Daniels and Kimmel also want to determine whether it visits other flowers apart from Ashe’s calamint by studying the pollen collected from bees and using visual surveys. While visiting flowers, the blue calamintha bee bobs its head back and forth to pick up as much pollen as possible with its unusual facial hairs. “It shows how little we know about the insect community and how there’s a lot of neat discoveries that can still occur.” “We’re trying to fill in a lot of gaps that were not previously known,” Kimmel said. Pollen left in the bag is analyzed to determine which flowers the bee visited. After capturing a bee, researchers place it in a plastic bag with a hole to photograph its head before releasing it. The objective over the next year is to record the bee in as many locations as possible to determine its range and increase understanding of its biology. He recorded it in three of its previously known locations and six additional places up to 50 miles away-good news for the species. Kimmel’s initial goal was to find the bee, which was last observed in 2016. “It puts into perspective how much habitat loss affects all the animals that live in this area.” “It’s one thing to read about habitat loss and development and another to be driving for 30-40 minutes through miles of orange groves just to get to a really small conservation site,” Kimmel said. RELATED: For the First Time in 240 Years, White-Tailed Eagles Spotted Flying Over England Kimmel has been living at the Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid since March, getting a first-hand look at challenges to the bee’s survival. Today, the ridge is characterized by patches of pine scrub dotted among the orange groves along US Route 27. These unique environments led to pockets of specialized plants and animals, such as the blue calamintha bee, Daniels said. When much of the state was underwater, higher elevation sand dune areas along the Central Florida ridge behaved almost like islands, producing isolated habitats. The Lake Wales Ridge’s rare species are a product of Florida’s geological history. Ashe’s calamint flower - Photo by Florida Museum / Chase Kimmel “This is a highly specialized and localized bee,” Daniels said. As a pollinator, it depends on another threatened species, a blooming plant known as Ashe’s calamint.
The bee is thought to live only in the Lake Wales Ridge region, a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot and one of the nation’s fastest-disappearing ecosystems, according to a 2015 U.S.
A US Fish and Wildlife Service State Wildlife Grant administered by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is funding the project.
MORE: Beaches See Huge Increase in Leatherback Sea Turtle Nests After Travel Restrictions in Florida and Thailandįlorida’s State Wildlife Action Plan lists the bee, Osmia calaminthae, as a species of greatest conservation need, and this project could help determine whether it qualifies for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Kimmel and his adviser, Jaret Daniels, director of the museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, are working on a two-year research project to determine the blue calamintha bee’s current population status and distribution, as well as nesting and feeding habits.
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