Kimmel and other experts believe they do this to dislodge pollen from the plant, but none of the other 23 bee species known to visit Ashe’s calamint do this, Kimmel says. They tend to rapidly bob their heads two to four times when visiting flowers. For example, the bees appear to have an unusual way of foraging. “While we have no evidence of pesticide exposure, it is highly likely that the bees could be impacted by this adjacent agriculture given that they have been found only meters away.”īecause blue calamintha bees have been known for only a decade, scientists are still getting to know more about their vulnerabilities and idiosyncrasies. “This ancient island ridge is now primarily composed of agriculture, typically citrus, and urban development,” Kimmel says. In addition to this geographic limitation, experts believe habitat loss and fragmentation have hurt the blue bee’s numbers in recent decades. The flower that hosts the bee is restricted to a few of these isolated scrub pockets, predominantly along the ridge, Kimmel says, meaning the bee has probably always been restricted to a small area. “The Lake Wales Ridge is a pretty specialized environment composed of unique scrub habitat that is limited in geographic extent,” Kimmel says. It’s a place where the jasmine-like scent of orange blossoms hangs thick in the air. To find these few, and record them for potential legal protections, Kimmel ventured to different sites across the Lake Wales Sand Ridge, a 150-mile long region along the dirt roads of central Florida marked by sprawling citrus groves and Bok’s Singing Tower, a 205-foot iridescent neo-Gothic structure. In all, Kimmel and colleagues documented just 17 rare bees and never more than three at any one time. I needed to look multiple times at the photos to confirm their identity.” “The first few times I found the bee I couldn’t help constantly question my own eyes and judgment on the diagnostic characteristics of the bee. “It was a great feeling those first few nights were hard to sleep due to the anxiousness and excitement,” he says. At first, he couldn’t believe his own eyes. But this spring, just as Americans began to hunker down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rare blue bees, known scientifically as Osmia calaminthae, were rediscovered in the same region foraging on Ashe's calamint, a dainty violet flower that blooms in certain scrub habitats.Ĭhase Kimmel of the Florida Museum of Natural History confirmed the bees’ survival in March. The indigo insect was last spotted in central Florida in 2016, five years after it was first identified. As soon as the blue calamintha bee arrived on the scene, scientists worried it might be gone for good.
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