A New York cemetery was hiding 5.5M bees underground

7 hours ago

A massive underground population of around 5.5 million ground-nesting regular mining bees (Andrena regularis) was discovered in Ithaca's East Lawn Cemetery, likely one of the largest known bee aggregations.
The bee colony has likely existed in the cemetery's undisturbed sandy soil for over 100 years and serves as a crucial pollinator for apple orchards and other crops, highlighting cemeteries as biodiversity refuges.
Researchers estimated the population using emergence traps, revealing emergence patterns and documenting brood parasitism by nomad bees, underscoring the need to protect such nesting sites from threats like development.
The study, led by Cornell University, involved citizen science initiatives to locate and conserve similar bee aggregations, emphasizing the importance of solitary ground-nesting bees, which make up about 75% of bee species.

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