I just finished a book by Dave Goulson titled A Sting in the Tale, and so was more than a little interested when two BBC broadcasters discussed a recent story indicating that bumblebees provided more value to the British economy than the royal family.

The BBC broadcasters lightly scoffed at that idea, noting that if someone wanted to they could play the comparison game in any number of ways and arrive at whatever conclusion they so desired. They didn’t actually come out and say it but strongly suggested that the bumblebee vs. royalty contest was a bit absurd.

Is it?

Goulson, professor of biological sciences at the University of Stirling in England and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT), lays out in a light-hearted but convincing way the decline of bumblebees around the world, the implications that has, and what we might be able to do about it.

The direct link with bumblebees and the economy, of course, is the role they play in pollinating plants and flowers. Some estimates place the bumblebees’ value in that regard at more than one billion dollars in Great Britain alone.

Loss of habitat, increased mechanization of agriculture, pesticides and the bees’ susceptibility to a variety of parasites has contributed to its decline throughout much of North America and Europe. And in a relative short span of time, a number of bumblebee species have become extinct.

Goulson remains optimistic, however, and his efforts to bring the short-haired bumblebee back to England, where it once thrived, have met with some success, albeit on a small scale. So while there is cause for concern, there is also hope.

Now back to the royal family. The value question here might be a tough one to tackle, so I’m going to provide a different comparison and one, I believe, that offers a more clear-cut answer.

Ready? Okay, more value: North American bumblebees or the U.S. Congress?  See, told you it would be easy.