The US Fish and Wildlife Service has recently listed the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee as an endangered species (see the fact sheet); that brings the total number of Bee species listed as endangered to date at 8.
In September 2016, the Service listed a group of 7 yellow-faced bees in Hawaii as the first bees in the country to be protected under the Endangered Species Act (see the Federal Register). You can also read a nice article at the Xerces Society website.
Now the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee has the notoriety of being the 1st Bee within the continental United States declared as endangered.
I hope we are not witnessing the beginning of a tragedy in our lifetime, but it is troubling to note that this is the first time since 1967 (50 years) that Bees have been listed as endangered; however, these are not the first pollinators to be listed, as we have bestowed that honor to some of our Butterflies.
This is a good thing for Honey Bees as well because it aligns additional resources and more sense of urgency to some of the same issues that may eventually land other bees onto the list.
Interestingly, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ECOS (The Environmental Conservation Online System) where you can peruse its listings of threatened and endangered species; a bit slow, but very informative…