A new study of wild bees identifies 139 counties in key agricultural regions of California, the Pacific Northwest, the upper Midwest and Great Plains, west Texas, and the southern Mississippi River valley that have the most worrisome mismatch between falling wild bee supply and rising crop pollination demand. The study and map were published in theĀ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and led by scientists at the University of Vermont.
The first national study to map U.S. wild bees suggests theyāre disappearing in many of the countryās most important farmlandsāincluding Californiaās Central Valley, the Midwestās corn belt, and the Mississippi River valley.
If losses of these crucial pollinators continue, the new nationwide assessment indicates that farmers will face increasing costsāand that the problem may even destabilize the nationās crop production.