Oregon Public Broadcasting

A local conservation group is helping lead an effort to put more regulations on domestic bumblebee shipments. Ryan Knutson reports.

The Portland-based Xerces Society says the population of four bumblebee species has precipitously dropped from normal levels, and bumblebees that are commercially grown in the east coast and shipped around the U.S. to pollinate greenhouse crops is largely to blame.

The Xerces Society has joined with other conservation groups in asking the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to require companies that raise bees to prove they are disease free.

Xerces Society Executive Director Scott Black also says the group is asking the federal government to prevent bees from being shipped outside their native regions.

Scott Black: “Moving insects across the country, where they can come in contact with their wild cousins, they’re likely to spread that disease.”

The agency says it is reviewing the request.