STEWARDS OF THE EARTH A rare rusty patched bumblebee was found in fall 2020 in the Ceresco Prairie Conservancy.
Rare bee, buckwheat species inspire work in the field for Ben Grady Rusty patched bumblebee found in Ceresco Prairie
W
hen Assistant Professor of Biology Ben Grady was considering coming to teach at Ripon College, the presence of the Ceresco Prairie Conservancy held great appeal. Last fall on the prairie, Grady and Christina Seese ’23 of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, discovered a rare bee, the rusty patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis). “I knew of the bee because it was listed on the federal endangered species list a couple of years ago,” Grady says. “It used to be much more common around the upper Midwest. There was a potential for it to be around here because this hits its historic range and it likes prairies. I wasn’t at all sure, but I was really hoping we would find it.” And find it they did. While completing a
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preliminary survey of pollinators in the Ceresco Prairie, they took as many photos as they could and came across the bee. They believed they had correctly identified the bee with the help of online guides and images. They sent the images for verification to the Wisconsin Bumble Bee Brigade, a citizen science group dedicated to raising awareness and collecting data on bumblebees. The confirmation was particularly exciting because the bee has never been recorded in Fond du Lac County. Grady plans to continue investigative work this summer with Gemma Krause ’22 of Ripon, Wisconsin, and Frederick Mannelli ’22 of Williams Bay, Wisconsin. They plan to document other pollinators
and see if they can find the rusty patched bumblebee in other places. “Part of the challenge is to figure out how much trouble they’re in,” Grady says. “The bee is associated with tall grass prairies, and most of those are gone now. My goal this summer is to get a better sense of how many there are here, what types of plants they’re using, when they’re active, etc. This is baseline information. Any of that is helpful in preserving the species.” He adds, “I don’t think we would have found the bee if it hadn’t been for the restoration efforts of Dr. George “Skip” Wittler (professor emeritus of biology and director of the Ceresco Prairie Conservancy) and other folks.”
