Got Native Bees?

Befriend Bees
Your yard can be important habitat for bees. Different plants produce flowers at different times of the year so planting several different kinds of flowering plants give bees lots of food choices. You help the bees by giving them food and they help the plants that make food for you. Different species of bees live in different parts of the world so it's very helpful if you grow plants that bees in your area are used to. Be careful if you use sprays (called pesticides) to kill insects. You may be using pesticides to kill insects that are harming your plants or getting into your house, but they kill bees too. You can help bees by not spraying pesticides on plants when they are blooming or even in areas close to plants that are blooming. If you use pesticides, spray at night when bees are not working to gather food.

Plants Native Bees Like

Build a Bee Nest
Most bees don't live in hollow trees or beehives
Most kinds of bees do not live together and most bees do not make honey. They are called solitary bees. They may live near each other in a piece of wood or even in the ground, but each female builds her own nest. Their homes do not look like honey-combs. Each bee lives in its own tunnel where females make a little ball from pollen they have collected and then lay an egg on the pollen.

The little balls in this tube are made from pollen a bee collected. After making the ball, the bee laid an egg on the pollen. The lines between the pollen and eggs are walls the bee made out of mud.
Nest Block Preparation
Stick and Stake Nests

Work with Bees
You could become an entomologist! An entomologist is a scientist who studies all kinds of insects. At Utah State University, at team of entomologists at the USDA Bee Biology Lab study bees and help people all over the world understand, use and protect them. Students who are learning to be entomologists are part of that important team. They study bees in orchards, fields, mountains, deserts and the laboratory and discover exciting things that help bees and people. Think about it, you could be a student at USU and learn to be a scientist (or an engineer, a teacher – there are lots of possibilities.) You could help figure out some of the things scientists don’t know about bees. For example: Which kinds of bees are the best pollinators for our food crops? How can we protect bees so they can pollinate our plants?