"How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour…" —Isaac Watts
One warmish day, I was walking across the back 40 to feed the dogs when I stepped right into a ground-hugging swarm of bees.
I backed off in a hurry. I have a deep respect for these busy buzzers. Years ago, I was helping hubby chase sheep up and down a mountain. Exhausted, I sat down on a stump to rest. I jumped right back up. I had plopped right on top of a yellow jackets’ nest, and boy were they mad. An angry black and yellow swarm chased me half a mile down the valley. I escaped with one sting and a great story to tell.
But, these bees were different. In spite of my threatening presence, they kept flying in low zig-zagging patterns about three inches above the ground. So, I crept closer and watched for a while. Then, I went in the house and looked them up.
Turns out they were ground bees, or digger bees, or miner bees. The distinctions are a bit fuzzy to me. I went back outside to look again and spotted little cones of dirt, like mini-volcanoes scattered across the thin grass next to the driveway. These were the openings to the solitary burrows (called tumuli) made by female bees.
Information on these native bees was pretty scarce, but it seems that perhaps what I saw flying above the burrows was the males. They emerge from the burrows first, then run reconnaissance over the openings until the females emerge.
After a female is mated, she digs a new burrow two to three inches deep, then creates about eight side tunnels. Each tunnel is stocked with a food ball made of pollen and nectar. The balls are topped with one of her eggs. Although there is only one female per burrow, the bees dig near each other, creating a colony of introverts.
After sealing each tunnel, the female dies. Meanwhile the eggs hatch and the larvae eat their pollen-nectar treat. When that’s gone, they spin a small cocoon, sleep through winter, and wait for the perfect spring day to emerge. A day much like the day I first spotted the ground bees at my house.
Of the over 20,000 named bee species in the world, it is estimated that 70% are solitary nesters like these. The genus Andrena is an especially critical pollinator for many of our Appalachian native flowers, so it is important to protect them when we see them and to provide for their future success.
Miner bees like a dry area for their nests, so I don’t saturate my lawn with sprinklers, at least not until late in the summer. Some species of miners prefer to build nests below a thin layer of mulch or leafy debris, so I leave a layer of mulch on my flower beds at all times and replenish it only when it is almost gone.
Ground dwellers aren’t our only native bees. Others are tunnel borers. They love pithy stems for nesting sites. To help them along, I leave old flower stalks in my gardens all winter long and in the spring I reduce them to twelve inches tall. My flower beds look like they have had a very bad crew-cut but the bees can use these longer stalks for homes.
Earth, left to itself, naturalizes towards shaggy and unkempt. My new gardening patterns mimic that look. I’ve seen a greater variety of non-stinging native bees in my garden and yard as a result.
I’ve always been a sort of happily laid back gardener. Native bees are just another great excuse to let things have their own way.
The story above first appeared in our May/June 2021 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!