Supporting Native Solitary Bees in Our Community

What does a chicken have in common with a honey bee? As Megan Evans, president of the Alberta Native Bee Council, describes in Nature Alberta’s webinar “Wonderful World of Bees” (https://naturealberta.ca/the-wonderful-world-of-bees/), they are both managed as livestock species, differing from wild birds and native bees that are managed through conservation efforts. As spring starts, we can all take small steps to make our immediate environments more habitable for the native bees that we depend on.

Pollinators are required for biodiversity, and in general, pollinator abundance is linked to plant abundance. Alberta is home to about 375 bee species—almost twice as many as all fish, amphibian, mammal, and reptile species in the province combined. However, native bee populations are in decline as the result of threats ranging from the loss of native plant habitats in favour of monoculture crops or concrete, poisoning from the neonicotinoid seed coats used as pesticides, pathogens and parasites spread by managed honey bees, and climate change resulting in an asychronicity between when bees emerge in the spring and when the first flowers that provide them with food start to bloom.

Solitary native bees follow a very different life cycle than that of commercial honey bees or native bumble bees, and as a result, their needs are different. Honey bees and bumble bees are social insects that live together, with female worker bees collecting food, feeding the nest, and fanning the nest entrance to keep the hive cool on hot summer days.

By contrast, solitary bees live alone, and are categorized by the places or ways they make their nests. Leaf cutter bees create nest cells out of leaves while mason bees create nests out of mud or clay. Mining bees are primarily ground nesters, while plasterer bees make nest cells in the ground, then line those cells using a cellophane-like lining to protect them from moisture, fungi, and disease.

Most of Alberta’s native bees are ground-nesting bees, and as such, need access to patches of bare, undisturbed, ideally sandy soil that they can excavate to create tunnels and nest cells for laying eggs. Providing small areas of bare soil is one way that gardeners can support native bee conservation in their gardens. However, some native bees are stem-nesting bees, so growing plant species with hollow stems like goldenrod, raspberry, and bee balm (wild bergamot) and keeping them standing throughout the fall and winter can provide essential nesting habitat for those types of bees over the winter. Be sure to allow the stems to decompose naturally in the spring to avoid disturbing hibernating bees. Dead and decaying pieces of wood can also be worked into your garden landscape to provide alternative nesting sites that mimic the natural diversity and complexity of native ecosystems.

Most importantly, gardeners can support native bee health by planting a variety of native flowers in different shapes, sizes, colours, and bloom periods to accommodate the varying morphology of bees that are drawn to them for nourishment throughout the season. The Alberta Native Bee Council has a list of twelve wildflowers that they recommend for bees (https://www.albertanativebeecouncil.ca/native-plant-resources), ten of which are appropriate to our area: giant hyssop, common harebell, blanket flower, prairie goldenrod, wild bergamot, smooth blue beardtongue, saskatoon, bearberry/kinnikinnick, cut-leaved anemone, and nodding onion. They recommend planting the native plants in clumps of at least 3–8 individual plants per clump to mimic natural settings and maximize foraging efficiency. Native plants are best for native bees because they co-evolved together, but many non-native ornamental plant species are good sources of food for native bees as well.

Ron Miksha, director of the Alberta Native Bee Council and a former commercial beekeeper, says, “Alberta gardeners will want to help native bees because they are better adapted for garden pollination. Honey bees tend to fly long distances and forage farmers’ fields for canola, alfalfa, and clovers—they are not so helpful in small gardens. In fact, tomatoes can only be pollinated by bumble bees, which ‘buzz pollinate’ the blossoms—something honey bees can’t do. Also, native bees usually fly no more than a few dozen metres, so they stay in your back yard while honey bees fly several kilometres to find big fields of forage.”

In closing her presentation, Evans reiterated that although there are a ton of native bee species in Alberta, we’ve seen drastic declines in certain areas and need more research to better understand changes to bee populations. She recommends three small things everyone can do to help: first, understand the difference between managed livestock honey bees and solitary native bees. Second, create habitat for wild bees by incorporating diversity into landscaping and adding flowers with a focus on native species. Finally, she asks the public to support the Alberta Native Bee Council, the Alberta Native Plant Council, and other organizations so they can do research and education on these essential creatures. To learn more about the Alberta Native Bee Council, visit www.albertanativebeecouncil.ca