05/20/2026
It's World Bee Day! If you see one, tell them thank you!
There are 4,000 native bee species in the North American. About 30 percents nest in abandoned tunnels or hollow stems while 70 percent nest in the ground. These native bees rarely sting but do not make honey like the honeybee. It is interesting to note that honeybees are not native to North Aerica but were brought by the European settlers in the 1600s,. Over time the honeybees managed to escape domestication and established wild swarms throughout North America.
The native bees provide very valuable ecologic service by pollinating 80 percent of the flowering plants, including 75 percent of the fruit/nut trees and vegetables. The Mason Bee or blue orchard bee (Osmia Lagnaria) is a hard-working bee that produces more fruit on apple trees. It takes about 250 Mason bees to )pollinate one acre of apple trees and about 20,000 honeybees to do the same work. The Mason Bee is a tiny blue/black solitary bee. All Mason bees have round abdomens, heads and thoraces, while other bees are more oval-shaped. Mason bees carry pollen by wedging granules into rows of hairs on their abdomens. They use established 5/16-inch holes to create five egg chambers that are separated by mud walls and a thicker plug to seal the nest entrance from parasites. The innermost three chambers are female while the two chambers nearest. the entrance are males.
Another native bee is the Leaf Cutter Bee (Megachile rotundata) . The Leaf Cutter Bee is about half the size of a honeybee and has striped bands on its heart shaped abdomen. They are also solitary bee and carry their pollen on their abdomens. They are slow flyers with thick heads that hold muscle required for leaf cutting. They nest in existing holes and make eggs chamber with cell walls of overlapping circular sections of leaves that they have cut. You may have seen those nearly perfect circles neatly clipped from the leaves of your prize rose bushes.
Some of the native bees specialize on pollinating one type of flowering plants. One example is squash bee (Eucera peponapis) which are efficient visitors and pollinators of squash, pumpkin and zucchini plants. The Squash bee has orange coloration with flurry bright white abdominal branding. It carries bright, cloud-like pollen pellets on its hind legs. The Squash bee flies fast with darting movements and legs tucked close to their body. The Squash bee digs vertical shaft 6-9 inches long in the ground and constructs 4 or 5 lateral nest cells. It is estimated that Squash bees do many times more pollination per flower per unit time than honeybees.
Helping native bees is essential because of the invaluable ecosystem services they provide to the environment and to our farms, forests, and gardens. If you would like to the encourage native bee populations, you can do the following actions in your garden.
Plant a variety of native flowering wildflowers, shrubs and trees that bloom successively throughout the seasons
Avoid pesticides or choose non-chemical solutions to insect problems
Provide source of pesticide-free water and mud
Provide nesting habitats for native bees by leaving bare soil with good drainage, slight shade or dappled sunlight
Provide different sized dead wood logs and drill hole 5/16-inch holes about 4 to 6 inches deep
Build a rock pile or wall to attract native bees that nest in crevices
Allow leaf litter, standing dead twigs, stalks and stems on flower beds until spring
Reduce the size of your lawn by planting a pollinator garden
Submitted by The FCMG Pollinator Committee
