Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, you think you know what bees are all about. They make honey and live in hives with a queen, and if you agitate them, they might sting you. Right. Well, this is all true about some bees, but just as there are lots of different kinds of rodents, big ones and small ones, species that live in trees, and species that live underground, some that love to nest together, and others that just want to
be left alone. Earth is home to approximately twenty thousand species of bees, and they're all a little different. Bees are our most important pollinators, and a lot of places in the world are home to you social bees like the ubiquitous western honey bee, which was probably originally native to Asia, but over the centuries has spread to every continent except Antarctica. Industrial agriculture spends millions of dollars or is every year renting hives to pollinate crops to increase yield.
Honey Bees live in hives with a queen that's in charge of procreation within the colony, but most bees on the planet are not honey bees. In fact, there are only a handful of honey bee species in the world. However, every continent has its own native bees, from the Arctic to deserts, tropical forests, grasslands, and most places in between.
In North America, there are around four thousand native bee species, with new species being discovered all the time, and perhaps surprisingly, most bees are solitary, meaning that each mother bee provides for her own nest, and about sevent of native bees live in the ground. For the article, this episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with Clay Bolt, a
natural history and conservation photographer specializing in native bees. He said you could think of solitary bees as hard working single moms working non stop from set up to sundown to provide pollen and nectar in the form of little loaves that they provide for their young. Ground nesting bees can prefer a variety of different ground types, but most often they nest in dry, hard packed soil, similar to
places where you might see an ant's nest. Bolts said they will often be seen along the sides of paths or bare patches of soil that most people take for granted. They can also nest beneath leaves, an important reminder of why homeowners should leave a patch of leaves in their yard or in rotting wood. Most don't destroy wood or excavate cavities in wood, but rather use pre existing insect burrows.
A solitary bee nest will be a tube about six inches or fifteen centimeters long, excavated in dry soil by a female bee. And there are many challenges that come from nesting in the ground. Predators, moisture and flooding, intense heat, the challenges of overwintering nest, disturbance by people, vehicles and other large animals, and pesticides, just to name a few. To deal with the natural threats that ground nesting bees face,
they've developed many strategies to protect their young. Bees will line their nests with things like hard packed soil, bits of cut leaves, and masticated flower petals. One genus of ground nesting bee is known as cellophane bees for the clear, waterproof stuff they paint onto the walls of their nests. Whatever the material, nest linings keep the young sufficiently dry
and retain the integrity of the nest. Because most of us associate bees with a honey bees propensity to sting, we often try to get rid of bees or yellow jackets, which are actually a type of wasp when we find them in our yards and around our houses. However, ground nesting bees aren't dangerous. Many solitary bees are very tiny, smaller than a grain of rice, and therefore too small to sting. Even if they are able to sting, their venom is too weak to do much damage. Bolts said,
solitary bees rarely sting. The most aggressive of all bees are honey bees, because they have a hive to defend. Solitary bees, on the other hand, have everything to lose if they sting someone or something and get killed in the process. If the mother dies before the young has been provisioned, then her lineage ends and the bees most commonly seen circling around solitary bee nests are most likely males, which actually can't sting. We should note that no male
bees can sting. A stinger is a modified egg laying apparatus that's only found in female bees. It's difficult to be a solitary bee in a world full of manicured lawns. Homeowners often view these ground nesters as a nuisance and use pesticides to get rid of them, But killing these pollinators with pesticides is dangerous for their populations, which are already dwindling. It's important to note that solitary bees are
not much of a threat to lawns and turf. You can continue you to mow your lawn, play and picnic as usual right next to the bees, but if there are many nests in an area, you might want to avoid that spot for one or two months while the bees are nesting. If you must dissuade the bees from nesting, we don't use a pesticide. Heavy watering can encourage them
to pack up and pick another spot. Today's episode is based on the article ground nesting bees are solitary and often stingless on how stuff works dot Com, written by Jescelin Shields. Brain Stuff is production off i Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.