2-minute read

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it — Ralph Waldo Emerson

According to a remarkable and hopeful new ETH Zurich study, bumblebees experiencing pollen deprivation resulting from climate change have learned to garden as if their hives depend on it—and they do.

Global heating is creating a seasonal mismatch between flower resources and the emergence of bumblebees in spring. No flowers, no pollen, no bees. A scarcity of the pollen that bee larvae and worker bees need to survive can negatively impact reproductive success and prevent queen bees from establishing new colonies. Heatwaves and uncommonly warm temperatures have already reduced populations by 46% in North America and 17% in Europe.

The upside (we love upsides!) is that bumblebees may be developing coping strategies to adapt to our new environmental reality, and they’re actually helping flowering plants adapt along with them. The Swiss study found that brainy bumbles have adopted a hive-saving, pollen gathering workaround to coax blooms from plants weeks ahead of schedule. By cutting distinctively shaped holes in the leaves of tomato and black mustard plants, bumblebees substantially accelerated their flowering time by an average of 30 days, approximately 25 days earlier than mechanically perforated plants. When available pollen was limited, the rate of plant perforation was significantly higher and only minor when pollen was plentiful.

Researchers believe that by helping to correct the mismatch between bloom time and hive emergence, the perforating activity of these furry little problem solvers may increase the resilience of plant-pollinator interactions to the destructive impacts of global heating. Given that about eight percent of plants rely on bumblebees for pollination, including eggplants, tomatoes, blueberries, and potatoes, we’re grateful for their efforts to bee the change.

IN SOLIDARITY

Like the flower and the bumblebee, we humans are interconnected. At Favorite World Press, we believe that our shared humanity and our faith in the strength of diverse communities are more powerful than the forces that aim to divide us.

FWP and our tree-planting partner American Forests stand in solidarity with the Black community and support organizations doing essential work to achieve social justice and ensure sustainable transformation. Because the best time to help create a more equitable world, where everyone has an opportunity to flourish, is now.

You can learn more about the mission to create a fair and just future here:

Advancement Project and the Equal Justice Initiative, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Campaign Zero.