Ground-nesting Bees - Want to Save the Bees? Look Down!

Most native bees nest in the ground, rarely if ever sting, and are tremendously important pollinators. Learn what you can do to help (and to stop inadvertently harming them).

To grow plants, we can tap into abundant resources for information about their preferred soils, rainfall and other conditions. But what does it take to grow a bee?

That question is top of mind for scientists studying a little-known but critical group of pollinators: the solitary native bees nesting beneath our feet.

“One of the big challenges is that these bees spend 80 or 90 percent of their life cycles below ground,” says Alexandra Harmon-Threatt, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Illinois I interviewed for my American Gardener column, “To Save Native Bees, Nurture Their Earthen Homes.” “And we just have no real way of tracking the really important sensitive stages of those life cycles once they’re down there. … The soil is literally a black box.”

Cellophane bee nests — Cellophane bees nest near each other, and people unfamiliar with native bees often assume their mounds are anthills. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Exacerbating the dearth of knowledge are persistent misconceptions about which bees are really at risk. As the global trend of introducing hives of nonnative honeybees to “save the bees” continues unabated, an increasing body of research is revealing honeybees’ potential to transmit disease to native bees and usurp their floral resources.

Even in circles where there’s an awareness of the world’s 20,000 native bees, about 70 to 80 percent of whom are ground-nesters, “the conversation is always about floral resources,” says Cornell University entomology professor Bryan Danforth. “It’s ‘we need to plant more wildflowers, more pollinator friendly gardens.’ And that’s great. That’s really important. But what’s missing is this idea that nesting sites are really high-priority conservation sites.”

Enter Project GNBee (gnbee.org), a community science initiative begun in Danforth’s lab that aims to identify where different types of bees are nesting, which conditions they prefer, and how to protect and replicate those habitats. By enlisting community scientists to find and monitor nesting sites and take soil samples, research scientist Jordan Kueneman hopes to help people “think about conserving them and realize what they need before we lose them.” …

A Bee & Bee for Cavity Nesters: Twenty to 30 percent of native bees nest in logs, twigs, and cut or nibbled perennial stalks. This American Gardener column features tips for nurturing their habitat from bee expert and author Heather Holm.

How to Really Save the Bees: An oldie but goodie, this post provides general concepts and tips for native bee habitat.

Wasp Watching: Did you know that, like most bees, most wasps are very unlikely to sting you, and many can’t? Wasps are also excellent pollinators, predators and parasitoids who provide natural controls of caterpillars, spiders, grasshoppers and more. Learn more about the similarities and differences between bees and wasps—and how to nurture habitat for both.

Resources

Project GNBee: A community science project to locate and monitor aggregate nesting sites of native ground-nesting bees.

The Xerces Society: One of the best go-to sources for information on native bee conservation, status and habitat needs.

Bee and Pollinator Books by Heather Holm: Another go-to favorite for all things native bee.

My books:

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