**Native Bees** **(1,038 Words)**

Hello, I'm Claire Cassel. Thank you for joining us for a week-long
series of podcast about our native pollinators brought to you by the
Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the United States Department of
the Interior.

Today is Monday June 23^rd^ and Valerie Fellows, wildlife biologist and
public affairs specialist shares some insights into a unique natural
pollinator resource, native bees.

The United States is home to a tremendous diversity of life. And that
diversity is not just limited to birds, fish, and other vertebrate
species.

In a very real sense much of the entire web of life, not only in the
United States but worldwide is held together by a special group of
animals, these are the pollinators.

For most plant species to reproduce, pollen must be transferred from the
male to the female parts of flowers. For some plants such as grasses
pollen transfer can be accomplished by the wind.

But most flowering plants require pollen to be transported between
flowers by bees and other pollinators for fertilization to occur. It is
this process of pollination that results in the production of seeds from
which other plants will grow and the species is perpetuated.

Pollinators are essential for maintaining not only healthy populations
of plants but entire ecosystems. They directly benefit mankind,
enhancing the productivity of orchards, many agricultural crops, and our
backyard vegetable and flower gardens.

Now most of us know something about pollinators. For example honeybees
are familiar to everyone. But honeybees are not the only pollinators.
And by the way, honeybees are not native to the United States; their
origins are in Europe and Africa.

There are other pollinators that are native to North America, and these
include the world's most popular and familiar insects, the butterflies.
There are other pollinators that may not be so familiar such as
hummingbirds, and some species of bats.

Flies, beetles, and moths are also part of our nation's pollinator
communities. However, the most important group of insect pollinators are
our native bees. And there is an astonishing diversity of these
creatures to be found across the United States.

To date, nearly 4,000 species of bees have been identified by scientists
that are native to the United States. These insects range in size from
less than one eighth of an inch to more than one inch in length.

Do we know how many bees there are and where they live? The short answer
is no.

In the spring of 2006, USGS biologist Sam Droege conducted a short
survey on the US Fish and Wildlife Service's 45,000 acre Carolina
Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, located in McBee South Carolina. In
just two days of surveying he found 56 bee species. Twenty of them had
never before been recorded in South Carolina.

During an earlier survey conducted in 2000 at the Pinnacles National
Monument in California, a survey conducted in 2000 revealed an
astonishing presence of over 410 species of native bees. The diversity
of native bees in this location represents more than 10 percent of all
the known bee species in the United States.

Our native bees also come in a variety of colors from dark brown or
black, to metallic green or blue and many have stripes of red, white,
orange, or yellow.

The common names of many bees reflect the way they build nests:
Leafcutter bees use leaf fragments to create nest cells for their young
in soft, rotted wood or in the stems of large pithy plants. Digger bees
make their nests in the soil like bumblebees and mason bees use mud to
seal their nests which are found in rotting wood; Carpenter bees chew
tunnels in wood to make their nests. These bees are often seen flying
around house rafters and porches.

Our native bees can be broadly divided into two groups by their
lifestyles. These are the social and solitary bees.

The familiar honeybee, or *Apis mellifera* which is their scientific
name, are social bees but as we mentioned, this species is not native to
America,.

Of those approximately 4,000 species of bees that are native to the
United States, only about 45 species of bumble bees and another 50
species known as sweat bees are social insects.

By far most native bee species are classified as solitary. Each female
makes her own nest, lays eggs, and provides food for her larvae. The
nests may consist of one or more cells. A cell is the chamber where a
single egg is deposited. There is no worker caste as with social bees.

Though solitary, native bees may sometimes be found nesting together in
great numbers when a good nesting area is found, this is not social
behavior, the bees are only sharing or aggregating at a good nesting
site and each female makes her own nest

While solitary bees generally live for about a year, we normally only
see the active, adult stage of its life, which usually lasts for only
two to four weeks.

And while most native bees do not live in hives and do not produce honey
they have important roles in gardens and natural ecosystems where many
other animals depend on the seeds and fruits of flowering plants.

There are many places where you can observe native bees at work. The
best time to observe is when the day is sunny, and the temperature above
70 degrees. Though some species may become active as early as late
February if temperatures are unusually warm, most native bees are active
by mid-April. Some species of bees will remain active until the fall The
greatest diversity and abundance of bees is typically in midsummer.

If you decide to observe these unique and important animals you might
want to take your binoculars along. Books have been written about
observing butterflies and dragonflies in this manner. Why not bees?

For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service I'm Valerie Fellows

This podcast is a product of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a
partner with the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and the
Pollinator Partnership. Tomorrow we will talk about endangered
pollinators and endangered plants.

To tune in to other National Pollinator Week podcasts, find
pollinator-friendly information and products, visit
[www.pollinator.org](http://www.pollinator.org/)