Native Bees Overwinter in Unexpected Places Despite appearances, the bees never really left us. While we snuggle under blankets indoors, native bees hide under leafy covers of their own as they overwinter until spring. Where do native bees overwinter?
As the buzz of busy bees gave way to the rustle of fallen leaves in my autumn garden, the last of the bumblebee stragglers hit up fading mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum) blooms. Day by day, fewer sparkly green sweat bees and dwarf carpenter bees nectared on the asters (Symphyotrichum spp. and hybrids), eventually vanishing along with the fluffy field thistle (Cirsium spp.) seeds. Despite appearances, the bees never really left us. While we snuggle under blankets indoors, bees of many shapes and sizes hide under leafy covers of their own. Seventy percent of the nearly 4,000 native bee species in North America build nests on or below the surface, and many of their progeny spend winter ensconced in soil, emerging as adult bees just in time to catch favorite blooms. The rest are cavity nesters, spending winter in logs, broken wildflower stalks and twigs of shrubs like elderberry (Sambucus spp. and hybrids) and roses (Rosa spp. and hybrids).
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Though domesticated honeybees have captured our cultural imagination since their introduction by colonists centuries ago, their highly managed, social lifestyles are nothing like those of native bees. Most bees in the wild are solitary, building nests by themselves and laying a small number of eggs. You don’t need a beekeeper’s suit to be near these important pollinators
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