A Flower Trap
With its foot stuck in a milkweed flower like a Chinese finger trap, the European Skipper was struggling to free itself. On another flower nearby only a leg remained from…
A Ghost in the Making Released Online
A Ghost in the Making: Searching for the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee, an enchanting short film about the disappearance of the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee and one man’s journey to find out what’s happened to it, is now available to watch online.
A Field Guide to October
October is a month of change. The leaves slip from green to gold. Then, suddenly, they all seem to drift to the ground. “Stick season” arrives. So here’s your field guide to moments that you might not otherwise notice during these few weeks that feature yellow-brown hills beneath a deep blue sky.
Sex, Drugs and Bees: plant chemistry and pollinators
Many plants rely on flower visits by pollinators such as bees in order to reproduce. When bees consume nectar and pollen, they must cope with naturally occurring plant secondary chemicals,…
Long Live the Queen!
Each year in the bumble bee kingdom, only a queen will carry the colony’s torch through winter to produce the next generation. Everyone else – workers, drones, and the old queen – dies with the onset of fall frost.
Vt. Adds to Threatened and Endangered Species List
Vermont has added nine species, including three bumble bees, to its list of threatened and endangered species thanks to data from the Vermont Atlas of Life.
Are Chickadee Nests the Key to an Effective Bumble Bee Nest Box?
Given that no effective bumble bee nest box exists in North America this is a call to action to flesh out the possibilities of this technique. You can help!
‘Nature’s Medicine Cabinet’ Helps Bumble Bees Reduce Disease Load
Researchers studying the interaction between plants, pollinators and parasites report that in recent experiments, bees infected with a common intestinal parasite had reduced parasite levels in their guts after seven days if the bees also consumed natural toxins present in plant nectar.
Bee Foraging Chronically Impaired by Pesticide Exposure
A study co-authored by a University of Guelph scientist that involved fitting bumblebees with tiny radio frequency tags shows long-term exposure to a neonicotinoid pesticide hampers bees’ ability to forage…
Plight of the Pollinators on UVM Extension’s ‘Across The Fence’
Recently, VCE biologist Kent McFarland was on Across the Fence, produced by the University of Vermont Extension. They have been on-air on WCAX-TV since 1955, the longest-running, locally-produced television program in the…
December eNews
The December edition of VCE’s eNews features snowy owls arriving, peregrine falcons dying, and vernal pools being conserved. If you’re not already an email subscriber, you can join with a…
Bumble Bees in Peril
Unprecedented search by VCE reveals four species either extinct or declining More than one-quarter of Vermont’s bumble bee species, which are vital crop pollinators, have either vanished or are in…
