Bees 101: Fast Facts to Share

/

Looking to dazzle your co-workers or family and friends with fascinating bee facts? (Okay, maybe it’s just us). Nevertheless, here’s a quick dive into “Bees 101” for the Pacific Northwest. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

What bees are doing when you see them…

Bees are usually seen feeding, or foraging for food to bring back to the nest. They use pollen and nectar. Pollen is their protein, nectar is their “carbs.” Not all bees are flying around at the same time. Most solitary bees live only a few weeks, in spring, summer, or fall. A bumblebee hive “lives” spring to fall, but most individual bumblebees live just a month or two, while only the queen lives all season.

Where bees live…

Bee on goldenrod

Female bees hunt for nesting spots as soon as they wake up in the spring or early summer. No native bees live in a big hive with honeycomb like honeybees do. Most are solitary nesters, though some solitary bees may nest close to the nests of their sister bees. Bumblebees live communally in a small group nest. Bees do not live in hanging hives, like in Winnie the Pooh. Those hanging paper hives are wasp nests. Among native bees, only bumblebees live in “hives.” Solitary bees nest in the ground, or in holes in snags or logs, or inside hollow stems. Bumblebees like to nest in an existing cavity, such as an old bird nest or mouse nest, or they may nest in the dense material of an old grass clump, or the dead foliage under a sword fern.

How bees live…

Most of a bee’s life is lived out of sight. They begin as an egg. The egg hatches into a little larva, which looks like a little soft blob. The larva, when it’s done eating, becomes a pupa, which looks much like a compressed bee without wings. The pupa hatches into an adult. Only the adults are seen flying around. The few weeks of a solitary female bee’s active flying life is spent eating, mating, finding and preparing a nest in which to lay eggs, laying eggs, and providing a food ball for the larva to eat when it hatches from the egg. They are busy single moms. Male bees live to eat, and to mate.

A bumblebee’s life is communal, in a small colony, and therefore is different from the lives of solitary bees. There is a queen, there are female workers, and male drones. In summer, the queen lays special eggs for the new queen bees for the following year. The old queen dies in the fall, and all her hive with her. Before the old hive shuts down, the new queens hatch and mate, then sleep alone over the winter, underground in a little hole. In spring they awake, and begin a new nest and new colony.

What plants bees like…

A Bumblebee on a blanketflower

Many bees will feed on a variety of plants. Some types use only a few specific plants. Not all flowers are suitable for all types of bees. Bees have very different tongue lengths, for example. Tube-shaped blossoms have the nectar and pollen deep inside, and may be inaccessible to short-tongued bees. Bumblebees tend to have long tongues: ½ inch up to an amazing ¾ inch! Sometimes bees will feed by “nectar robbing.” Bumblebees often do this on columbine blooms, for example. They chew a little hole in one of the “spurs” of the blossom, and gather nectar through the hole without pollinating the plant.

Bees will visit different types of plants in a single journey, though they may prefer to stick with one flower type. They generally prefer to find feeding options clustered together, to save flight time and energy. Bees save energy by foraging close to their nests. Some smaller bees must find food very close by the nest. Bumblebees may travel a quarter mile to find good forage.

“Non-native honeybees cannot pollinate certain crops, like cranberries, blueberries, and raspberries. These crops are dependent on native bees for pollination.”

Non-native honeybees cannot pollinate certain crops, like cranberries, blueberries, and raspberries. These crops are dependent on native bees for pollination. Bumblebees have a special technique call “buzz pollination,” which they use to shake pollen loose from certain flowers, including blueberries, cranberries, and rhododendrons. Honeybees cannot do this. Many other crops benefit from native pollinators. For example, alfalfa crops need leafcutter bees for efficient pollination to set seed.

What we don’t know…

We do not know for certain the cause of declines in our native bees. Suspects are loss of habitat, parasites, exposure to disease, and garden or agricultural chemicals. Fungicides are especially deadly to bees, as well as pesticides. We don’t know how many species of native bees there actually are in Washington. There are about 600 known species, but that’s not all of them. It is possible that some bee species may go extinct before being known and studied. We do not have specific information on the nesting habitat requirements for many native bee species. For example, among ground nesting bees, what kind of soil is preferred? Loose or compact? Clay or sandy? Vertical (like a cliff) or horizontal? Which bee species use which type of soil? We need more scientists and citizen observers to investigate these bee mysteries!

Thank you to Peg Ferm Design LLC for providing this information. Peg is a registered Landscape Architect and has 33 years of experience in landscape architecture, including residential and commercial design, wetland mitigation, streambank restoration, buffer design, and park and trail planning.