WORTHINGTON — Are you like me when you see a bee? My defenses go up and my panic button goes off.
Well, I keep learning through the Master Gardener Volunteer program how important bees are to our crops and gardens. So, I am being a little more calm, observant and happy to see the bees in my garden. Our fears aren’t as bad when we understand these little insects. By foraging for food on our flowers for their colony, bumble bees pollinate our crops.
Did you know University of Minnesota Extension has a Bee Lab online? The website is
https://beelab.umn.edu/
which gives information about the flowers bees need, the nesting habits of bees, the pesticides that are harmful to bees and other beneficial insects. Another website is
https://arb.umn.edu/bees-pollinators
from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. If you visit the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, go to the Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center and check out the bee exhibit. It is located by the Farm at the Arb.
Minnesota has over 500 species of bees. I just thought they were all honey bees or bumble bees. Specifically, Minnesota is home to 24 of the 45 species of bumble bees known from North America. Here are some of the pollinator bees I have learned about on the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum website.
The Metallic Green Sweat Bee looks like a fly to me. Now I know differently. They are bright, shiny green and some have strips on the back of their bodies while some are green all over.
The Mason Bee is dark blue. To me it looks like a wasp but it isn’t. They do a lot of pollinating on apple trees so they are also labeled the “orchard bee”. You may have to visit an orchard to see them in the Spring when they are active.
The Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee became the state bee of Minnesota in 2019. It is on the endangered species list in the U.S. and Canada. Two key features distinguish it from the other bumble bees. It has a rusty patch on the second segment of the abdomen that is a rusty brown orange color and is between yellow patches. The first segment of the abdomen is all yellow and the third segment is black.
The second feature to look for is called the thumb-tack. This is a T-shaped area of black hairs on the yellow thorax hairs between the wings. If you see one, take a picture and submit it to bumblebeewatch.org.
Where do bumble bees nest?
This is information from Minnesota Bumble Bee Nest Quest. In the Spring, the queen flies in a zigzag pattern looking for a place for her nest. She will stop and explore areas until she finds what will work for her colony.
The nest is usually hidden in a hole or small opening. They can be on the surface of the ground, underground, in an old cushion or a bird house. She lays eggs which are female worker bees that begin foraging for the nest and pollinating plants. Later in the summer, the queen starts laying eggs that become males and a small number of queens. The new queens mate and are the only ones to survive until the next year.
These new queens will dig into loose soil, leaf or branch piles and become dormant until spring. It is important not to remove any dead leaves left in gardens over the winter until later in April. It could be too cold for the queen bees. The queen bee’s body has anti-freeze, so to speak, to survive Minnesota winters. Only the female and queen bees can sting.
The mason bee will nest in hollow plant stems, tunnels, or man made artificial structures with tubes. They are super pollinators but are not a bumble bee. They do not sting unless threatened.
What plants attract pollinators?
Annuals recommended on the University of Minnesota Extension site include the Music Box Mix sunflower, Lemon Queen sunflower, Summer Pink Jewel Salvia, Purple Fairy Tale Salvia, Orange Fudge Black-eyed Susan, Prairie Sun Black-eyed Susan, Showstar Butter Daisy and Envy Zinnia.
The annuals attracting bees in my gardener are zinnias, marigolds, cosmos and sunflowers. The perennials in a garden that help bee pollinators are echinacea (coneflower), milkweed, asters, Black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, goldenrod, Joe Py Weed, salvia and bee balm. Last fall my aster was buzzing with a bunch of bees which were very busy. Observe the activity of bees in your garden to learn what attracts them.
Making a bee water station
The Summer 2025 edition of Northern Gardener has an article about providing water for bees in the garden. Honeybees and several other bees need water. In warmer weather, bees start looking for water while foraging. Honeybees collect the water and deposit tiny droplets around the hive and fan it with their wings to evaporate the water and cool the hive. That sounds like bee air conditioning.
The Mason bee needs water to make mud for its nest. A bee water station can be made with a clean clay pot, 6 to 8 inches in diameter turned upside down. Use a matching saucer with a rough porous surface placed on top of the upside down pot and attached with clear Gorilla glue. The pot can be painted with outdoor paint. Bees cannot see the color red but they are attracted to blue and purple. Bees can’t swim so add some rocks that pile just above the water level for them to perch on. They also use their sense of smell to find water so the smellier the better by using moss, aquatic plants or decaying organic matter. If you use clean water, add table salt. Trials have shown that honeybees prefer it. Place your bee watering station close to the plants they like.
Information is from the article by Gail Hudson in Northern Gardener.
You can become a Master Gardener Volunteer. Find out what is involved at https://extension.umn.edu/master-gardener/become-master-gardener.