A cemetery in New York holds a buzzing secret of 5.6 million bees
In short: While we often imagine bees living in hanging hives, most native species actually prefer the dirt. A vast, concealed pollinator system was uncovered by scientists in an upstate New York graveyard, where they located one of history's most ancient and extensive colonies of ground-nesting bees.
The discovery occurred at East Lawn Cemetery in Ithaca, New York, where scientists identified a staggering population of approximately 5.6 million regular mining bees (Andrena regularis). While these bees are solitary—meaning females nest individually rather than in social colonies—they have formed a massive aggregation across about 1.5 acres of the cemetery grounds.
The mystery of where these bees originated had puzzled entomologists for a decade. Researchers knew that A. regularis was the most common bee in nearby Cornell University apple orchards, but they couldn't pinpoint their nesting source until 2022. A technician noticed a 'frenzy of activity' at the cemetery, where males were pouncing on females and females were carrying pollen and nectar into underground burrows. The study revealed that these bees share a preference for the cemetery's soil with humans, making old burial grounds ideal habitats for ground-nesting species.
This discovery challenges our perception of bee habitats. While popular culture focuses on hives, about 70 percent of native bees in the U.S. are actually ground-nesters. The Ithaca aggregation provides a crucial look at how these understudied pollinators function as a 'pollinating engine' for local agriculture. By using emergence traps—mesh tents that guide bees into jars—researchers were able to calculate population sizes, sex ratios, and timing, providing new data on the sheer abundance of hidden biodiversity in human-altered landscapes.
The scale of this find is difficult to visualize; the estimated bee population of 5.6 million exceeds the entire population of Manhattan, which is about 1.7 million people. This research highlights how much of our natural world remains hidden beneath our feet, waiting for a chance encounter to be brought into scientific focus.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Bizarre Discovery in NYC Cemetery Rewrites What We Know About Bees
- Also: This cemetery is swarming with 5.6 million bees
- Also: Scientists Found 5.6 Million Burrowing Bees Beneath a Cemetery in New York. The Group Is One of the Largest on Record
- Also: Scientists just discovered 5.6 million bees under a New York State cemetery
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