The weather has been warm this week, so my bees have been coming out of the hive each morning when the sun hits their landing board, taking the chance to do cleansing flights (poop) and haul out dead bees. It has me wondering how the native bees are doing and hoping that my roving chickens have not eaten them where they are hibernating. I decided to pull up my little guide to native bees in our area to share with you. One of the unexpected joys of keeping bees has been the passion it inspired for native bees. Seeing a honeybee in our neighborhood is not unusual, but as our garden developed, we have been visited by various native pollinators, and learning about them always thrills me—even that time I discovered that Bald Faced Hornets (scary) were visiting hummingbird feeder. Each of the photos in this guide was taken by me in our garden or nearby. I just need a fuzzy little digger bee to visit and my collection will be complete.
Native Bees in Our Neighborhood
There are over 4,000 types of native bees in the United States and many native plants can only successfully be pollinated by a native bee or butterfly. Most native bees are solitary, living in nests inhabited by a single bee and her offspring, in contrast to the large hives or nests built by honeybees and wasps. Many Native Bees do not have stingers.
This is a honeybee. They are social, generally docile unless threatened, and good pollinators, but they are not native to North America.
Bumble Bee
A Bumble Bee is a social bee, but they build colonies of a few dozen to hundreds, rather than the tens of thousands of honeybees in a hive. Bumble bees are easily recognized because of their very large size. Here in the Rocky Mountains, they often have a bright orange stripe.
They have a stinger but are very unlikely to sting. You can even pet them if you’re calm and careful (unlike me).
They are great pollinators, especially of tomatoes. They use buzz pollination, grabbing the flower and vibrating the pollen loose, and some flowers such as those in the nightshade family, cranberries, and blueberries, require this method.
Leafcutter Bee
Leafcutter bees line their nests with pieces of leaves and make solitary nests in old stems or other tube-like structures. If you see crescent or half-moon-shaped holes in the leaves of your plants (see photo above) it can be a calling card of leafcutter bees. They collect pollen on scopae (dense, fine hairs) on the underside of their bodies. They are unlikely to sting and their stings do not hurt as much as a honeybee’s. They wiggle their bums a lot to collect pollen.
Carpenter Bee
Carpenter bees can be quite large, but do not look fuzzy like a bumble bee. They are usually black and shiny. Although they can look scary, they are not aggressive. These solitary, non-aggressive bees like to nest in wood, such as in fence posts. They collect pollen on their legs, like honeybees. In my garden, they really like corn, which I find interesting because corn is usually pollinated by the wind.
Squash Bee
Squash bees are specialists in pollinating squash. They nest in the ground near pumpkin patches or gardens. They can be seen resting inside squash blossoms and are most active in the morning. They look like honey bees but are bigger, and have flatter torsos with more regular stripe patterns and sometimes a much fuzzier thorax.
Only females have stingers, but they are unlikely to sting. They are solitary, but many tend to nest in the same place. Often, the males can be found napping in squash blossoms after spending the morning flying around looking for food and a mate. It is incredibly cute.
Longhorned Bee
Longhorned bees have a specialized relationship with sunflowers but will visit a variety of plants. Their very long antennae can distinguish them. The male bees often have light-colored eyes.
They are solitary and only the females have stingers, but they are very unlikely to sting you.
There are two genera in this group and you can see here that they vary in size, especially between the male in the photo above and the females in the videos below.
Metallic Green Sweat Bee
These bees are pretty easy to recognize because they are…metallic green. They are also tiny. They usually create solitary nests in the ground, but sometimes female bees will nest communally by building their solitary nests in a cluster.
How to Help Native Bees In Our Neighborhood
Don’t rush to clean up your garden. Leave some stalks and stems for bees to nest in.
Leave the leaves as a layer over your yard or rake them into a particular corner. Leaves provide cover for bees who nest in the ground.
Slow Mow May: Don’t mow your lawn in May, and consider mowing it only every other week throughout the summer.
Leave the dandelions! If you can’t stand them, pull them–don’t use poison.
Leave out water stations. Water tables for kids are great options if you use them anyway. Put stones, corks, or floating toys in the water to help prevent drowning.
Put up a Native Bee Hotel. Just make sure you clean it once a year.
Plant native plants! Some great options include sunflowers, columbines, coneflower, yarrow, bee balm/wild bergamot, goldenrod, and aster.
Which is your favorite bee? Tell me in the comments.
If you like my bee photos, we have a set of 4 native bee notecards in our Etsy shop.