A mellow miner bee
Every April and May my side yard is invaded by bees. Small bees resembling honey bees circle endlessly, low to the ground, on sunny days. Their range seems to be linked to the range of the spring beauties, although I have rarely observed them actually visiting the flowers. When I first saw them I went online and discovered they were miner bees, a fairly common solitary bee, of special importance recently now that the honey bee has been suffering such dire reductions in numbers. These bees neither make honey or sting. After about a month they disappear as quickly as they appeared. The females live 4-6 weeks, the males about half that long.
The miner bee does exactly what its name suggests – the females mine out several chambers in clay soil, and construct an external chimney that resembles an ant hill. They lay 3-4 eggs in each nest, with a nutritious pollen packet stashed nearby for the hatchling to feed upon. After the eggs are laid, the female caps the nest with a plug of clay. The new bees will overwinter as pre-emergent adults, and will come crawling out the following spring. Gardeners who want to encourage these small pollinators to live near their flower beds can construct clay bricks for them to nest in.
I find these bees delightful to watch and when they arrive I know spring is finally here to stay. I am a firm believer in low-impact lawn care. Aside from the occasional application of Roundup to the poison ivy, I use no herbicides or pesticides. I will always have scruffy patches of lawn that can’t be mown right now because something is blooming or digging or flying around right now. My reward for that “neglect” is a delightful array of surprises every spring.
(This a repost, transferred from my older blog. Original date April 14, 2009.)
