GREAT LAKES, GREAT BEES

This post was originally published on the pollinators.msu.edu website: https://pollinators.msu.edu/resources/beekeepers/shouldyoukeepbees/ In Michigan, we have a lovely rare bird called the Kirtland Warbler. It used to be endangered, but with decades of habitat restoration programs and breeding efforts the population is now in better health. If you wanted to help the Kirtland Warbler, you would help put in habitat (Jack pine forests), or you would donate to a conservation fu

How you can help researchers understand where bumble bees spend the cold months Bumble bees are an important group of pollinating insects for Michigan agriculture. Bumble bees’ quintessential large, fluffy bodies help them tolerate the chill of Michigan’s spring season, verifying their MVP status in pollinating many spring-blooming crops like blueberries and cherries. But populations of bumble bees face serious threats across the globe, and in our own backyard. Habitat degrad

Why protect wild bees in Michigan? Michigan has an extraordinary 465 known species of bees. All of these bees play different roles in our ecosystem, including pollination of wildflowers and crops! We can thank Michigan’s bees for pollinating crops such as apples, blueberries, squash, cherries, and many others. Unfortunately, habitat loss is making life hard for many bees, with some bee populations declining over the past few decades. What can you do to help bees? Build a bee

If you’ve been keeping up with previous posts on the Great Lakes, Great Bees Blog, you already know that bees are very diverse and also very important for our crops and natural ecosystems. In fact, there are over 20,000 bee species in the world and over 450 different bee species in Michigan alone. With this diversity comes many different roles. Some bees are specialists, like the squash bee (Peponapsis pruinosa), meaning that they pollinate just one or a few different plants.

Spotted knapweed, or star thistle, Centaurea maculosa, is an invasive flowering plant that was first observed in Michigan in 1911 [2]. As an invasive, it is able to out-compete native species, it is environmentally detrimental, and difficult to extirpate. It can out-compete native vegetation by releasing growth-inhibiting chemicals into the soil [2]. It also has a robust root system, grows well in disturbed habitats, and is distasteful to grazers, which allows it to spread ra

In the spring, walking along the forest edge of a honey bee hive yard, it is not uncommon to see hundreds of bees all clumping together on a low branch. While it may be a familiar behavior to beekeepers, until last spring I had never seen anything like it. From a distance, the mass looks like hot, melted wax, dripping slowly off the tree’s branch. As you get closer, however, you see the individual bees, climbing over each other, each holding onto the backs of her sisters to f

Andrena are a genus of solitary bees commonly called mining bees due to their nesting behaviour. In contrast to the more familiar honey bees, which nest in aerial cavities, mining bees nest directly in the ground. When the spring arrives, look at patches of bare ground in warm sunny places and you may be able to spot little mounds of dirt with a central hole, like a tiny volcano. These are mining bee nests that are excavated by the female bee. She will dig down into the compa