When Tyra Villadiego, 33, walks around her family’s quarter-acre yard in Silver Spring, she doesn’t just enjoy the blooming moss phlox in the spring or the variety of asters in the fall. She notes the most welcome addition: native bees.
“There are so many kinds of bees I hadn’t noticed before, like ones that are really small, and I had guessed were flies,” she says.
About 257 types of native bees live in Montgomery County, says Sam Droege, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey based in Laurel, Maryland, who researches native bees. These lesser-known bees are critical both to successful pollination as well as biodiversity, but they face threats from habitat loss, pesticides and even competition from honeybees. With suburban development consuming former fields, meadows and forests, and the common tendency to plant only lawn grass and non-native plants in our yards, there’s only so much pollen and nectar to go around. Like Villadiego, homeowners can plant native perennials, shrubs and trees whose blooms will provide vital food for a variety of bees that emerge throughout the seasons, helping them to thrive and reproduce.
For Villadiego, creating a yard to nurture native bees at first seemed like a daunting task. She had to contend with erosion, invasive plants and her father’s preference for a Japanese garden aesthetic. An educational program at Wheaton’s Brookside Gardens in 2023 put her on the right path.
“The whole project became fun again because I had the clear information to make it happen,” Villadiego says. In particular, she was inspired by Massachusetts-based scientist Jarrod Fowler’s eponymous website. She turned to research lists created by Fowler and Droege and learned that certain flowering host plants, such as asters and goldenrods, are best for supporting native bees of the Eastern U.S.
Villadiego’s enthusiasm and knowledge persuaded her father, Ruperto, to help her add native plants throughout their property, and led her mother, Zoraida, to understand why it’s a good thing to have more native bees. Initially, Villadiego bought asters, Virginia bluebells and coreopsis at local native nurseries, but that got expensive. She also sourced many through local native plant Facebook groups where generous gardeners often offer free plants, and soon found the yard abuzz with fascinating native bees.
In the U.S., there are nearly 4,000 kinds of native bees, according to the University of Maryland Extension—including bumblebees, carpenter bees, leaf-cutting bees, sweat bees, mining bees and mason bees. European honeybees, Apis mellifera, aren’t native. They were imported by colonists in the 1600s to produce honey and wax. More recently, well-intentioned people concerned about declining pollinators decided to help our local ecosystems by becoming backyard beekeepers. Some scientists, however, now discourage that practice.
“The reality is that being a beekeeper is not pollinator conservation,” says Rich Hatfield, a senior endangered species conservation biologist with the Oregon-based Xerces Society, a nonprofit that supports conserving invertebrates (bees, butterflies, moths and others) to protect ecosystem health. “It’s a fun hobby, but it’s not conservation.”
Honeybee colonies have faced many recent challenges from diseases, pesticides and the loss of habitats, but as managed commodities they aren’t at risk of disappearing, unlike some threatened native bees. In 2023, there were more than 2.7 million honeybee colonies in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, such large numbers of honeybee colonies may negatively impact native bees.
By adding honeybees to a setting, “you’re bringing in competitors for a native species,” Droege says. “A lot of times you don’t need honeybees, for the wild bees are doing everything.”
Native bees help “create functional ecosystems in our country,” Hatfield says, by having “an integral role in plant reproduction.” Honeybees can’t do much of the pollination work that native bees can. Native bees “come in all different shapes and sizes that are attuned to go into the different shapes and sizes of native flowers,” he says. The local bees evolved ecologically to match the needs of our native plants.
While honeybees can still be important in large-scale commercial agricultural settings, “native bees like the blue orchard bees [a type of mason bee] are better and more efficient pollinators of native crops,” according to a webpage by the U.S. Forest Service. Similarly, some plants—tomato, eggplant, cranberry and blueberry, among them—require a type of buzz pollination practiced by native bumblebees and others. Their vibrations release pollen that honeybees can’t get to, according to the Xerces Society.
Some might argue that honeybees have been in the U.S. long enough to acclimatize to our ecosystems and thus become essential, but that time span is short when compared with the millions of years that native bees have co-evolved with native plant species. Some local plants even require a specific bee to reproduce and, therefore, exist.
In Montgomery County, the native spring beauty plant, an early bloomer, requires a specific mining bee that has evolved to emerge from its nest at the perfect time to gather that pollen, enabling both species to reproduce. The hibiscus bee requires pollen from the mallow family (a type of native hibiscus), and the gorgeous pinxter azalea supplies pollen for one particular mining bee. If these native plants disappear from our landscapes, these bees that are all native to the county won’t exist. And vice versa.
“If we want to continue to live in a diverse, healthy ecosystem, native bees have to be a part of that,” Hatfield says. Unlike honeybees, native bees don’t create large honey reserves they can rely on if the overall pollen and nectar supply is low. They need a steady supply from native plants that bloom from early spring until frost.
How to Support Native Bees
Plant native flora. Aim to have native plants blooming from early spring until frost and include a variety of shapes and colors. Experts recommend Virginia bluebells, spring beauty, wild geraniums, sunflowers, mountain mint, asters and goldenrods, along with native blooming shrubs and trees, such as spicebush and redbud. Plant clusters of the same flowering plant to make foraging easier. If you have limited space, even a window box or planters can make a difference.
Mind the chemicals. Buy plants from vendors who advertise that they don’t use systemic neonicotinoids or insecticides. If the vendor doesn’t say, then ask. The chemicals that plants absorb persist in their tissue and can kill pollinators that feed on them. Also, while some mosquito-fogging companies claim that they are organic or avoid beneficial insects, the chemicals they use are “highly toxic to bees, killing them on contact and for more days after treatment,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Leave leaves and stems in your yard until spring. Native bee larvae and bumblebee queens stay in nests underground, in leaf litter, or in hollow stems during the winter to emerge in the spring. “If you take all that plant material and throw it in the compost bin or throw it away, you’re potentially killing a lot of overwintering insects,” biologist Rich Hatfield says. When your plants start growing again, it’s safe to do a spring yard cleanup.
Droege and others are also concerned that honeybees may help spread non-native invasive plants by pollinating them, which helps them to reproduce. “We have a lot of those European plant species as invasives and as garden plants,” he says. “The use of those plants by honeybees is almost preordained because these are the same plants that they adapted to a long time ago.” Such non-native plants include Canada thistle, clovers and English ivy, according to Droege.
Local native bee enthusiasts find that the insects are quite easy to live with—even in close quarters. In 2022, when North Potomac resident Mike Honig realized that a bumblebee colony was nesting in the wall of his home, he did something unusual—he let them stay.
“I was a little concerned at first, but then I learned that bumblebees basically survive for just one season,” he says. Honig did a lot of online research but admits “it was a bit of a hard sell” convincing his wife, Marian, when they could hear buzzing through the wall. Eventually, Mike says, she “got used to the idea, and we would watch them flying in and out.”
Native bees rarely sting, or their stingers can’t penetrate our skin. If you are stung, it’s usually by a honeybee or a yellow jacket (a type of wasp). Droege describes most native bees as “single moms looking for food” who are entirely responsible for their offspring. A honeybee colony has bees to spare and will sacrifice them to protect the hive. Native bees usually don’t defend their nest because they might “die and that’s the end of their whole line,” he adds. If highly provoked, bumblebees might sting to defend their colony. Only honeybees die after stinging you, and they may cause allergic reactions with their sting.
Most bees nest underground or in tree cavities, logs or hollow stems. We “walk across hundreds of bees’ nests all summer long,” Droege says.
Honig, 66, an avid native plant gardener, never felt threated by the bumblebees. He waited for the outdoor temperature to cool, observed no more activity (the fertilized new queens spend the winter elsewhere), and sealed the hole where their deck joins an outside wall. He hasn’t had any issues since.
Our Most Common Native Bees
- Bumblebee: Large (½ to 1½ inches); live in colonies with queens in hollow places; practice buzz pollination; essential for fruits and vegetables
- Carpenter: Large (1 inch); bore nests in exposed wood; may hover to look at you; generalist pollinator, also practices buzz pollination
- Leaf-cutting: Locally, about ½ inch; cut leaves to line their nests in cavities; pollinate wildflowers, fruits and vegetables
- Mining (Adrenid): Small (up to ½ inch); dig holes to nest underground; pollinate spring-blooming flowers, trees and fruits
- Orchard Mason: Small (½ inch); efficient pollinator, especially for gardens and orchards; nest in tunnels in wood
- Sweat : Small (½ inch or less); metallic-looking; collect salt from skin and can sting lightly; nest underground or in rotting wood; pollinate flowers and crops
- Sources: Virginia Cooperative Extension, Maryland Department of Natural Resources
When Bethesda resident Mariana Borelli decided to convert her yard to native plants, she faced frustration on several fronts. Many of the so-called “native” plants that were sold locally weren’t truly native to Maryland. Or she found mainly cultivars rather than straight native species, which means the plants were likely manipulated by breeders for size, coloration or larger blooms. Unfortunately, Droege says, such cosmetic changes often translate into less available pollen and nectar, so he recommends avoiding cultivars.
Volunteering at Upper Marlboro’s Chesapeake Natives nursery in 2020, Borelli learned the necessary botanical and business skills to start a nursery, which she did in 2022 in her backyard. Open by appointment only, Wildflower Native Plant Nursery offers native species that she has sourced reliably or grown herself.
With more native plants in her yard, Borelli, 49, initially noticed increasing numbers of birds. That led her to “look more closely and pay attention to the insects,” she says. “Bumblebees are always fun and have cute little personalities. I just love finding them sleeping in the flowers.”
Native bee supporters usually eschew the neat-and-tidy yard aesthetic dominated by lawn grass. Appreciating the potential ecological value of his property through his daughter’s eyes, Ruperto Villadiego adjusted his perception of what makes it beautiful.
Similarly, Honig is “keen on leaving plant stems to overwinter and not doing a fall cleanup” because he’s learned that native bees, butterflies and fireflies spend the winter in hollow dead stems and leaf litter, which is quite valuable for them. Now he awaits spring’s warm weather “to clean up last year’s mess in the garden.” While others may think his yard looks “ratty, it’s there for a purpose,” he says.
In the summer, when his native mountain mint blooms abundantly, Honig often “counts no less than 50 types of little bees. Some of them you can barely see.” For him, gardening for these native pollinators “brings with it an awareness that we’re all connected in this ecosystem.”
An Arlington Regional Master Naturalist, Amy Brecount White does her best to create abundant and sometimes “messy” habitats for native bees in her yard.
This story appears in the May/June edition of Bethesda Magazine.