Yellow Banded Bumble Bee
Bombus terricola
The Yellow-Banded Bumble Bee (Bombus terricola) is declining in southern Canada and was listed as a Special Concern species in 2018 under the Species at Risk Act. Though likely more common in the past, it now seems to make up only 1-3 % of wild bumble bees on PEI. It may provide a service to the parasitic Cuckoo Bumble Bee which needs a host bee in order to complete its life cycle. There are no regular surveys for the Yellow-Banded Bumble Bee in PEI, but citizen scientists posted 47records of it on the iNaturalist site from 2019 through 2024, about 8 a year. Threats to this species are not well known but suspected factors causing decline are pesticide use, habitat conversion, and pathogen spillover from managed greenhouse bumble bee colonies. Bumble bees like the Common Eastern Bumble Bee pollinate greenhouse crops but are usually released outside at the end of the hothouse season. Studies elsewhere have shown they may carry organisms that infect native bees.