Miner Bees
North Shore Mining Bees
Native Ground Nesting Solitary Bees
The indigenous Mining Bee species of the North Shore area belong to a very large group of bees that burrow into the ground to create nesting sites, called the Andrenidae Family of solitary bees. Mining bees (Andrena) have a very wide variety of nesting behaviors and are found in many different types of soil and landscape conditions. Generally, Mining bees prefer to build nesting sites in bare, sunny locations with un-mulched sandy soil. These solitary tunneling bees are gregarious in that they seem to like building nesting sites near to each other. Mining bees are also an excellent native buzz-pollinator, (like the Bumble Bees) of our spring blooming berry plants and fruit trees as they can remain quite active in cooler weather.They can be seen from early spring to late summer throughout the North Shore Area.
Individual species identification of mining bees is a very complex process that is best left to the experts of the field.
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