Native Bee Hotels

Did you know that:

• bees and flowers need each other to survive?  

• honeybees aren't native to the US - and aren't even very good pollinators compared to our native bees?

• native bees don't nest in groups, don't make honey, and aren't aggressive?

• Michigan is home to over 400 kinds of native bees (some of which are blue, copper, or metallic red)?

As DRS restores dunes and improves clients' safe access to the beach, we're learning a lot about pollinators (see more details below).   Native bees are responsible for most plant pollination and therefore seed/fruit production, but habitat loss and reduced plant diversity threatens their survival.  Therefore, we are offering a variety of "bee hotels" to give these important creatures safe places to nest. 

Bee hotels support vital pollinators.

Pollination is the process of plant fertilization: the transfer of pollen (a powder that produces male genetic material) to a stigma (part of a flower's female reproductive organs) in order to create fruit and/or seeds. Because plants can't walk around and choose their mating partners, they have to rely on a third party: creatures, wind, and water.  Most flowering plants depend on animal pollinators (especially bees, hummingbirds, moths, flies, and butterflies) to reproduce.  

Bees carry out most pollination.  Bees collect pollen from flowers (a protein-based food source for their young) and feed on carb-rich nectar as an energy source. While collecting and feeding, pollen sticks to the bee and rubs off while visiting subsequent flowers. In this way, bees provide an important fertilization service as they transfer pollen from plant to plant. 

Native bees are better pollinators than honeybees:  Honeybees get most of the attention with their fuzzy little bodies, knee baskets of pollen, and busy social lives in hives of honey.  But honeybees aren't actually the stars of the pollination show: Native bees outperform their imported cousins hands down.  Because they don't have handy pollen baskets on their legs  in which to pack for their trip, native bees lose much more pollen as they travel among flowers.  For example, a single red mason bee pollinates 120 times more flowers than a single honeybee. 

Native bees are in trouble: Many native bees are specialized, so if the plant they rely on for food becomes hard to find,  the bees go away. If the bees disappear, the plant is unable to reproduce and dies out.   Native bees can't fly as far as honeybees to forage and, because of their size, they are more choosy about what they can feed on.  Further, as humans clear land for their houses and yards, native bees are losing nesting places for their eggs.  About 30% of native bees nest in hollow stems and holes in dead branches or tree trunks; the other 70% excavate nests in bare, loose soil. 

How do bee hotels help?  We have are two kinds of tunnel-nesting bees:  mason bees (Osmia species) are mostly active in the spring, and leafcutter bees (Megachile species) are active in the summer.  They like to nest in long, narrow tunnels: the female deposits her eggs in a single column from the deepest part of the tunnel to the front.  See more in the diagram below: