Native Bees in Your Yard Are Doing Important Work

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Most gardeners recognize honey bees, but in Washington, there are over 600 species of native bees doing much of the pollination work in our landscapes.

In this conversation, Anne Bulger, a WSU Master Gardener, discusses the significance of native bees in gardening and pollination. She shares her journey into the world of native bees, emphasizing their efficiency as pollinators compared to honey bees. The discussion covers common misconceptions about native bees, the importance of supporting them in gardens, and the diversity of bee species, particularly mining bees. Anne also highlights the role of native bees in maintaining healthy ecosystems and offers practical advice for gardeners to create bee-friendly habitats.

You’ll learn:

• Why native bees are often more effective pollinators than honey bees
• How to recognize common native bees, including mining bees and mason bees
• The difference between nests and hives—and why that matters
• Simple, practical ways to support native bees through everyday gardening choices
  

This episode highlights a shift many gardeners experience: moving away from controlling the garden toward understanding how it’s being used—and why that matters for pollinators.

• Washington Native Bee Society
• Washington Bee Atlas
• NatureScaping
• Friends of Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge
• Episode 55 Washington Bee Atlas
• WSU Extension Clark County
• WSU EMG Clark County Facebook
• Other Episodes about Pollinators

Evergreen Thumb (00:23)
Anne, thanks for joining me today, welcome.

Anne Bulger (00:26)
Thank you, Erin, for having me. I appreciate it.

Evergreen Thumb (00:29)
Sure. Well, to start off, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, your work with the Master Gardeners, and how you got interested in native bees?

Anne Bulger (00:37)
Well, I’m a WSU Master Gardener in Southwest Washington’s Clark County. And most of my volunteer work really centers on like pollinator education and habitat stewardship. I do spend time working with home gardeners in community gardens and public lands. And they have a desire to support wildlife, but may just not know where to start.

So my interest in native bees actually grew out of gardening. So in 1985, I had my very first official raised garden beds, and they were created out of necessity because I was living in Southern California at that time and dealing with deadpan soil.

And I noticed that once I slowed down and I really watched the flowers, I realized just how many different bees were visiting them, especially in the early spring. Now, people are generally familiar with honey bees, but much less aware of the hundreds of native bees that are actually doing the bulk of all the pollination work.

Mining bees in particular caught my attention because they’re so visible in early spring, and that’s right when we gardeners are like biting at the bit, you know, because we’re eager to get out there and get our hands in the ground.

Evergreen Thumb (01:57)
So, can you give us a little bit more about native bees in general and why they’re so important in our gardens?

Anne Bulger (02:03)
So, in Washington State, we have over 600 species of native bees and counting. And that diversity actually really surprises a lot of people. Native bees can range in size from being really very tiny and you would hardly even notice them. You might see them and say, is that an ant on the flower? All the way to bumblebee queens, which most everybody recognizes. And over 70 % of our native bees actually nest in the ground. Now, native bees are really important, and they matter because they’re incredibly efficient pollinators. They evolved alongside our native plants.

Native bees pollinate more effectively than our non-native honey bees here on the North American continent because of how they carry or move the pollen around and how they forage. Native bees are gentle and rarely sting. In fact, females can sting only really if handled aggressively.

have a number of friends who will just have a native bee on their finger, like you would have a bird perch on your finger, and they, you know, and they love that so much. And so, you know, these native bees are much more interested in flowers and building their nests than they are in people. Native bees are threatened by the loss of foraging, nesting, and overwintering habitat.

The Importance of Native Bees

Evergreen Thumb (03:35)
So your interest in native bees, I understand, led you to ⁓ work with the Washington Bee Atlas. Can you tell us a little bit more about your experience with that?

Anne Bulger (03:46)
Sure. So I volunteer with the Washington Bee Atlas, and that involves surveying bees in a number of different habitats and learning to observe these bees closely. And one of the biggest lessons that the Atlas actually has reinforced for me is how much you can learn simply by slowing down.

Now, the atlas is closely associated with Oregon State University’s Master Melittology program, and this program teaches citizen scientists like myself careful observation. And just as a little aside fact, Melittology is actually the study of all bee species.

Now, when you start watching bees instead of reacting to them, you actually start noticing patterns, like what flowers that they’re using, where they’re nesting, when they’re active. And it actually changes the way you garden. I became much less focused on controlling my garden space and much more interested in understanding how it’s being used.

So the training that we get through the Washington Bee Atlas and the Master Melittology program includes the use of different collection techniques. And then we input data into iNaturalist, which is an app that we as citizen scientists use. And it allows us to record and identify and then share these observations with other people all around the world.

Something that’s important to note is that when I talk about identification, it’s oftentimes really about the native bees behavior and the seasonality of that bee and the habitat, not just about color and how they look. And then our data is then collected, and it’s used worldwide by academics and conservationists who assess pollinator health, which is a big deal, and in developing habitat conservation strategies.

These two organizations, and maybe all of us that are invested in conservation, really we aim to support biodiversity and to increase the public’s information and understanding of their local ecosystems.

Misconceptions About Native Bees

Evergreen Thumb (06:07)
What are some of the more common misconceptions about native bees?

Anne Bulger (06:13)
One of the most common is that bees are aggressive and they’re likely to sting you. And it’s true, honey bees are highly defensive. Again, remember they’re non-native. They came onto the North American continent in the 1600s when the colonists brought them over for not only honey, but for the wax they needed for candles.

So these honey bees really act to protect the hive with its stores of honey and pollen, and also they’re protecting the queen. Well, when it comes to the vast majority of native bees, they’re solitary, and they’re not aggressive. Many of them don’t really even have the ability to sting in a meaningful way. So our ground nesting bees can be confused with like, yellow jackets that also build their nests in the ground.

But you gotta understand that the Yellow Jacket Queens really emerged later in March and April, and their colonies are truly more active during the summer months than the beginning of fall, like July through September. They’ve got that really distinctive bright yellow and black banded coloration. And they evolved in such a way to have that because it’s a warning signal to predators and to us as humans that they are a potential threat.

One of the fun factoids is that bees actually evolved from wasps. Now, another common confusion is oftentimes between hives and nests. So honeybees, they live in colonies inside of a hive. But most native bees live alone. Like, if you look at mining bees, for example, they nest in the ground, often in a sunny kind of compacted soil area.

And people can see clusters of these holes and then assume, my gosh, that’s a problem when it’s actually a sign of a healthy habitat. Other native bees, they nest in hollow stems or wood tunnels. And bumblebees actually nest in, and they are attracted to mice nests.

And yeah, I am talking about like mole holes too. So there’s also a misconception that messy landscapes, you know, are bad, you know. And I’m not advocating that we just, you know, don’t do any type of tidiness in our garden, but bare ground and old stems and leaf litter and undisturbed areas are really critical nesting resources for our native bees.

Evergreen Thumb (08:53)
It’s kind of funny, it seems like the things that we don’t want in our garden, the rodents, are what actually draw what we do want in our garden, the bubble bees.

Anne Bulger (09:04)
I know. I have mole holes. I mean, I think everybody here in Clark County has mole holes and probably everywhere. But what I just do is I stomp them, you know, I just kind of flatten them out. So it really does still leave that area that the bumblebees can utilize. ⁓

Understanding Mining Bees

Evergreen Thumb (09:20)
Let’s take a closer look at the mining bees, and they’re, I’m not even going to try to say the genus because I know I’ll mess it up. So how are they different from other native bees?

Anne Bulger (09:30)
Hahaha

Okay. Yeah, mining bees actually belong to the family of native bees called Andrenidae. And I like to think about mining bees as the bees that get the growing season going. They’re kind of a gateway bee actually for learning to observe native bees. As I mentioned, they are ground nesting, and they do emerge very early. In fact, a lot of people will see them on dandelions as early as February into March.

And you can tell that you’re looking at a mining bee by noting the season. So if it’s late winter, early spring, and you see a kind of a usually blackish kind of hairy bee that might have a little bit of a sheen to it, you’re most likely looking at a mining bee.

Now I do want to just bring in one of my other really favorite bees, which is a mason bee. And they can also be typically black, and they can kind of have that metallic sheen to them. And they can be hairy as well. But they look more like a fly.

So that would be kind of the difference. And when it comes to mining bees, the males, actually, if you were to take a close look at them, you can see that they’re actually sporting kind of a whitish or yellowish mustache on their face. And then females, they’re going to be carrying their pollen on their hind legs in such a way that it’s going to look like they actually are wearing like pollen pants.

Now, in contrast to that, when we look at our non-native honeybee, they collect pollen on their hind legs as well, but they do it in a pollen sack. So they have a pollen nectar collection sack on their back leg, and that is called a corbicula. And it’s just this neat little, it looks almost like a drop on their hind leg, where you’ll get that fuzzy nature to the mining bee’s pollen collection.

And they’re a little bit smaller than a female honeybee as well in size.

Now, they may look even chaotic in their busyness because they, as I said, they nest in the ground, but they nest in individual tunnels. When they excavate these tunnels, it actually results in a little bit of this kind of small mound of dirt outside that entrance that looks kind of like an anthill. And sometimes that can alarm gardeners, you know, like, oh my gosh, what am I seeing, you know?

But they are these solitary bees that share a neighborhood, so they’re not in a colony like a honeybee would be in a hive, and each female is responsible for her own tunneled nest. And this excavating behavior actually benefits the soil by providing soil aeration.

Evergreen Thumb (12:29)
It’s funny because I think I’ve seen those before. They’re just like little soil mounds, right? I always thought it was like a bird trying to get in there and get something.

Anne Bulger (12:38)
Well, and what’s important to know is that that activity is really temporary. You know, the mining bees’ active period is only about three to six weeks. And so we need to just know that that’s going to be just occurring during that period of time. But once you start noticing the mining bees and their activities, you’ll really begin to, you know, understand how much life is happening like right underneath your feet.

Supporting Native Bees in Our Gardens

Evergreen Thumb (13:03)
So what are some ways that gardeners can support native bees in their own landscapes?

Anne Bulger (13:10)
So I think one of the simplest, and it could be almost the most important thing that gardeners can do, is to understand that bare ground is habitat. So, leaving patches of undisturbed ground, delaying spring cleanup is a big thing, and resisting the urge to over mulch will really make a huge difference.

and maybe even letting our most unloved non-native wildflower, the dandelion, to bloom for a little while longer.

not only in the spring but even in the fall because you know those dandelions, cat’s ears, really provide a lot of nectar and pollen for our native bees. And plant diversity is also key, like especially the bloom time. So as we talked about mining bees, that early spring flowering is really critical for them because they need to be able to emerge and find a pollen and nectar resource. Native plants help

And non-native plants help as well because they actually extend the season to provide those nectar and pollen resources for our native bees. If we look at this time of year, in one of my portions of my backyard, well, I’ve got Daphne, you know, blooming. I have Edgeworthia. These are not native plants because our native plants aren’t blooming yet.

But these do provide those critical resources for our native bees.

I also do practice integrated pest and weed management. And I really try to emphasize prevention and nonchemical methods when I’m trying to deal with some of the problems that we typically have in our yards and gardens. Well, as master gardeners, we do know, though, that this isn’t always going to be enough. And so what’s important to pay attention to is the timing of when you use a pesticide.

The best time if you are going to be in a position to consider a pesticide is to do it in the late afternoon when that foraging activity is diminished. It also provides the opportunity for that product to dry on the plant as opposed to being wet because in the wet state, most pesticides are most toxic, and once they’re dry, they’re not.

The application methods that we do target spraying, you know. Maybe even when we’re talking about timing, if we can spray when there are not blooms on the plants yet, then being careful about what we select as a pesticide. And there are websites that are really great that you can go to that can help you really figure out how to avoid unintended harm to our native bees.

And often, helping our native bees is about doing less, not more.

Diversity of Native Bees

Evergreen Thumb (16:13)
So, can you tell us a little bit about some of the other bees, similar to mining bees, and kind of the differences between some of them? I remember reading, I think it was an article you wrote, that some of them are like as small as the head of a pin.

Anne Bulger (16:27)
Those are Perdita, and they are the same family as the mining bee, and they’re actually what we call a fairy bee. Like they dance around our native bees, our bigger native bees. They’re generally speaking found more in eastern Washington.

But when it comes to other native bees that might be around at the same time as mining bees, well, those mason bees, and they’re in the Megachilidae family, which again, one of my favorite bees, they emerge later in March or April.

And we do have the digger bees. In particular, the Anthophora pacifica are common here. And they’re chunkier, and they’re larger than mining bees. They kind of almost look a little bit more like a bumblebee. They’re actually in the same family as the bumblebee and honeybee, which is the Apidae family.

And then, as I mentioned, the bumblebees, those queens are going to be emerging in February and March, and they’re going to be out there looking right away for pollen and nectar to build their nests. And as I said, often in those old rodent holes. The interesting thing about bumblebees is when they emerge, they’re actually fully fertilized and ready to lay eggs. Their fertilization process occurred prior to them going into hibernation and overwintering.

Now, a really interesting bee that I want to include in this is the Nomada bee. because they actually emerge at the same time as the mining bees, but they are kleptoparasitic to the mining bee. And what I mean by that is we casually call them cuckoo bees because they mimic that kind of home invasion behavior that’s really typical to cuckoo birds.

So these Nomada bees, they’ll be hanging around those clusters of nests that the mining bees are creating. And what they do is instead of building their nests or collect pollen, the females actually go inside the mining bees’ nest, and they’ll lay their eggs in the nest. And then their larva, which I’m sorry to say is a murderous larva, because what they do is they’re going to consume all the provisions that the mining bee has left for its larva, and in doing so that mining bee larvae does not survive. The Nomada bee looks more like a wasp. It’s oftentimes hairless and can be red in coloration and kind of have like smoky colored rings

The Andrena, which mining bee is one of the Andrena genus, and another one, the Calliopsis, their females will actually line their brood cells with like this wax-like oil that comes out of their Dufour’s gland. I might not be pronouncing that correctly. It’s a French word. And what that wax coating does, because they are ground nesters, it actually protects all of those provisions and the eggs, and the larvae from any of the moisture and the fungi that are naturally living and occurring in the soil.

The Panurginus females, what they’ll do is they’ll use soil or their saliva to waterproof their cells. And those fairy bees, the Perdida, they actually don’t have to line their nests with anything because generally speaking, they’re nesting in more desert-like environments that are more kind of sand-like, less moisture.

The Role of Native Bees in Pollination

Evergreen Thumb (20:07)
So was there anything else that you’d like to share about native bees?

Anne Bulger (20:11)
I think they’re important to us as gardeners because they’re doing a lot of quiet, essential work in our gardens. When we talk about those early spring pollinators like the mining bees, they’re actually out when it’s cooler weather, and there are very few other pollinators around.

And our native bees are these really efficient pollinators, for instance, with mason bees, they pollinate 95 % of all the flowers that they visit in comparison to honey bees that only pollinate 5%. And a lot of that has to do with how that pollen is collected. You know, when the honey bees have it so neatly packaged, it doesn’t get dispersed. Whereas when these native bees carry pollen, it’s somewhere on their bodies.

And mason bees, in fact, are just, you know, famous for kind of plopping, you know, on flowers and then all the pollen gets all over their entire body, not just on their underside and they visit the next flower and it drops all this pollen Native bees are very well adapted to our climate, and home gardeners, those things really matter.

When you are talking about native bees, you don’t need to have any kind of hive or special equipment. It’s really about how we design and manage our gardens and yards, which is their habitat. And it matters what we plant, and what we leave alone, and how we time our gardening activities.

Evergreen Thumb (21:50)
I remember hearing, I don’t remember where I heard this, but I remember hearing that mason bees are responsible for pollinating the majority of our tree fruit because their life cycle coincides with the blooming of fruit trees, especially apples.

Anne Bulger (22:09)
Yeah, that’s very true. And in fact, there is research being done even for the almond crops in California.

Because they have used honeybees, where all these hives come from all over the state to pollinate those almond crops. However, you can imagine with that type of density, the type of infestations that occur, and the honeybee health is really being affected in addition

to kind of like foraging on a microclimate. There are a bunch of factors that, you know, could be a whole other story that we could talk about, but they’re bringing in mason bees because they are finding emergence will coincide with the bloom of those almond trees. I’m trying to remember the statistics, but you know, one mason bee can do the work of 100 honeybees. So you really are looking at having very small populations of mason bees that do the same work as many, many honeybees.

Evergreen Thumb (23:12)
And every once in a while, you hear these nightmare stories of a semi truck full of honeybee hives that crashes,  so that’s major losses just because they have to be transported.

Anne Bulger (23:25)
Again, the stressors that we impose on our bees, so we demand a lot of them. And I think that, the thinking nowadays is changing. For instance, you know, with the Washington Bee Atlas is a product of the Washington State Department of Agriculture. And it’s because they really realized that we’ve got to look at our pollinator health, you know, because the honey bees are getting affected. So, I think that there’s a lot of wisdom that’s being gained, and we might be changing the way that we perceive our pollinating creatures and the habitat that they need.

Evergreen Thumb (24:04)
I actually interviewed Karen Wright with the Washington Bee Atlas last year. So I can put a link into that so people can listen to that too. So she talked all about the Bee Atlas and how to get involved.

Anne Bulger (24:14)
She’s wonderful.

Final Thoughts

Evergreen Thumb (24:15)
Yeah. All right. Any final thoughts about native bees or upcoming talks that you have?

Anne Bulger (24:23)
Sure, so I do have some closing thoughts. There was one thing that I do wish that gardeners would understand, and I came to understand is that supporting native bees is really about curiosity and a willingness to share space, actually.

Mining bees in particular are a reminder that our landscapes are living systems. And once people recognize mining bees, for instance, they almost always start noticing more life in their gardens. And that awareness is the first step towards stewardship.

When we notice who’s using our gardens, and how, we can shift towards being a much more thoughtful and intentional gardener. And I would ask that we all keep in mind to plant lots of different kinds of flowers that bloom throughout all the seasons.

And if I may, part of my volunteer work does include giving public presentations. So, for your information, on March 7th, I’ll be speaking about Spring Mason Bee Care for the Master Gardener program in Vancouver, Washington. And on March 21st, I’ll be presenting on creating wildlife habitat in our home gardens and yards for our sister nonprofit, Nature Scaping of Southwest Washington, in Brush Prairie.

Evergreen Thumb (25:50)
I’ll put them in the show notes, too, so people can see them.

Anne Bulger (25:52)
Well, I thank you very much, Erin. I have a piece on native bees, on mining bees that’ll be coming out really soon. We can keep our eyes open for that. So thank you very much for your support. I know as a fellow gardener, this is right up your alley, and I’m speaking to the crowds here.

Evergreen Thumb (26:14)
Thank you for joining me today.

Anne Bulger (26:16)
You’re welcome. Much appreciated.