Native Bees Support Vegetable and Flower Gardens in Chicago Region

They also aren’t all yellow and black. (See FieldGuides.FieldMuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/1252_usa_wild_bee_of_illinois.pdf.)

“There are blue bees and red bees and green bees and silver bees and bees that are orange with green eyes, and they’re all in the Chicago area,” Dorian says. “There are bees that burrow underground and others that nest in crevices in trees. There are bees that walk on water. There are bees that sleep on flowers.”

“Getting up close and watching bees is a safe activity because most bees are not going to sting you even if they can,” Dorian explains. “Only female bees have stingers. Most of our native bees are very gentle, because most of them don’t live in hives, so they don’t have to aggressively defend their homes.”

Entomologists estimate at least 500 different species of bees, mostly native, live in the Chicago region.  

Why Native Bees Matter in Chicagoland Gardens

“Native bees are animal pollinators,” Dorian relays. “They form the backbone of our ecosystems. They help wild plants reproduce. Illinois has an incredible heritage of prairie wildflowers that are supported by native bees.” 

Native bees pollinate cranberries, pumpkins, squash, blueberries and many more crops. “Research shows that the more kinds of bees you have on a farm, the more resilient your crop production,” Dorian says.

Dorian focuses on native bees and wants people to understand that honey bees are not native. “The European honey bees get a lot of attention, but they were brought to North America in the 1600s,” he explains. “Because they are kept commercially, they are not the bees that need our help. To make an environmental impact, we should be caring for and helping our native bees.”

The most numerous native bee species are the solitary bees, those that live singly in holes in the soil or crevices in bark and vegetation. Some male solitary bees actually sleep in flowers during the night so they can be ready in the morning to quickly find a mate.

“Many of the solitary bees are very small, under 5 millimeters long,” says Terry Miesle of East Dundee. He studies bees in his backyard pollinator garden and also volunteers for Project Bee Spotter (BeeSpotter.mste.uiuc.edu). The project is a partnership between citizen and professional scientists to gather data on the population of certain bee species.

Native bees in the family Halictidae, sometimes called sweat bees, are “super common in summer, and some of them are green,” Miesle continues.

The green sweat bee visits native coneflowers, asters, goldenrods and coreopsis.

Bees in the long-horned family are also fairly easy to find. “Some bees in this family specialize on sunflower species,” Dorian says. 

“The males have really long antennae,” he explains. “The females gather pollen off the sunflowers while the males hang around the sunflowers looking for mates. If you plant annual sunflowers in the city, you’ll have long-horned bees. Native sunflowers in the Helianthus genus that come up every year also attract long-horned bees.” 

Photo by Nick Dorian

 Dorian’s favorite bee is a broad-footed cellophane bee, which he calls the tomatillo bee. “It’s native to Illinois and pollinates an Illinois native plant called ground cherry,” he explains. “This bee has likely been helped along greatly by our urban gardens where we grow cultivated tomatillos, which are related to the native ground cherries.”

Although most native bees are solitary, some are social—meaning they nest together in a hive instead of alone. “The bumble bees are one such group, of which there are 11 common species in the Chicago area,” Dorian relates. “All of them are fuzzy. They’re very hairy and largely come in black and yellow color patterns, and they’re present across the entire growing season.”

The most famous bumble bee in the region is the state and federally endangered rusty-patched bumble bee. “It used to be one of the most common bumble bee species in eastern North America,” Dorian says. “In 2010, this species had virtually disappeared from its former range. Now it’s restricted to isolated mountaintops in West Virginia and the Upper Midwest, including Chicago. The reasons for its decline are not clear, but it’s likely a combination of disease and pesticide use and habitat loss.”

While out in the field at CBG last summer, Dorian discovered a rusty-patched bumble bee visiting various species including native bee balm and Culver’s root. “In addition to being seen at CBG, it was also spotted in a previous year at the Rogers Park Metra stop,” he says. “It was in the middle of the city visiting flowers. The significance of this finding is that urban areas are thought of as not being compatible with conservation, but here’s a case where a species of conservation concern seems to be thriving within an urban area. Urban gardens, backyard gardens might be able to help support endangered species.” 

Miesle says by watching bees he has discovered “how varied and wonderful the world is around me. If people stop and observe flowers, they’ll find a drama of life as the plants provide food to bees.”

Sheryl DeVore has written six books on science, health and nature, as well as nature, health and environment stories for national and regional publications. Read more at SherylDeVore.WordPress.com.

Read more ...

How to Help Native Bees Thrive

Learn practical ways to help native bees thrive in Chicago-region gardens, from habitat creation to safe pesticide practices Read More »