Slideshow: Amazing facts about Minnesota's native bees

By Shaymus McLaughlin

August 15, 2024

We've got a lot of native bees here in Minnesota. Get to know some of the traits and behaviors that make each stand out. (Photo by Mike Budd/USFWS)

Dr. Julia Leone thinks about bees quite a bit.

As FMR's first dedicated on-staff pollinator biologist, knowing the latest melittology buzz is her job. She spends many a summer day in the field searching for, catching, observing and releasing these astonishing little insects, all in service of protecting them and their habitat, allowing them to flourish. She can talk about bees and their eyebrow hair, their tongue lengths, their travel tendencies. She uses terms like "famous bee nerd photo" with sincerity and oversees important pollinator research every year using only non-lethal collection methods.

Never before, however, had she considered the query I put to her when we first sat down to talk about Minnesota's bees:

Do bees have personalities?

"Oh. That's such a fun question. It's the kind of thing I'd never think of asking," she replied, then paused to consider. "I would say yes, in a sense. Maybe not on an individual bee-to-bee level, like we'd think of with humans. But there are certain species or genera that have a distinct combination of behaviors and preferences and traits that, together, form something like a personality."

There are big-bodied bees that seem to lumber through the air, and bees that are so small they can’t be reliably ID’ed by field observation. Bees that remain on guard, patrolling around their nest to keep all visitors away, and gentle bees that may even land on your skin looking for a friendly nutrient boost. Bees that breezily feed on every flower they come across (generalists), and bees that get nutrients from one specific flower at one specific time of year (specialists). There are bees that sport bold, black and yellow stripes as if from the pages of an illustrated children’s book, and bees whose iridescent green carapaces glint like metal in the sun.

These distinct behaviors speak to the astonishing bee diversity that can be found in Minnesota. While people are most likely to be familiar with the "big three" bumble bees — common eastern, two-spotted and brown-belted — they make up just a sliver of the more than 500 bee species native to the state.

Our bees can be weird, they can be wild. But they are all wonderful.

Get to know some amazing native bee behaviors

Buzz pollination: Putting in the work

On a lot of wildflowers, all a bee has to do to get the pollen is show up and walk around in it. But some flowers have pollen that doesn't come off so easily. These require buzz pollination (also known as sonication). A bee latches itself to the flower's anthers and uses its muscles to vibrate rapidly, shaking the pollen loose. "This isn't a universal thing. Only some bee species have the ability to buzz pollinate," Julia says, noting some popular food crops (including blueberries and tomatoes) require buzz pollination.

Example: Many sweat bees in the Halictidae family. (Photo by Bob Peterson)

Nectar robbers: A clever workaround

Say a bee wants to get nectar from a flower it's not well-developed to access; it doesn't have a long enough tongue for the long, narrow tubes of a bee balm flower, for example. The bee may go to the outside of the plant and chew a hole through the base of the flower, sneaking in to access the nectar directly before zipping away — bypassing the usual pollination process. Curiously, even some bees well-adapted to access nectar the usual way will still sometimes "nectar rob," Julia says.

Example: Eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica. (Photo by Judy Gallagher)

Ground-nesting bees: Searching for bees? Don’t look up, look down.

Nearly 70% of bee species are actually ground-nesters. But not all of them approach it in the same way. Many bumble bees, for example, take up residence in abandoned tunnels of rodents (including mice, voles and badgers), establishing a busy, social colony. Meanwhile, with more solitary bee species (like mining bees), a single female will dig her own tiny tunnel in which she’ll lay her eggs. (A ground-nesting bee entrance looks similar to an anthill.)

Example: Mining bees, the Andrena genus. (Photo by Lydia Fravel)

The long and the short of it: Why tongue length matters

Tongue length can reveal a lot about a bee species' feeding habits. Bees with shorter tongues can land on pretty much any flower to collect pollen and nectar — but usually in smaller amounts. Longer-tongued bees, on the other hand, "really hone in on, and get a lot of nectar from, fewer flowers," Julia says. An evolutionary tradeoff.

Example: The black-and-gold bumble bee, Bombus auricomus, has a relatively long tongue. (Photo by Lisa King)

Sweat bees: Looking for a drink, not picking a fight

A bee species you may be familiar with is the sweat bee, which has a habit of landing on exposed skin. ("I always seem to see them at pools in the summer," notes Julia, with a laugh.) They’re not looking to pick a fight though: They just need a drink. Sweat bees want the salt, minerals and other nutrients in your sweat. This behavior — lapping up liquid from another source — is known as puddling, and butterflies do it too.

Example: Parallel-striped sweat bee, Halictus parallelus. (Photo by Judy Gallagher)

Cuckoo bees: Ope, just gonna scooch right past ya and lay an egg in your nest

Cuckoo bees are nest parasites. The female lays its eggs in the nest of another species. "And then when her eggs hatch, the larvae will eat the food — the provision — the other bee species left for her own offspring." Cuckoo bees are a helpful indicator of healthy overall bee populations at a site. Cuckoo bees wouldn't be there if there weren't other established bee species to take advantage of.

Example: Blood bee, Sphecodes ranunculi. (Photo by Judy Gallagher)

Learn how FMR is becoming a powerhouse for pollinator protection.

Want to know more about how you can help Minnesota's bees (and other native pollinators)?

Sign up for a volunteer restoration event, help us advocate for policies that will protect these vital insects and take steps at home to provide pockets of quality habitat.