Tiny Bees

[dreamshark]

 There are tiny black bees hovering over the greening grass on our front slope. What are they doing? There are no flowering plants there, just grass. They hover and move slowly back and forth like they are looking for something. Occasionally one will sink down to the ground for a few seconds, then power back up and resume scanning. 

I'd take a picture, but I don't have Josh's talent for insect pictures and I'm afraid they would just be little brownish black blurs. Anybody know what they are and what they are doing? I hope they aren't planning a large bee condominium complex in our front lawn. I want to do all I can to encourage native bees, but I'd rather not have a yard full of underground bees waiting to pour out and attack. 

Comments

[guppiecat]

As luck would have it, the U employs one of the best bee-focused entomologists.

Here's the guide to female bees: https://www.beelab.umn.edu/files/bumblebeesofmnidguidepage1jpg

I'm guessing you're looking at cuckoo bees, which are probably looking for the nests of other bees and laying eggs within them. As these are (I believe) solitary bees, I do not be(e)lieve that there is reason to be concerned about underground bees pouring out and attacking. As a general rule of thumb underground bees simply don't do that. Underground wasps do, but I imagine you know what yellowjackets look like and know that these aren't them.

[dreamshark]

I think you are right. The ones I saw look a lot like the picture accompanying the Wikipedia article. They definitely are not yellow jackets.

But if they are parasitic bees that kill pollinating bees, I feel no obligation to be kind to them. And if they are looking for underground bees to parasitize, that still leaves me with the creepy suspicion that there are bees living under my feet. Those would be some kind of bumblebee, right?

[guppiecat]

Sure, but bumblebees don't swarm either. They're solitary.

Odds are that you have lived with bees under your feet for the entire time that you have owned the house. I think we're all just noticing things more now that they're traveling less.

[dreamshark]

I have a particular phobia about bees and wasps crawling out of the ground due to childhood experiences. It's all psychological though - I was never the one that got stung.

"I think we're all just noticing things more now that they're traveling less."

True. Richard and I have been sitting out on our front lawn more or less every evening at 5:30 to wave at the neighbors, and that's when we noticed the bees.