Updated on Oct. 07, 2024
Honey bees get all the buzz, but there are dozens of native bee species hard at work who could use your help. Let's meet a few of them.
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Native bees are species indigenous to a particular region. They’ve evolved to exist in the local climate and benefit the local ecosystem by pollinating plants, which then provide food and shelter for animals.
The U.S. is home to about 4,000 native bee species, but honey bees are actually not one of them — they came from Europe. Good thing. They’re helpful to our gardens and play an essential role in pollinating some of our agricultural crops.
Native bees, however, are responsible for pollinating many of our wild plants, as well as crops. Without them, we’d be in trouble.
“Bees are at the heart of a healthy environment,” says Matthew Shepherd, Director of Outreach and Education for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “The pollination done by bees touches our lives every day, from the coffee we drink in the morning to the apple at lunch to the glass of warm milk that sends us to bed.”
Although we hear a lot about saving honey bees, they’re not actually endangered. They’re managed by bee keepers like chickens, pigs and other livestock.
But research shows many of our native bees are in decline, with the best known examples in bumble bee species. Franklin’s bumble bee hasn’t been seen since 2006, and the rusty patched bumble bee was added to the Endangered Species List in 2017.
“Sadly, these wild bees, just like other pollinators, have many challenges to deal with, such as losing habitat, harmful chemicals, changing weather and illnesses,” says Shubber Ali, a native plant expert and CEO of Garden for Wildlife.
“It’s really important to take care of wild bees because they help keep our environment healthy, make farming sustainable and ensure our planet stays well for a long time.”
Native bees are also generally peaceful neighbors, so it’s beneficial to encourage them into our yards. Most will only sting if they feel they’re in danger, but they’re generally too busy collecting pollen to feed their offspring. Males don’t even have stingers.
Helping bees also helps other pollinators. Some important steps include:
It’s important to look up plants native to your particular location. Some popular bee plants include herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees:
For more native plants ideas, try Garden for Wildlife’s zip code pollinator plant finder and online plant store. For tips on creating habitat, check out Xerces’ Bring Back the Pollinators campaign and book on attracting native pollinators.
For help identifying bees and other animals and other living wonders, go to Discover Life. And if you have time to go down a rabbit hole of amazing bee photography, this is your place.
The following is an introduction to some native bees to look for in your yard and garden, prepared by Ali, Shepherd, Lerman and Joan Milam, an adjunct research fellow at the University of Massachusetts.
“Bumble bees are superstar pollinators, due to their largish size, lots of hairs and adaptability to collect pollen from many different plants,” says Lerman.
They can pollinate six flowers in the time it takes a honey bee to get to one, all the while packing nectar and pollen into baskets (corbiculae) on their hind legs to carry back to their hive. They also scent mark flowers after they visit them.
“These bees do a type of pollen gathering called ‘buzz pollination,’ where they use their thoracic muscles to cause a vibration that releases the dry pollen grains out of a flower’s anthers,” says Ali.
Ambassadors of cuteness, bumble bees are easy to identify as a genus by their large size and furry, often black-and-yellow bodies. These darlings are found across the U.S., with 50 native species that mostly nest underground or in crevices.
If you have tomatoes, you definitely want bumble bees in your garden, because their flowers require buzz pollination. Bumble bees are also food for birds, spiders, wasps, badgers, foxes and bears.
Carpenter bees — sometimes called the gentle giants or teddy bears of bees — resemble bumble bees, but with smooth, glossy backs. They also carry pollen on their furry legs rather than in pollen baskets.
They nest solo or with just a few other bees in round tunnels they’ve chewed out of wood with their mandibles. They’re commonly found across the Southern U.S. from Arizona to Florida, and then up the East Coast to New York.
They sometimes get a bad rap for making holes and nesting in our wooden fence posts and homes, but they’re not actually eating the wood. They get their nourishment from pollen and nectar just like all other bees. And they rarely cause serious damage. So if you can, it’s best to leave them alone to work their ecosystem magic.
Besides being proficient pollinators, they’re eaten by many members of the ecosystem, including woodpeckers, wasps, hornets, lizards, geckos and spiders.
More bees with teeth! Female leafcutters use their chompers (mandibles) to cut plant leaves to line their nests.
“Their nesting activities leave neat, rounded holes in roses, redbud and other leaves, so they are considered a garden pest by some,” says Shepherd. “But they deserve a PR makeover!” Indeed, they don’t harm plants, just damage their aesthetic.
Leafcutter bees come in many sizes, but you can tell them apart from other bee families because the females have pollen collecting hairs on the underside of their abdomens instead of their legs. They also have larger heads because of their particularly muscular jaws. You can find them throughout the country.
Some people put up bee houses to entice them and mason bees into their gardens. Milam warns against this in most cases, because the structures are almost always parasitized by wasps, flies and birds.
Because mason bees are solitary and don’t make honey — and thus don’t have to worry about protecting queens and their sweet, sticky stash — they tend to be more laid-back than their hive-dwelling cousins.
They’re in the same family as leafcutter bees, so also collect pollen on their bellies. These super-pollinators are also wise, choosing to nest a convenient 300 feet from the best flower patches.
Mason bees are some of the first bees to come out and greet us in the spring. They’re slightly smaller than honey bees, and come in green, blue or black, sometimes with a metallic tint. They’re found across the country, mostly in forests and deserts.
“They get their name from their ability to use mud to create partitions between individual eggs,” says Ali. “Mason bees are especially your friends if you are growing early spring blooming plants or fruit trees. You can encourage them into your garden by putting up bee houses.”
Squash pollen is bitter, and few insects can digest it. This is great news for squash bees! These persnickety buzzers forage exclusively on squash and gourd plants (Cucurbits).
They’re also earlier risers than most bees, getting to the squash flowers early in the morning, just as they’re opening. They conveniently live below the plants they pollinate.
“Their plants are native to the southwest, but now found all over, thanks to the crops being moved around by people,” says Shepherd. “And the bees have followed the squash plants. Squash bees are amazingly mobile and able to find areas planted with these crops like farms, community gardens and backyards.”
Squash bees are more common in the desert southwest, where squash originated. But starting about 1,000 years ago, they followed human agriculture into the Intermountain West and beyond, into New England and more recently the Northwest. They look a lot like honeybees, but a little bulkier, with a rounder face and longer antennae.
Dazzling bees saddled with a gross name, sweat bees come in a variety of beautiful colors. Many are metallic, like the bright-green and gold-flecked Agapostemon (metallic sweat bee).
Yes, they’re attracted to our sweat, which they eat to gain valuable salt and moisture. They’ll visit your arms or legs to lap up your sweat with no thought of stinging you. But these ground-nesters feed on pollen, and overall prefer wildflowers to sweaty gardeners.
“They’re extremely active pollinators,” says Ali. “Many plants, including some crops depend on sweat bees for survival.” Some of those include watermelon, alfalfa and sunflowers. If you want more sweat bees in your life, plant goldenrod and asters, too.
Sweat bees are found all over the world, with more than 1,000 species in the U.S. alone. Since they’re adaptable and can be found in disturbed environments like our vegetable and flower gardens, we’re likely to encounter them. Their predators include spiders and dragonflies.
“Long-horned bees are very distinctive due to the males’ extraordinarily long antenna,” says Shepherd. “Males can also be found sleeping in flowers.”
Yes, if you find a medium-sized fuzzy bee with exquisitely long antennae curled up and sleeping peacefully in a flower in the early morning, congrats! You might have just found a long-horned bee lounging in its irresistible charm.
Besides being adorable, long-horned bees are important pollinators across the country, in urban and rural settings. Some are critical to the health of wildflower prairies. If you want some long-horns in your life, plant open-faced flowers like asters, daisies and sunflowers in lots and lots of sun.
And if you’re ever in Europe, North Africa and beyond, look for a plant called the bee orchid, which tricks males into trying to mate with its flowers to achieve pollination. The flower even emits female long-horned bee pheromones to trick the unsuspecting Rom(bee)o.
Also, explore how to keep bees away.
