Pollinator ecologist Jennifer Webber from Virginia Tech’s Conservation Management Institute was sponsored by Friends of Machicom-oco for a recent talk on various species of bumble bees that inhabit our region. Bumble bees play a vital role in the ecosystem as highly effective pollinators and currently facing impacts causing their decline.
“Today we’re going to talk about one particular group of bees that you know as bumble bees, I know as the genus bombus,” Webber began. “We’re going to start with an introduction to these Bumble Bees, their ecology, their habitat, and what you can do to help them.”
“All the species that we commonly call bumble bees … belong to the genus bombus,” she said. “There are about 250 species worldwide, about 46 species in North America, and about 16 here in Virginia.” As research continues and scientists develop a better understanding of the species, sometimes they discover that species have been misidentified.
“The genus bombus belongs to the family apidae,” ...