Are Bees Endangered? Honey Bees, Bumblebees and Wild Bees

Are honey bees endangered?

The western honey bee is not at risk as a species. It is one of the few domesticated insects, and with beekeepers’ help it now lives on every continent except Antarctica. The number of managed hives worldwide has risen over recent decades to roughly 100 million.

That does not mean honey bees have it easy. Beekeepers in Europe and North America often lose a large share of their colonies each year to the parasitic Varroa mite, the viruses it spreads, poor nutrition, pesticides and harsh winters. They make up the losses by splitting strong colonies and raising new queens, which is why hive numbers stay high.

Truly wild honey bees are a different story. In October 2025 the IUCN assessed wild, free-living western honey bee colonies in the European Union as Endangered, after an estimated decline over the past decade linked to parasites, disease, pesticides, habitat loss and hybridization with imported bees. Managed hives are not part of that assessment.

How many wild bees are threatened in Europe?

Europe has about 2,000 bee species. The first European Red List of Bees, published in 2014, found 77 species threatened but lacked enough data to judge more than half of them. The updated assessment released by the IUCN in October 2025 filled many of those gaps, cutting the share of Data Deficient species from 57% to 14%.

The new picture is worse. At least 172 of the 1,928 wild bee species assessed, about 10%, are now classed as threatened with extinction. In some groups the share is above 20%, including the bumblebees, with 15 species threatened, and the cellophane bees, with 14. Among the most endangered is the mining bee Simpanurgus phyllopodus, the only member of its genus in Europe, which is Critically Endangered.

Some losses are already visible. Britain’s short-haired bumblebee was last recorded there in 1988 and was declared extinct in the country, and the great yellow bumblebee now survives in Britain mainly in the far north of Scotland.

Endangered bees in North America

In 2017 the rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis) became the first bumblebee listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act, and the first bee of any kind listed in the continental US. It was once common across the eastern and Midwestern states and southern Ontario, but it has disappeared from about 87% of its historical range, surviving mainly in scattered sites in the Upper Midwest and the Appalachians. The IUCN lists it as Critically Endangered.

Franklin’s bumble bee (Bombus franklini), which lived only in a small area of southern Oregon and northern California, has not been seen since 2006; it was listed as federally endangered in 2021 and may already be extinct. The first bees ever protected under the Endangered Species Act were seven species of Hawaiian yellow-faced bees, listed in 2016. Other once-familiar species, such as the western bumble bee and the American bumble bee, have also declined sharply across large parts of their ranges.

Why are wild bees declining?

Most bee declines have several causes that act together:

• Loss of flowers and nest sites. Intensive farming, building and the abandonment of traditional land management have destroyed flower-rich meadows, hedgerows and heaths. Habitat loss remains the main threat in the 2025 European assessment.
• Pesticides. Insecticides can kill bees outright or impair their foraging and reproduction, and herbicides remove the wildflowers they depend on. In 2018 the EU banned outdoor use of three neonicotinoid insecticides because of the risk to bees.
• Disease. Parasites and viruses can spread from managed honey bees and commercially reared bumblebees to wild bees. Disease is a suspected factor in the collapse of the rusty patched bumble bee.
• Climate change. Heat waves and drought hurt cold-adapted species. Studies of bumblebees in Europe and North America have found that many are disappearing from the warm southern edges of their ranges without expanding north to compensate.
• Nitrogen pollution. Fertilizer runoff and air pollution favor tall grasses over the low-growing flowers many bees need.

Not all bees are in decline

Some bees are thriving. The buff-tailed bumblebee, one of Europe’s commonest bumblebees, is assessed as Least Concern and does well in towns and gardens. The tree bumblebee arrived in Britain from mainland Europe in 2001 and has since spread across most of England and Wales. Warmer temperatures also suit some southern species, such as carpenter bees, which develop and breed faster in the heat.

The problem is that the winners tend to be adaptable, widespread generalists, while the losers are specialists that need particular flowers, habitats or cool climates. As a result, bee communities across Europe and North America are becoming less varied.

Why it matters

Bees are the most important pollinators of wild plants and many crops, and up to 90% of Europe’s flowering plants depend at least partly on animal pollination. Losing wild bee species weakens that service, because different bees visit different flowers and fly in different weather. For the full story of what bees do, see why are bees important?

What is being done to help bees

Conservation work is underway on both sides of the Atlantic. In England, short-haired bumblebee queens from Sweden have been released since the early 2010s around Dungeness in Kent, on farmland restored with wildflowers, and the restored meadows have also helped several other rare bumblebees. In the US, the rusty patched bumble bee’s listing has led to habitat restoration and surveys across the Midwest.

Farmers can sow wildflower strips and keep hedgerows, and anyone with a garden or balcony can help by growing a range of flowers that bloom from early spring to autumn, leaving some areas unmown and avoiding pesticides. For how the IUCN categories work, see endangered animals.