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Common Eastern Bumblebee Invasive Insects: Risks and Pathways Project COMMON EASTERN BUMBLEBEE UPDATED: JULY 2019 Invasive insects are a huge biosecurity challenge. We profile some of the most harmful insect invaders overseas to show why we must keep them out of Australia. Species Common Eastern Bumblebee / Bombus impatiens. Main impacts Competes with other pollinators, likely to increase weed problems. Native range Eastern Canada, eastern United States. Invasive range Canada, western United States. Main pathways of global spread Trade in bees for the horticultural industry. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OVERSEAS North American scientists fear this WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR bumblebee will compete with native bees There are no bumblebees on mainland Australia, so a new invader should stand out. and have other harmful environmental Most are large, furry bees with pollen baskets on their hindlegs. Bombus impatiens 1-3 impacts . Imported to British Columbia in workers are 9–16 mm long, black with a pale yellow thorax and first abdominal Canada in the early 2000s for greenhouse segment, and have a long rectangular body. pollination, it became established in the Photo: Matthew Beziat | CC BY-NC 2.0 wild near Vancouver by 2003. By 2018 it was in localities 60 km from the initial 1 detection site . At one location where AUSTRALIAN other species that is widely used in crop at least four bumblebee species were pollination. present, this species outnumbered all the CONCERNS native species combined1. Other evidence The common eastern bumblebee could Large earth bumblebees spread rapidly of invasiveness comes from the eastern achieve a wide distribution in Australia, across Tasmania after they were detected side of Canada, where this bee has also judging by its native distribution, which in Hobart in 1992. A survey 13 years later escaped from farms, expanding its range extends from Canada to southern Florida, found them within 10 national parks, north to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and and inland to Oklahoma and Nebraska. including sites deep in the Tasmanian Prince Edward Island3. Wilderness World Heritage Area remote It is a serious concern for Australia given from human settlement7. This species the impacts of this and other introduced uses habitats as diverse as saltmarshes bumblebee species, including in Tasmania. HUMAN AND and alpine heathland8 and feeds on a ECONOMIC IMPACTS Many Australian horticulturists want bumblebees as pollinators, and there wide range of native flowers, including OVERSEAS is a risk that someone will smuggle in eucalypts, tea trees, banksias, heaths and 9,10 This bee stings if stepped on or provoked, fertilised queens. Hives are commercially daisies . In one large hive excavated in and unlike honeybees it can sting multiple available from European companies that Maria Island National Park, larval cocoons times4. It readily nests around houses operate on several continents. There are showed the nest had produced at least and is more irritable than other American suspicions that the large earth bumblebee 304 queen bees, and 939 workers and bumblebees5. Some people have serious (Bombus terrestris) was illegally imported drones, indicating a high reproductive allergic reactions to bumblebee stings5. to Tasmania for pollination6, this being the output in a natural environment10. INVASION WATCH: Common eastern bumblebee Bumblebees feed readily on the flowers of Tasmanian blue gums (Eucalyptus globulus) and black gums (E. ovata), which are the main breeding-season foods of the critically endangered swift parrot11. The national recovery plan for the swift parrot notes that bumblebees may compete for nectar with this parrot, and mentions the risk of bumblebees spreading to the mainland (where swift parrots feed in winter) as a threatening process12. Research on swift parrot habitat around Hobart shows that bumblebees reduce nectar yields on these trees. On The common eastern bumblebee has been introduced into new areas as a horticultural one black gum studied, they made up pollinator. Here is one on a squash flower. Photo: Kent McFarland more than 90% of visitors to the flowers11. Introduced honeybees also reduce nectar ecological harm elsewhere in the world, population in Tasmania for commercial yields on these trees, becoming active in providing further reasons for concern pollination purposes. Australian Government. the morning when temperatures reach about any bumblebee introductions. 9. Hingston AB (2005): Does the introduced about 15°C. Swift parrots can feed early in In Chile and Argentina, the Patagonian bumblebee, Bombus terrestris (Apidae), prefer the morning before honeybees become bumblebee (Bombus dahlbomii) has flowers of introduced or native plants in Australian Journal of Zoology active, but large earth bumblebees been listed as endangered, following Australia? . 53: 29–34. have lower temperature tolerances than displacement from much of its range honeybees, becoming active at about 6°C, by two species of bumblebee imported 10. Hingston AB, Herrmann W, Jordan GJ so they remove the window of bee-free as pollinators, which compete with this (2006): Reproductive success of a colony of the 11 introduced bumblebee Bombus terrestris (L.) foraging time . Bumblebees could be species and infect it with a pathogen16. competing with a wide range of native (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in a Tasmanian National In Japan, large earth bumblebees now Park. Australian Journal of Entomology. 45: pollinators, including honeyeaters, native outnumber native bumblebees in some 137–141. bees and other insects. This could alter settings, and are blamed for a decline 11. Hingston AB, Potts BM, McQuillan PB (2004): plant pollination rates – swift parrots are B. hypocrita in one native species ( The swift parrot Lathamus discolor (Psittacidae), far more effective pollinators of Tasmanian sapporoensis)17. 11 social bees (Apidae), and native insects as blue gums than bumblebees . pollinators of Eucalyptus globulus ssp. globulus Australian Journal of Botany Another risk of bumblebees is their SOURCES (Myrtaceae). 52: potential to worsen weed problems by 371–379. 1. Looney C, Strange JP, Freeman M, Jennings serving as superior pollinators for northern 12. Saunders D, Tzaros C (2011): National D (2019): The expanding Pacific Northwest recovery plan for the swift parrot Lathamus hemisphere plants adapted for bumblebee range of Bombus impatiens Cresson and its 13 discolor. Birds Australia. pollination . Scientists have noted ‘clear establishment in Washington State. Biological evidence for a positive link between Invasions. 21: 1879–1885. 13. Hanley ME, Goulson D (2003): Introduced the spread of weeds and the presence weeds pollinated by introduced bees: Cause 2. Ratti CM, Colla SR (2010): Discussion of the Weed Biology and Management of introduced bees’13. Bumblebees are or effect? . 3: presence of an eastern bumble bee species 204–212. desired crop pollinators for tomatoes and (Bombus impatiens Cresson) in western Canada. capsicums because they are better than The Pan-Pacific Entomologist. 86: 29–32. 14. Goulson D, Rotheray EL (2012): Population Lupinus arboreus honeybees at moving pollen between the dynamics of the invasive weed 3. Palmier KM, Sheffield CS (2019): First records in Tasmania, and interactions with two non- flowers of these plants, and that holds Bombus of the common eastern bumble bee, native pollinators. Weed research. 52: 535–541. true for some weeds as well. Australia has impatiens Cresson (Hymenoptera: Apidae, many plants with the potential to become Apinae, Bombini) from the Prairies Ecozone in 15. Hingston AB (2006): Is the introduced Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) assisting the serious weeds that are currently minor Canada. Biodiversity Data Journal. 7. naturalization of Agapanthus praecox ssp. Bugs Around Your House weeds or not weeds at all because they 4. Huang Z (nd): . orientalis in Tasmania? Ecological Management 3. Bumble Bees lack the bumblebee pollinators with which . Michigan State University. & Restoration. 7: 236–240. they evolved. Also, major weeds such as Retrieved from http://www.cyberbee.net/ 16. Morales C, Montalva J, Arbetman Rubus fruticosus column/stinging/bumblebee.shtml. blackberry ( ), foxglove M, Aizen M, Smith-Ramírez C, Vieli L, (Digitalis purpurea), gorse (Ulex europaeus), 5. Hoffman DR, Jacobson RS (1996): Allergens in Hatfield R (2016):Bombus dahlbomii. The Paterson’s curse (Echium plantagineum) Hymenoptera venom XXVII: Bumblebee venom IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: Journal of allergy and and broom (Cytisus scoparius) could allergy and allergens. e.T21215142A100240441. International Union clinical immunology benefit from pollination by bumblebees14. 97: 812–821. for the Conservation of Nature. Agapanthus (Agapanthus praecox) has 6. Schmid-Hempel P, Schmid-Hempel R, 17. Inoue MN, Yokoyama J, Washitani I (2008): been increasing as a weed in Tasmania Brunner PC, Seeman OD, Allen GR (2007): Displacement of Japanese native bumblebees Bombus since bumblebees arrived, and a study Invasion success of the bumblebee, by the recently introduced Bombus terrestris terrestris, despite a drastic genetic bottleneck. of agapanthus flower visitors found (L.)(Hymenoptera: Apidae). Journal of Insect Heredity. 99: 414. that bumblebees were by far the most Conservation. 12: 135–146. 7. Hingston AB (2006): Is the exotic common visitors and carried three times bumblebee Bombus terrestris really invading as much pollen as honeybees15. Very Tasmanian native vegetation? Journal of Insect ABOUT THIS PROJECT few native insects were detected on the Conservation. 10: 289–293. The Invasive Insects: Risks and Pathways Project flowers. 8. Environment and Communications References is a partnership between Monash University and Introduced bumblebees have caused Committee (2017): Risks and opportunities the Invasive Species Council. To find out more associated with the use of the bumblebee visit invasives.org.au/risks-and-pathways. INVASION WATCH: Common eastern bumblebee.
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