Wild bees play a critical but often overlooked role in ecosystems, quietly pollinating both agricultural crops and native plants. While honeybees tend to get most of the attention, the vast majority of bee species live solitary lives, with many of them nesting underground in soil habitats that are both easy to miss and easy to destroy.
In Ithaca, New York, an unexpected discovery revealed just how abundant these hidden pollinators can be.
Rachel Fordyce used to save money by parking at Ithaca’s East Hill Plaza and walking through East Lawn Cemetery on her way to work at a Cornell University entomology lab. In spring 2022, she noticed something unusual: bees were everywhere in the cemetery. She collected some specimens and brought them to her supervisor.
Cornell University researchers identified the insects as Andrena regularis, a solitary ground-nesting mining bee that helps pollinate crops and wild plants. What began as a casual observation became a major scientific finding. The research team found that this cemetery hosts one of the largest known aggregations of ground-nesting bees ever recorded, with an estimated 5.5 million individuals in just 1.5 acres.
Scientists say the discovery strengthens the idea that cemeteries can serve as important biodiversity refuges because they are peaceful, rarely disturbed, and largely free of pesticides.
The findings, which were recently published in the journal Apidologie, highlight how much ecological life can exist in unexpected urban landscapes, and how easily it all can go unnoticed.
