Garden Allies - Ground Nesting Bees
Continuing the series of posts on Garden Allies , this post will be looking at ground bees, a not so well known group of insects that are important crop pollinators. What prompted me to write this post was the observation of a number of mini volcano shaped earth mounds on the lawn this Spring. Ground Bee Nest - Yet to identify the inhabitant We set up a video over one of the holes hoping to catch a view of the comings and goings of the inhabitants and discovered a very small bee at work. My son Archie put together this short film of the bee, cheers Arch. What Are Ground Bees? Ground-nesting bees are largely solitary bees i.e, do not live in colonies like honey bees, and include species of digger bees (family Anthoporidae), sweat bees (family Halictidae), and mining bees (family Andrenidae). Solitary bees are especially important as pollinators as many feral social bees are in danger due to dwindling numbers and parasites. Generally females excavate a nest i...