Bumblebees are vital pollinators for flowers and crops. But, bee populations have been declining world-wide due to “pesticides, disease, and habitat loss.”
Background:
A study sought to track and explain anecdotal evidence that more bees are being found in urban areas.
In the study, more than 100 bee colonies were planted in 38 different locations [in England] ranging “from London’s city center to surrounding villages, suburbs, and farms.”
Bee colonies “placed in agricultural fields produced fewer reproductive offspring and fewer workers, and their queens died sooner.” These colonies broke down faster and had “fewer nutrient resources.” In comparison, colonies in suburbs and colonies in the center of the City did much better.
Why? The monoculture of today’s corporate agriculture generally produces fewer and less diverse “floral resources” and a greater level of pesticides than suburbs and cities. While the city is not at all ideal for bees, bees appear to be able to successfully exploit the city environment to their advantage for survival.
While this news is somewhat positive, the greater challenge is to make modern agriculture more friendly to bees–a vital part of human food production. “It’s really starting to become quite clear that agricultural areas are generally quite bad for wildlife.”
Sources:
*Klein, JoAnna. (2018, June 27). Bumblebees thrive in the city but struggle on the farm: Facing two unnatural environments, these important pollinators are finding better niches to exploit in urban areas. New York Times.
*Samuelson, A. E., Gill, R. J., Brown Mark, J. F., & Ellouise, L. (2018). Lower bumblebee colony reproductive success in agricultural compared with urban environments. Proceedings of the Royal Society. Biological Sciences, 285(1881), 20180807. [PDF] [Cited by]
“Urbanization represents a rapidly growing driver of land-use change. While it is clear that urbanization impacts species abundance and diversity, direct effects of urban land use on animal reproductive success are rarely documented. Here, we show that urban land use is linked to long-term colony reproductive output in a key pollinator. We reared colonies from wild-caught bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) queens, placed them at sites characterized by varying degrees of urbanization from inner city to rural farmland and monitored the production of sexual offspring across the entire colony cycle. Our land-use cluster analysis identified three site categories, and this categorization was a strong predictor of colony performance. Crucially, colonies in the two clusters characterized by urban development produced more sexual offspring than those in the cluster dominated by agricultural land. These colonies also reached higher peak size, had more food stores, encountered fewer parasite invasions and survived for longer. Our results show a link between urbanization and bumblebee colony reproductive success, supporting the theory that urban areas provide a refuge for pollinator populations in an otherwise barren agricultural landscape.”
**updated March 29, 2026**
