In recent weeks, Droege has drummed up vocal support for the lab, and hundreds of biologists, volunteers, and partners have written to Congress on their behalf. “But in general, scientists—we’re just doing our job. We’re a little invisible,” he said.

Outside the Bee Lab are many other EMA scientists who could also be fired: Experts like Tabitha Graves, a Montana ecologist whose assessments of the Western bumblebee have become the framework for that species’ recovery in the Pacific Northwest or Wayne Thogmartin, a Wisconsin ecologist whose research on monarch butterflies has been internationally important for understanding their decline.

State agencies, federal resource managers, and nonprofits all rely on EMA’s centralized, consistent, and freely accessible data and guidance, which they say minimizes collective costs and effort.

States aren’t well-equipped to study creatures like bees, which don’t heed their borders, nor to ensure their work harmonizes with that of other states. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages protected species, isn’t funded to track all the other species—that’s EMA’s purview. Universities, though full of biologists exploring novel research questions, don’t usually do long-term monitoring. And there are few experts like Droege for any of these groups to hire if they need help.

So without the federal bee research division, “we cannot understand how pollinators are doing,” said Malfi at the Xerces Society—nor how to protect these creatures, without which North American ecosystems and crops (among them blueberries, tomatoes, and squash) would collapse.

An Office Under Multiple Threats

These reduction-in-force (RIF) layoffs have been paused since May by a District Court injunction, which a federal appeals court has so far upheld. Trump’s emergency appeal to the highest court put it on their “shadow docket,” so although justices are now in recess until October, they could rule on it at any time.

Last week, the Supreme Court did rule on a seemingly unrelated case that nonetheless posed a sideways threat to EMA: Federal workers feared that when the court decided to limit nationwide injunctions, it would also undo the RIF injunction that has so far protected their jobs. To their relief, a footnote in the ruling likely blocked its application to this case.

Trump has also asked Congress to drastically cut EMA funding from USGS appropriations, proposing just $29 million for unspecified EMA programs in his 2026 budget request. But appropriations bills require 60 votes to clear the Senate, and tie individual legislators to unpopular cuts. In Trump’s first term, Congress rejected his attempts to gut science agencies, but amid this year’s funding fights, many biologists fear that legislators will not prioritize natural resources.

A second threat in Congress may not require any votes at all: In a recent House briefing, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum indicated the administration will send a budget rescission request to Congress later this summer, asking them to claw back a portion of the Interior Department’s 2025 budget, which still has not formally been allocated.

A rescission only needs a simple Senate majority—but if the request comes within 45 days of the fiscal year end (the window legislators have to take up a proposal), Congress could effectively cancel funding without ever needing to vote, since the paused money wouldn’t roll into the new fiscal year. The legally untested move, called a pocket rescission, would free individuals from blame—though it would almost certainly face lawsuits.

One other threat to federal biologists and other workers has so far been neutralized. In June, senators added a provision to Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would have given his administration the power to downsize the federal workforce “without obstruction” from Congress or the courts.

If included in this budget reconciliation bill, it would have allowed the administration to implement RIF layoffs without approval from the Supreme Court. But the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that this and numerous other provisions violated Senate rules, so struck them from the bill.

While federal biologists have survived these attempts so far, they underscore the precarity bee research is facing. Many fear the division’s demise is imminent, especially if Congress doesn’t decide its fate through the appropriations process. So while conservation groups and supporters rally behind these scientists, Droege has been gauging other ways to preserve the lab’s collections, which form the foundation of all U.S. bee taxonomy.

The Smithsonian would probably take the lab’s hundreds of thousands of identified specimens, he said, but likely couldn’t provide the hands-on support the lab does. They also wouldn’t take the up to 200,000 specimens that haven’t yet been identified. As a last resort, Droege said, he’d move these to his own home and establish a private lab; at 66, he had no plans to retire, anyway.

“My motivation is not saving my job,” he said. “My motivation is the bees.” With continued study and science-based protection, he added, “it’s not that difficult to keep them around.”