Large Mass of Bumblebees Spotted Dead in Oregon Parking Lot

Earlier this week nearly 25,000 bumble bees were found dead in the parking lot of a shopping center in Wilsonville, Oregon, forcing environmental experts to trace the cause of such a massive die off, reports Inquisitr.

This is the largest mass death of bumble bees in the region's history. The conservationists at Portland based Xerces Society are still puzzled as to what led to the death of a large number of black and yellow bumble bees but they believe that it could be the insecticides that were sprayed on the trees that killed the bees. The bees were spotted beneath the European linden trees.

Rich Hatfield, a Xerces Society conservation biologist said to KPTV, a local news station, that on reaching the spot they could see the bees literally falling out of the trees.  This massacre is one the largest documented bumble bee deaths in Western U.S.

At least 150 bumble bee colonies were lost, reports KPTV. Along with the bumble bees, they even spotted lady bugs, honey bees and other insect species.

Currently the Oregon Department of Agriculture is trying to find the cause of such a big massacre.

"If the trees are indeed toxic they should be cut down and replaced by something that will provide non-toxic pollen and nectar for bees," Scott Hoffman Black, Executive Director at the Xerces Society, was quoted in Nature World News. "On the other hand, if pesticides are the cause, we need to spotlight this as a real-world lesson in the harm these toxic chemicals are causing to beneficial insects. It would be especially alarming to find out whether pesticides are the cause in this case because the linden trees are not even an agricultural crop. Any spraying that happened would have been done for purely cosmetic reasons."

Last year U.S. lost  one third of bee colonies. Bees are an important part of the food chain. The ecosystem will suffer due to the loss of such a large number of bees.

Pictures of the massive die off the bumblebees can be viewed HERE.