Wings of wonder: The diverse tapestry of native bee species

You may be surprised to learn that not all bees are yellow and black. Spurred ceratina is a beautiful, and distinctly blue, carpenter bee that is found across eastern Canada.

This bee builds its nest by burrowing into wood cavities. While most carpenter bees tend to be solitary, spurred ceratina will  sometimes share their nest with other females .

Observed on NCC projects in southwest Nova Scotia, spurred ceratina is a species of significant value. In fact, it is the first sub-social* bee species whose full genome has been sequenced, leading to advances in  research investigating the evolution of social behaviour in insects .

*Sub-social in this context means that a female bee will raise her brood to adulthood. When her baby female offspring reach adulthood, they disperse and build their own nest.

True to its name, the tri-colored bumble bee is easily recognizable by its uniquely coloured abdomen.

Tri-colored bumble bees tend to nest underground in habitats such as wooded areas and wetlands. They are an essential pollinator for vegetables and fruit.

Observed in NCC’s Sud du Golfe du Saint-Laurent natural area in Quebec, this bumble bee is also  found across much of Canada .

The neighbouring cuckoo nomad bee is a solitary bee found across most of eastern Canada and the U.S. Derived from the Greek word "Nomas," this bee is named after its wandering nature.

Neighbouring cuckoo nomad bees exhibit a parasitic lifestyle; instead of creating their own nest, they will often steal an already established nest by laying their eggs there and taking advantage of resources that were collected by the host.

These bees tend to parasitize other bee species from the Andrena family, with the  hairy banded mining bee being its main suspected host . When assessing a possible nest, neighbouring cuckoo nomad bees tend to  use visual cues to help their selection process .

Along with the Mauricie–Capitale-Nationale region in Québec, these bees are also found in Ontario and British Columbia.

The  blue orchard bee  has a reputation for being the “most docile bee in Canada” and is an extremely productive pollinator. It is sometimes kept in large numbers on agricultural sites.

This bee has an interesting way of building its nests — it packs mud into wall cracks and crevices, as well as in hollow plant stems.

So, next time you are cleaning up your garden, think carefully about throwing away dead sticks and twigs. This vegetation can be particularly important for blue orchard bees, and removing it could lead to a loss of important habitat.

Observed in the  Napanee Plain natural area  in Ontario, this bee is also found across much of southern Canada.

The broad-handed leafcutter bee is  widespread across most of Canada , including the Southern Norfolk Sand Plain natural area in Ontario. It is one of the larger leaf-cutter bee species in Canada.

As its name suggests, this bee uses its mandibles to make semi-circular cut-outs in leaves and uses them to pad its nests. These distinctive, round cut-outs can be easily seen in nature.

Like other bee species in Canada, leafcutter bees are important pollinators for a variety of crops.

Like the name suggests, squash bees specialize on pollinating squash plants, such as zucchini, pumpkins and gourds.

Male squash bees tend to have a larger and yellow lower part of the face, known as the clypeus.

Squash bees are particularly important pollinators as they are most active during the morning hours,  following the daily rhythm of squash flowers, which wilt and close by around noon . By contrast, honey bees tend to pollinate in the later hours of the day, making squash bees valuable for Cucurbita crop species, which flower in the mornings.

Observed in NCC’s Creemore Nature Preserve in Ontario, squash bees can also be found in parts of southern Quebec.

If you’ve been out to garden, visited a park or trail in eastern Canada, chances are you’ve seen the most common bumble bee species in this part of the country: common eastern bumble bee. Spanning from  Ontario to Newfoundland , this bee resides in a variety of different habitats, from urban spaces to forest and grasslands.

Similar to other social bees, common eastern bumble bee lives in a colony, with  a queen bee and worker bee structure .

This species is an extremely productive pollinator and is a generalist forager, meaning it will visit many type of plants.

Shake it off. Literally!

Did you know that bumble bees and some species of solitary bees have a special technique to dislodge more pollen trapped in flowers? In  buzz pollination , the bee vibrates its wing muscles against the flower’s anther. See if you can spot these humble bumbles use this special technique.

 Watch a vibrating bumble bee in action > 

Golden sweat bee is a beautiful, small green bee measuring  between five to seven millimetres .

Like other sweat bees, the golden sweat bee needs salt for its survival. You may have noticed them on a particularly hot day, as they are attracted to salt sources, such as perspiration on  humans which provides valuable moisture and salt .

Golden sweat bees are found in Saskatchewan (Aspen Parkland pictured here) to Quebec.

A little further up north in the boreal transition zone exists another cuckoo bee, known as Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee. This species is assessed as  endangered under the Species at Risk Act since 2019 .

Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee is a parasitic  eusocial  bee, with other nest-building bumble bee species, such as the western bumble bee, as its host. Females invade bumble bee nests by overpowering or killing the queen. They then lay their eggs, relying on the worker bees in the host colony to raise them. Because of this tight relationship with other bumble species, Suckley's cuckoo bumble bee plays an  important ecological role in its hosts' the population dynamics .

While this bee has quite a large range, it is mainly threatened by the decline of its other host populations. Similar to other declining bee species, Suckley’s cuckoo bumble bees are also directly negatively impacted by habitat loss due to urbanization. Western Canada has seen a particularly large decrease in the abundance of these bees, with a 30 per cent decline in comparison to all other bumble bees.

In the past, the western bumble bee was previously considered one of the most abundant bee species in western Canada. Over the past few decades, however, there has been a  noticeable decline in its population numbers . In fact, two subspecies of western bumble bee —  Bombus occidentalis occidentalis  and  Bombus occidentalis mckayi  — are assessed as threatened and under special concern under the Species at Risk Act.

Current risks threatening this species are  habitat loss, spillover of pathogens from farmed bumble bee populations and use of pesticides .

Western bumble bees are generalist bees, meaning that they play a critical role in pollinating a wide range of native and agricultural plants, from apples and pears in orchards, to salmonberries and wild strawberries in the forest.