,

it was standard for
a queen to live four years.

We would have marked queens,

we knew her age and history,
that lasts for four years.

Well this never happens anymore,

we're fortunate now if we get
a queen to last one season.

So there's a hundred
different reasons for this,

it's probably
attached to the types of

things that are making
bees decline in general.

Y'know, pesticides
in the environment,

viruses that are spread
by parasites and that all adds

up to poor longevity
for queens as well.

[David] There're
about five or six species

of honeybees worldwide.

All the other bee species,
so the other 20,000

bee species,
they don't make honey.

So they just collect
the nectar from the flowers

and they feed
it directly to their young.

[Keith] And, y'know,
honeybee, for all the headlines

that we read about them,
there's probably more honeybees

on Earth today at this
moment than at any time in

natural history
because of managed beekeeping.

[Keith] I'm gonna use the smoke
just to kinda puff the bees and

let them know that I'm arriving
and that disorients them,

so they're less
likely to get excited.

This is a comb of honey,
the freshest food product in

all agriculture is honey.

Honeybees are valuable
pollinators because they're so

manageable and the techniques
are worked out and they can be

cultured in the millions
and commercial-scale beekeepers

will have thousands of
colonies in one operation.

They're mechanized,
they can be moved and hauled

with a lot of ease and facility,
so it's for this reason

that honeybees are the standard
pollinator but they're by no

means the most efficient
on an individual basis.

And because they're year-long
active colony, they are adapted

to visit a lot of types
of flowers, they're generalists.

Whereas the solitary bees,
who have a very brief

life-cycle,
they are adapted to be very good

pollinators for whatever
crop or plant is blooming at

the same brief window
of the bees' active season.

One of the flagship
examples we grow here at

the UGA horticulture
farm and that's blueberries.

We have a native crop
of blueberries that grow here at

the farm and throughout
the south-east and we have

lots of native bumblebees
that pollinate them very well.

[Jess] Bumblebees contribute,
like, millions of dollars to

the agricultural economy
every year and they live there

and provide pollination service;
which is really important.

Bumblebees have value
much beyond how they can

grow food for humans.
Without bumblebees and a whole

community of bees,
our natural ecosystems would

really become impoverished
because there're so many

flowering plants that depend
on bees for pollination.

And if they don't have that,
they can't produce seed,

to continue to produce.

Bumblebees are
absolutely better pollinators

for some plants
compared to honeybees.

That's why in a lot
of greenhouse situations,

the bumblebee
is the preferred bee.

♪

[Rich] One of
the main effects and leading,

sort of,
hypotheses for the decline in

Franklin's Bumblebee and
the Rusty Patch Bumblebee and

the Western Bumblebee, these
bees that have been petitioned

for endangered species
listing is actually a disease.

It's a fungal pathogen,
that we believe has been spread

and amplified by the commercial
bumblebee industry.

If you're a farmer right
now and you grow tomatoes in

a greenhouse,
you can buy a box of

bumblebees from a lab
and they'll ship it to you.

And it's believed that,
in the mid 1990's that these

colonies had a fungal
pathogen that was then spread

and amplified throughout
North America and transmitted to

our wild bumblebees and
likely caused the rapid declines

that we saw in these
bees in the mid-1990's

and that industry is
basically unregulated.

We have no idea where those
colonies are being shipped,

we have no idea how many of
them are being shipped around,

y'know, the industry's not

sharing this
information with us.

In my mind, if the federal

government takes an interest in

pollination services,
which, they should,

i's a billion-dollar
industry and it's feeding

the people who live here,
they should be interested in

pollinator conservation
and regulating that industry,

at least understanding
where those are being

shipped so that
we can potentially track

disease outbreaks if
they happen again in the future.

And then also establishing
a clean stock program,

so that those
animals are actually tested

independently before
they leave the laboratory,

so the farmer can be sure
that the colony that they're

putting on their farm,
that's gonna interact with

their wild bees, isn't
spreading diseases to them.

They should know
that and right now, we don't.

There's no independent
clean stock program out there

that's protecting native
bees from these commercial bees.

[Jess] Many people
bring their honeybees

out to public lands,
just like grazing cattle,

it's a similar
process for honeybees.

Unfortunately,
bringing in honeybees,

which are effectively livestock,
to an area where there

weren't honeybees before,
they can out-compete the wild

bees in the area because
there's just so many of them.

A honeybee hive
can be millions of bees,

across multiple colonies.

In addition, the honeybees
can bring in diseases with them,

which can be
spread to wild bees.

[Sheila] For the extent
of the decline that we've seen

for these bumblebees
that are at risk of extinction,

the only real thing
that explains it is probably

an introduced disease
that they were not evolved with

because it happened so rapidly
over such a large landscape.

It's still a little bit
of a guessing game but in terms

of the amount of area
where they've declined from,

something like COVID
for bees makes the most sense.

And this has happened
in so many other animals,

like Serengeti Lions and
mad cow and bird flu,

it happens
actually all the time,

where we see novel diseases

being brought in and
it just wipes out wildlife.

So this is probably the leading
hypothesis for these species.

They're being introduced through
the use of managed bees,

so, managed bumblebees
in greenhouses

and managed honeybees.

Honeybees are bringing
in a whole bunch of viruses

from Asia and Europe,
for example,

that our native bees
have not co-evolved with.

[Rich] Taking that agricultural
problem and bringing it to

our wild lands,
our wilderness areas,

our national parks,
our state lands that are refuges

for these animals and some
of the last places that haven't

been impacted by,
y'know, pesticides and

disease and agriculture
is not the right solution.

Leave our natural wild
areas for our wild bees,

we can't be bringing honeybees
there and bringing diseases and

competing with our native
bees in our public lands.

That's just, for me,
for the most part,

a pretty clear no-no.

[Keith] You will
find in garden centers,

oftentimes,
bee houses which are little

blocks of wood that'd
have had holes drilled in 'em

to invite tunnel
nesting bees to nest in 'em.

This is good but you have to
also be aware that the parasites

and diseases can accumulate
in those tunnels as well.

So sometimes they may
work for a season or two

but then be a death
trap in later generations.

So, bee condos-- I mean,
once people started caring about

honeybees, or bee declines,
they popped up at CostCo right?

They became so mainstream,
like, "Oh, you can just put this

out and you'll save the bees."

But a researcher here in Toronto

studied bee condos for
three years and what they found

was that they tend to
be non-native bees mostly

that are using them and
that they are-- the native bees

that are in them are
more highly parasitized.

So when you think about it,

you're basically
making a buffet of bees.

The bees are in a more
highly dense situation

than they would be in
nature if they were just

kind of nesting
in their own twigs.

There's a lot that needs
to be figured out in terms of

cleaning them out and
fungus growing inside those

things and
parasites thriving in them.

So I would just be
super cautious about any kind of

human-made solution that is not
really scientifically supported.

There's this broad
education out there,

I think people have learned
the "save the bee" message and

they immediately start
thinking about honeybees and,

like, the backyard honey bee
industry has taken off.

And all of
these things, probably,

are not good,
like, ultimately right?

Keeping honeybees in
your backyard is not a good

thing to do,
it's not conservation.

Right, that would
be like me saying: "Oh,

look at these chickens
I have in my backyard,

this is bird
conservation right?"

That is not what you do
when you have chickens in

your backyard, you say: "Look,
these are beautiful animals.

I learn from them,
I get eggs from them

and that's great;
that's why I'm doing this.

I'm not practicing
bird conservation."

That's the same thing
with honeybees in your backyard.

You get honey, you can have wax,
they're beautiful animals,

you can learn from them
and enjoy them and educate

your neighbors about
them but it's not conservation;

there's no
conservation that's happening.

In fact,
they're probably competing

with the native
bees that used to live

in your backyard and
stealing pollen from them.

[Sheila] The reality is,
anytime we manage any animal,

whether it's salmon,
or cow, or chickens, or pigs,

there's always
high levels of diseases.

The human species,
we have not figured out how to

put a whole bunch of
animals together and breed them

at high densities, much
higher than are found in

nature and not have
disease outbreaks happen.

So, if you look at
honeybee hives in the U.S.

for example,
it's over 95% that they will

have Varroa mite, or
some other virus or something.

So beekeepers really just try
to treat their honeybee hives,

keep those disease levels low
but it doesn't stop the diseases

from being spilled over
into the wild because honeybees

are not like chickens,
they're not inside a coop but

the solution that the public
and policy-makers have come up

with has been more honeybee
hives in cities, for examples.

Like, how many sustainable
initiatives for businesses are

throwing a honeybee
hive up on the rooftop, right?

So, it actually made
the number one threat

a lot worse and it's
frustrating because these

people are actually
thinking that they're helping.

The research that we've
done and that others have done,

show that in many crop systems,
that if there's enough

habitat on a farm,
that there will be enough native

bees to provide 100%
of the pollination services.

[Keith] Pollination
is a strategic input in

modern food production.

In part because
it increases yield,

think about it,
so much of what we do

in agriculture is
oriented at conserving losses.

Y'know, we worry about a pest,

so we spray to
keep the pest pressure down

so that we don't lose
more of a yield but pollination

is one of those inputs
that actually raises yield.

The more pollination you get,
the more yield you get.

♪

[dramatic orchestration]

♪

[Lincoln] Oh,
I think I got a good one.

Black face but yeah,
it's just like,

it's abdomen
is almost entirely black but

there's, like,
this little white patch.

If you're
gardening for pollinators,

you can put a sunflower
in your garden to get sunflower

bees to come to your garden,
yeah, exactly like that.

I haven't looked at
enough of the Franklin specimens

to really have a good
sense of what they look like,

I just look
for the black abdomen.

If we just get right over here,
the ground is just

nothing but flowers.

-[Ellen] Pretty black.
-[Jess] Yeah, I mean,

that's as black as they get,
really.

[Ellen] That's really black.

[Jess] Oh, no,
we gotta go-- we gotta

show this one to Linc, too.

-[Ellen] Hey Linc!
-[Lincoln] Oh cool!

[Jess] Come 'ere.

[Lincoln] Uh-oh!

[Jess]
We got another good one, here.

[Lincoln] Jess Tyler,
did it again.

Apparently so.

And so, there you go,
that's a worker...

Western Bumblebee.

Yeah, they've
become very rare out here,

we only find
just one or two a year.

You can see
the yellow shoulders and then

Western Bumblebees in this
region have a novel color form.

So they don't have a long,
white tail.

The ones in this area
have the apical segments,

just T5 and 6 with
the hairs off-white.

So it's a little hard to
tell but the face is very round.

[Jess] Hmm, round face,
yeah I haven't looked at them

-closely enough--
-[Lincoln] And the round face

is a consequence of
having a short cheek and so,

like Franklin's,

bombus occidentalis,
Western Bumblebee,

has a short cheek and
relatively short tongue.

So if this was a Franklin's,
it would be the exact same

except that yellow
would extend further

between the wing bases,
whereas between the wing bases

on this specimen,
it's just black.

So this is a worker, so it means
there's already an established

nest and that the queen
was successfully mated and so,

I'm sure she's building
up her workforce right now.

We don't know
how big her colony is,

'cause we don't know where
it is but this is the first

Western Bumblebee that we found,
thanks to Jess.

We've seen hundreds
and hundreds of bumblebees,

we've seen
one occidentalis so far.

Good thing we have Jess with us.

So Kyle caught another species,

this is a bombus appositus,
a White Shouldered Bumblebee.

Really kinda nice
looking with white shoulders

and a more yellow, tawny body.

Y'know the Western Bumblebee
we just saw was a worker and so

is this one but you can see
the size difference, that this

bee is probably twice as big as
the one we were just looking at.

Real beauty.

This bee is in the subgenus
subterranean bombus and so there

are concerns worldwide
for members of that subgenus,

that they're in decline,
especially in Europe.

So we got--
how many do we have so far?

We've got vase,
insularis, occidentalis,

appositus, mixtus, any others?

Yep, six species and
so if we can detect six just

by swinging nets, there's
probably nine or ten present.

Some of the other ones
are just more difficult to find.

♪

Yeah, we-- yeah,
as we're having this interview,

we've noticed across
the street there's some

landscapers
spraying pesticide and

mowing the neighbor's
yard and as someone who really

appreciates wildflowers and
bees I can see that this--

their lawn could have so much
potential for pollinators.

Currently,
it's a patch of green grass,

which really does
nothing for wildlife.

You're right when
you say that we shouldn't

be planting grass.

Native green grass
provides basically

no habitat for native
animals of any sort and,

in fact, may contribute
to the invitation of non-native

species like ants and
other animals into your home.

So planting native plants is
the best thing you can possibly

do and even being a little bit
messy with those native plants.

So, y'know,
we like our gardens to look

really neat and tidy and I think
sometimes it's okay to be

a little messy and
that doesn't have to be

in your front yard,
or in your showy garden

but in your backyard,
create a space that doesn't look

different from where
I'm sitting right now.

Don't mow it
for a couple of months.

There's no reason
necessarily that you need to.

And that's gonna just create

biodiversity and all of
that biodiversity is going

to create benefits
which ultimately will

also reduce the need
for using insecticides.

The ecosystem works if we create
all the different parts for it,

it's had millions of
years to figure that out.

There are tons of
alternatives out there,

that use less pesticides and
rely more on natural enemies.

I'm hopeful that we can continue
moving in that direction.

For decades,
since the EPA's inception,

EPA has never consulted with
Fish and Wildlife when it comes

to registering pesticides
but things are changing thanks

to pressure to force EPA to
consult with Fish and Wildlife,

to factor in endangered species
when they think about what

pesticides should be allowed
to use and what shouldn't be.

[Rich] Right now,
the majority of testing happens

for these insecticides
for approval to be used in

the United States
on farms and backyards,

all that testing happens
on European Honeybees but

European honeybees have
a vastly different lifecycle,

a vastly different life
history and a vastly different

physiologies
than our native bees.

And so just testing
European Honeybees and

using that as a proxy
for our 3600 species of

native bees doesn't work.

[Jeff] And because bumblebees,
unlike honeybees, go through

a complete lifecycle every year,
their success depends

upon the survival of
the next generation of

queens that begin diapause
or hibernation late in the fall,

stay underground over
the winter and then emerge

in the spring to start
new colonies and so that's

a different reproductive
strategy than honeybees.

[Jess] Pesticides
are a huge issue for

bumblebees and
the thousands of native bees.

[Rich] We need to actually
find out the effects of these

chemicals on our native
bees before we approve them

for broad use
across the United States.

And I think the other
thing we really need

to keep in mind there,
is that our native bees,

because they live in the ground
they have different

routes of exposure
for these chemicals, right?

So anything applied on
the ground, it doesn't only

affect their flowers,
it affects their nests and

that's not tested
in honeybees, right?

We're not spraying
their nests with insecticides

and seeing
how that impacts them.

So I think putting
some changes like that,

could make a huge difference
for understanding how these

chemicals affect bees and what,
maybe, small or large things

that applicators
could do to protect bees.

[Jess] We've been working
to force the EPA to consider

endangered species specifically
when they register pesticides.

If we can protect
endangered species,

threatened with extinction,
from pesticides that's gonna

benefit all
kinds of other species,

as well as human
health and water quality.

We've been looking
specifically at how many

pesticides are found on
farms and in wildflowers and in

nurseries and there're some
concerning results that we found

in the level of pesticides
that are being found in plants,

both horticultural and nursery
plants as well as farm plants.

The science tells us
that there are some pesticides

where the harms are really
just too great to wildlife.

♪

I think
it's important to recognize

that we've been talking
about neonicotinoids for awhile.

Like that's the class
of insecticides that we're

worried about, that a lot
of people are talking about.

They're nicotine-based, they're
a neurotoxin, so they're highly,

highly toxic for almost
any animal that ingests them.

[Jess] Almost all
neonic use in Europe,

for example, is restricted.

[Rich] Y'know in
response to some of this

negative information
about neonicotinoids,

these companies are now
producing different chemicals

that are still systemic,
still have the same mode of

action but have
different active ingredients.

So we like to,
instead of just using the term

"neonicotinoids",
we're trying to just

use the word "systemic
insecticides" at this point.

Systemic means that,
if it's in the soil,

a plant will take up
the pesticide and it will

travel throughout
the tissue of the plant.

So it'll be in it's
leaves and it'll be in

it's pollen and nectar.

[Rich] These
are basically the most

broadly used
insecticides on the market.

They're what would probably
be recommended if any homeowner

went somewhere to find
something and they're obviously

heavily marketed by pesticide
companies to farmers as well.

One of the main issues with
these chemicals because they're

water-soluble they're
actually absorbed by the plant

tissues and expressed
in every cell in the plant.

So every time a bee drinks
nectar, or eats pollen,

which is their
only source of food,

if that plant has been
treated with that insecticide,

they're getting a microdose
of that insecticide for

the entire life of the plant.

[Jess] Their nectar and
pollen is contaminated and

that nectar and pollen is then
brought back to the bee's nest.

[Rich] In fact,
in some woody plants,

it's been shown that those
chemicals can still be active

even up to seven years
after a single application.

It's complicated,
there are a lot of

factors involved,
including obviously an industry

that makes money from
selling these products,

that have a heavy lobby
and have a lot of influence.

Probably a lot more
influence than you and

I would like to actually admit.

[Jess] The EPA often
says that they, y'know,

they look at the best
available science but the truth

really is that they often ignore
independent, even peer-reviewed,

literature studies that look
at the impact of pesticides.

They almost entirely
rely on studies that come from

the companies that want
to register these pesticides.

So you can see that there's
a conflict of interest.

In reality,
the EPA is a captured agency,

especially the pesticide office.

The companies that want
to get a pesticide approved,

pay a fee to
get a pesticide registered.

[Rich] If you're
a farmer and you have

an economic threshold
for your livelihood,

that's a separate conversation
that I'm willing to have.

Still, we shouldn't be
using them prophylactically,

y'know we should
have some threshold at

which we say: "Okay,
there's a danger here,

we should apply them."

Farmers generally want to help

bees and if they actually
know that they don't need to use

pesticides and can be
assured that they can still

make a living managing
their lands in different ways,

then they probably would be
allies for bee conservationists.

Pesticides like Dicamba,

which is
a really popular herbicide.

It's incredibly volatile,
so when it's applied

on one piece of land
it can just blow over to

a neighboring farm and
it can harm the crops there.

But more than that,
it has the ability to just blow

into a more natural environment
and then poison wild vegetation

and wildlife that relies
on these little bits of habitat.

But right now,
farmer's are--

they're on seeds
and they're treated

before the plants
are even in the ground.

Before there's a pest to treat,
the plants have already been

treated and it's really
having a profound impacts on

invertebrate communities
throughout the world.

Next to a farm field
that's been pretreated with

these insecticides,
the weeds that are growing there

that once provided important
food for bumblebees and other

pollinators is now laced with
these toxic chemicals because of

how easily the move
through the environment.

I think that's kind of
an elephant in the room,

the fact that we are so
reliant on artificial

systems to produce food.

Whether that's
through irrigated water,

herbicides,
fungicides, insecticides.

We need to look at
more sustainable ways to

get their benefits without
the toxic collateral effects.

[Rich] We've made
some steps but largely,

you can buy these over
the counter at most home

improvement stores and apply
them without a license and...

it's dangerous, it's really,
honestly quite dangerous.

♪

♪

[Jess]
Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring",

one of the books that started
the environmental movement,

celebrated it's
sixtieth birthday this year.

If you could bring Rachel Carson
back from the dead and ask her

how we're doing right now,
she would be disgusted.

We have made strides to
get rid of some of the worst

ones but we still
have a long way to go.

And there's been a very
promising study out of Canada,

using canola growers and
these scientists were able to

show in this particular system
that farmers could take certain

numbers of their canola acreage
out of production,

convert that acreage
into pollinator habitat

and in the end of the season,

the grower would
still gain more profit than in

the conventional system
of putting it all in production.

That's remarkable.
Think about that,

if you're a farmer:
"Wait a minute, you're asking me

to take some of my acres out of
production just for the bees?"

Well yes, yes,
we think this would

work under these conditions.

Think about that as a win-win.

The farmers are saving the bees,
protecting the environment

and making more money;
that's what I call a win-win.

♪

Several species,
like the Rusty Patched and

the American Bumblebee,
their declines have been

really steep in only
the last several decades.

They don't
rely on native prairie,

so they're
actually really adaptable.

Trying to pull apart this puzzle
about why they're declining,

it's not just habitat,
it's not just invasive species,

it's really this
combination of factors.

I think it's no
coincidence that the decline

of the bumblebees,
that's also at the same point

that the use of neonic
pesticides has really gone up.

Like, neonics started
being used in the 1990's

and they really ramped
up production after 2000.

So this widespread
adoption of this insecticide

that is really toxic,
it has all kinds of affects.

It impairs their immune systems,
it alters their macro-biome,

then they have-- it modifies
their behavior, like,

all these things
are known and you add

the introduction of honeybees,

which are unfortunately
able to spread disease.

So unfortunately it's
really this combination.

[Keith] We have
to have a fundamental

reckoning of
the way we use toxins.

At the end of the day,
we're still unloosing into

a habitat with,
far less than complete

knowledge of its outcome,
acute toxins that do have

non-target effects and none
of us likes this situation but

we do need to be aware
that these consequences are

accumulating and we just have
to ask ourselves what kind of

a world are we gonna pass on to
our children or grandchildren.

Do we like that picture,

or would like to
maybe start changing it now?

When we start talking
about systemic solutions to

these problems, none of them,
of course, are easy, are they?

I mean, we're talking
about changing a system,

changing the way we produce
food and that's not gonna happen

overnight, it's not gonna happen
easily but the kinds of systemic

changes that need to
happen are making our habitats

less hostile to pollinators
and other beneficial organisms.

To at the very least be mindful
of their life history needs,

for nesting sites and for
forage and to give it to them.

Whether through private
practices of leaving fence rows

un-mowed or, y'know,
government agency level

through lands set aside
or incentivization programs.

To incentivize farmers
to make their lands

friendly for pollinators.

[Jess] If we can all work
together on this,

I'm hopeful that
we can help them and a lot

of species can make a comeback.

♪

We're holding out hope that
we're gonna find Franklin's,

it's definitely--
could be out here and I think

that's what brings all
these people together to

come look for this species.

We know it needs
help and if we find it,

then that means
it can get the help

that it needs to
potentially recover.

Until we find it,
it's potentially extinct

and that's just...

it's unfortunate but
unfortunately we just never

studied it well
enough before to...

Yeah, we don't know as
much about its biology or

its populations
as we could have.

I think moving forward, there
are a collection of insects

specifically that are waiting
to be listed under the act.

So that's, like,
the Monarch Butterfly,

the Western Bumblebee,
the American Bumblebee

and then a few others.

These, I think, are really
special species that have seen

broad declines across
their huge [indistinct].

Like, the Monarch Butterfly
travels from Mexico all

the way to Maine and into Canada

every year and so it touches,
like, every single state.

And it's the same for
the American Bumblebee,

previously found in forty-seven
of the lower forty-eight states.

So having one of these
species protected under the act

would have huge benefits to all
kinds of species along the way.

♪

[Jess] Just such
a great habitat up here,

we've already found about
have a dozen species already and

there's potentially several
more that we haven't found yet.

[Jess]
Yeah, Franklin's Bumblebee

will probably be
the first species to have

gone extinct in North America.

Franklin's was really unique but
it doesn't mean that we can't do

something positive for
the other 45 bumblebees

in North America and
I think through raising

awareness through regulation,
through the intentional habitat

restoration, I think we can
have a lot of positive impact.

It will take a lot of effort and
time but, we're workin' on it.

♪

♪

[buzzing]

♪

♪

♪

[Keith] So let's keep looking
and see if we find a queen.

It's congested but--
that's mature broods.

See that cardboard colored
stuff in the middle?

That is--

[woman] It's ready
to get out of here.

[Keith] It is.
Well, it's broods.

-These are baby bees.
-Oh, okay.

So, I'm going to
show you a baby bee.

You can kind of tell
from their appearance.

See this one right here?

She's kind of white-- white-ish.

I'm going to stop her,
pick her up.

-See how she's white?
-Oh, yeah!

Her hair is still matted.

[woman] Yeah, she does
look like a baby.

♪