Honeybee Hives Threaten Rare Bumblebees At Somme

Update: On May 28 we talked by phone with UL staff about this problem. We got the response: "We certainly don't want to put an Endangered species in jeopardy. This is the first I've heard of it. I need to talk with my team. I'll get back to you within a few days."

As of mid September, we have not heard back in response to our May 16 email or the May 28 phone call.

Rare bumblebees and other pollinators are being stressed and could be eliminated from two Somme Preserves. Commercial beehives on the property of Underwriters Labs, a few feet from the preserves, are seriously damaging the biodiversity of two legally protected Illinois Nature Preserves. Globally rare bees (including one on the Federal Endangered list) survive here in small numbers. Artificially high numbers of honeybees deplete resources that other bees need. The pollen and nectar that one beehive consumes would otherwise support about 100,000 wild bees. Underwriters has many thirteen hives installed. With this extractive force present, the preserves may lose recovering populations of native bees and other interdependent plants and wildlife.

The nature at Somme is protected by the Cook County Forest Preserves and the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission. But that's apparently not enough, without public support and advocacy.

 

On May 16, we wrote to Underwriter’s Labs:

At a property owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, a Federal Endangered bumblebee (Bombus affinis) and other rare pollinators are being damaged by beehives installed on UL property immediately adjacent to Somme Prairie, an Illinois Nature Preserve in Northbrook, IL, USA. This huge alien bee population is depleting resources the rare and stressed native pollinators need. We've receive mixed messages on what the law says about this, but it seems likely that if UL carefully looked into it, as a matter of ethics, corporate responsibility, and good neighborliness, it would remove that stress. As a board member of Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves, we would appreciate any information on how to follow up further on this.

 

We have not yet received a response. As readers of this blog know, Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves have been steadily increasing capacity for stewardship. Increased capacity is needed for education and advocacy as well.   

 

Bee welfare has been getting some good press lately. But the push to "save the bees" has missed the main point. Diverse wild bees are in trouble. Honeybees have many supporters - mostly not for the honey, but for crop pollination. Honeybees are big business, worth $200 billion dollars a year (see Endnote 1). 

 

Less recognized, wild pollinators and other insects are fundamentally crucial to the ecosystem. “Insects of all kinds are declining in record numbers, and their deaths will have repercussions we cannot even imagine,” writes Ellen Cushing in the Atlantic. Shouldn't we hope rare bees would be secure in Nature Preserves protected at the highest levels by state law?

 

The first of two very rare bees found in the Somme preserves is called the Southern Plains Bumblebee. 

Southern Plains Bumblebee on milkweed

This species has rarely been found in Illinois, but it was found in Somme Prairie Grove last summer by a team of scientists studying the Rusty Patch Bumblebee (more about which below). It was fun to watch how surprised and elated these scientists were. This bee was once widely spread over southern states but is rapidly declining there, possibly due to global warming. It’s being considered for Federal Endangered status. 

Southern Plains Bumblebee range map from NatureServe

This bee is Critically Imperiled in 3 states, apparently gone from 3 others, at best Imperiled or Vulnerable in 5, with not enough info to rank in 18 others. Too few people study wild bees.

 

Both Somme Prairie and Somme Prairie Grove Nature Preserves have been found to support the only bumblebee currently on the Federal Endangered list, the Rusty Patch Bumblebee (Bombus affinis). It is thought to be gone from 13 states, is critically imperiled in ten states and in Canada, and is doing well nowhere. 

Rusty Patch Bumblebee on wild bergamot at Somme

Rusty Patch Bumblebee range map from NatureServe

These rare bees are still uncommon at Somme. Despite years of gradual but increasingly successful restoration, high-quality habitat patches are still small. Thus the populations of rare plants and the animals (including bees) associated with them are growing but still small. Judging from many studies (see Endnote 2), the twelve hives of commercial honeybees placed just a few feet outside the preserve on Underwriters Labs property is stressing the populations of these rare bees. 

 

Commercial bees in unnaturally high numbers contribute to the amplification and spread of bee diseases. They also weaken native bee populations by hyper-competitive consumption of pollen and nectar. As one study showed, a strong colony gathers as much pollen as could produce 100,000 progeny of an average solitary bee.

As these concerns were summarized by the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service (which supervises efforts to rebuild populations of Endangered species:

0. European honey bees (Apis mellifera) have documented negative effects on the reproductive success of bumble bees (e.g., Goulson and Sparrow 2009, Singh et al. 2010, and Thompson 2004). Additionally, pollen can be a vector for disease transmission between honey bees and bumble bees (e.g., Singh et al. 2010; Fürst et al. 2014, Graystock 2015). We recommend that managers discourage the placement of domesticated honey bee hives in natural areas with high quality habitat (abundant and diverse floral resources) where rusty patched bumble bees are likely to be present. We are not discouraging the use of honey bees in agricultural fields, but encourage landowners to plant native flowers and to try to keep their honey bee hives disease and pest free.

The Forest Preserve District has requested that Underwriters remove the hives. The damage they do to the Nature Preserves is likely illegal (see Endnote 3), but the pertinent laws are poorly tested, and litigation could be expensive. Perhaps publicity, good education, and an appeal to ethics and the public good would facilitate a consensus solution? Could a less damaging place (at least two miles away, the average honeybee foraging distance) be found for those hives? 

 

We need more study, and science is good, but we know enough already not to risk extinctions. Habitat restoration is good, but it too is not enough. We need smart enforcement and advocacy. We also need education, since enforcement too is dependent on public support. 

 

Are there Rachel Carsons for pollinators out there? Possibly you?

 

If you contact Underwriters and get a response, please tell us what you learn in "Comments" (below) or by email. 

 

It's not clear who are the decision makers at UL. It recently reorganized into three separate companies.

The person to contact seems to be:

President and Chief Executive Officer Jennifer F. Scanlon

UL Solutions

333 Pfingsten Road

Northbrook, IL

847-272-8800

The property we're talking about is:

Underwriters Labratories 

2500 Dundee Road

Northbrook, IL

 

As we count them, there are thirteen hives here. One would be too many, given that the Somme Prairie Nature Preserve with its many rare pollinators is just on the other side of the fence. But thirteen times that much stress on the bumble bee, solitary bee, and butterfly communities is intolerable. The commercial bees should be moved elsewhere as soon as possible.

Endnotes

Endnote 1: business 

 

The $200 billion dollar a year honeybee business has money for lobbyists, science, and medicine. Honeybees, with all that firepower behind them, though stressed (see below), are doing fine. Adee Honey Farms owns more than 80,000 colonies and has over 100 employees. According to an Atlantic article by Ellen Cushing, the real money is in pollination services. Bees are trucked from place to place, so they can pollinate almonds, watermelons, pumpkins, cucumbers, alfalfa, onions, and other fine foods. As a result, honeybees, according to the USDA Census of Agriculture, have been the country’s fastest-growing livestock category since 2007. Honeybees have “colony collapse disorder” and other problems, caused in part by the explosive growth of that industry, but with research and care for honeybees well financed, their numbers continue to grow. Stressed and depleted honeybee hives are often parked for a while near natural areas to recover from pesticide exposure, restricted diets, and unnatural densities that contribute to diseases. But diseases then spread and overwhelming competition may damage the natural area’s native pollinators.

 

Endnote 2: threats

 

According to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the threats to bumblebees include "habitat loss, pesticide use, pathogens from managed pollinators, competition with non-native bees, and climate change."

 

Since this post is about advocacy – and thus, necessarily, politics – it seems worth it to decode those words. “Managed pollinators” and “non-native bees” refer to commercial bees. The Xerces Society does not want to offend beekeepers. Many beekeepers are nice, generous people who support biodiversity conservation and consider their work with commercial bees to be a positive thing. Fights often just lead to hardening of opinions.  

 

Just to be clear: honeybees are needed. There’s no quick alternative for some crops. But there’s one place not to plunk down their hives, and that’s within their average foraging distance (two miles) of a Nature Preserve supporting rare wild pollinators. At Somme Prairie Nature Preserve the hives are a few feet to the other side of a cyclone fence. Somme Prairie Grove Nature Preserve is less than a fifth of a mile away.

 

Endnote 3: the law

 

Seeking a friendly agreement is always the first and best step. The courts are back-up at best, expensive and time-consuming, but sometimes needed.  

 

(525 ILCS 30/21) (from Ch. 105, par. 721)      Sec. 21. The Attorney General, or the State's Attorney of the county where a nature preserve or registered area is located, may, upon his own motion or upon request of the Commission, institute a civil action for an injunction, or other appropriate legal action, to restrain violations of this Act or of any rule. In such a proceeding the court shall determine whether a violation has been committed and shall enter such orders as it considers necessary to remove the effects of any violation and to prevent such violation from continuing or from being renewed in the future.  (Source: P.A. 82-445.)

 

(525 ILCS 30/22) (from Ch. 105, par. 722)      Sec. 22. Any person who violates this Act or any rule, or causes such violation by his employee or agent, shall be liable for a civil penalty of not to exceed $10,000 for each violation, such penalty to be recovered in an action brought by the Attorney General or the State's Attorney in the circuit court. The penalty shall be used to restore the nature preserve or registered area or to secure the preservation of similar areas.  (Source: P.A. 82-445.)

 

(525 ILCS 30/23) (from Ch. 105, par. 723)      Sec. 23. Any person who, directly or through an employee or agent, (a) willfully kills, injures, disturbs or removes any animal or plant or willfully damages, destroys or removes any object, or attempts to do any of the preceding, on a dedicated area, except as provided by rule for scientific research or for management to preserve or restore natural conditions, or on a registered area, except as provided by rule, (b) enters a dedicated or registered area that is closed to the public contrary to the rules or without permission of the owner or custodian or (c) otherwise violates this Act or any rule is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. When the violation is a continuing offense, each day shall be considered a separate violation. Enforcements under Sections 21, 22 and 23 may be concurrent or separate.  (Source: P.A. 85-150.)

The full Illinois Nature Preserves law is on line here.  

 

References

U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Conservation Management Guidelines for the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee 

YouTube presentation from Rich Hatfield of the Xerces Society 

Ecosystem bees are not just being out competed. As Hatfield explains in detail, “Commercial bees are contributing to the amplification and spread of these diseases.” Wild honeybees are probably not significantly damaging populations of other bee species.

 

From Gauging the Effect of Honey Bee Pollen collection on Native Bee Communities by James Cane and Vincent Tepedino as published in Conservation Letters by the Society for Conservation Biology. 

“From June-August, a strong colony gathers as much pollen as could produce 100,000 progeny of an average solitary bee.” 

 

A study published in PLOS found higher rates of disease in bumblebees living near honeybee hives. Indeed, they found zero examples of some diseases in bumblebees living well away from hives. 

 

For a review of the increased importance, understanding, and needs of pollinator conservation click here. 

 

Experimental cross species transmission of a major pathogen in bees is predominantly from honeybees to bumblebees

By Anja Tehel, Tabea Streicher, Soon Tragust, and Robert Paxton

 

A Xerces Society Overview of the Potential Impacts of Honey Bees to Native Bees, Plant Communities, and Ecosystems in Wild Landscapes: Recommendations for Land Managers.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Thanks to author of bee and pollinator books, Heather Holm, for recommending the references cited above. 

Southern Plaines Bumblebee photo by John Frisch/Flickr

 

Rusty Patch Bumblebee photo by Lisa Culp Musgrave

For helpful edits, thanks to Christos Economou and Eriko Kojima.