Bees

A male green sweat bee at Pinnacles National Park.

NPS / Paul Johnson

While the iconic European honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a familiar San Francisco Bay Area resident, hundreds of native bee species live here, too. Our native bees come in every conceivable shape, color, and size—from tiny shimmering metallic sweat bees to big fuzzy bumblebees. Many live alone, rather than in colonies, and most build their nests in dirt or sand burrows rather than in hives. Others, called kleptoparasites or cuckoo bees, only lay their eggs in other bees’ nests.

As essential pollinators of both agricultural crops and native plants, California’s roughly 1600 native bee species play a vital role in just about every kind of terrestrial ecosystem. But, despite how important they are, we know very little about the bees that live on National Park Service lands, and even less about what effects climate change might have on them.

Some Bay Area national parks are taking steps to try to catalog and understand their apian diversity a little better by sampling bees and noting what plant species they prefer. A more complete understanding of the parks’ bees will not only help managers care for them and their habitats now, but also be able to better predict what might happen as climate and park habitats change in the future.

Pinnacles: According to a late-90s study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Logan Bee Lab in Utah, nearly 400 bee species live in the park’s 25 square-miles—more than any other surveyed area its size on Earth! "Researchers from Utah State University returned to the park for additional surveys between 2011 and 2012, and found another 48 bee species.

John Muir: A 2002 survey found 70 different species of bees at the John Muir National Historic Site, but park biologists suspect that there may be more that were not captured by this preliminary sampling effort. To that end, park staff and interns are currently surveying bees in a variety of park habitats to try to get a more thorough understanding of bee diversity and bee-plant associations in the park.

The Presidio: A 2004 bee study found 60 species of bees in the Presidio, and some indication that habitat degradation and disturbance were not necessarily limiting bee species diversity or abundance. A follow-up survey in 2008 found six more bee species, bringing the total to 66, and also found that bee diversity and abundance had changed dramatically at all the surveyed sites.

References and Links

Explore more research, reports, and resources on bees in San Francisco Bay Area parks.

Reports and Journal Articles

Source: Data Store Saved Search 3579. To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Multimedia

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  It's the Bees Knees

  John Muir made his money as a fruit grower—depending on bees for his orchards. A closer look reveals an astounding number of bee species in John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, California. Bee surveys being conducted in areas of the park are revealing a growing inventory of bee species and exciting details about the plants they're pollinating. Meet two field interns as they discuss the work and its challenges.

  Duration:

  3 minutes, 46 seconds

• The Natural Laboratory: Bees of Pinnacles National Park

  
  

  This podcast includes interviews with park staff and scientists about why Pinnacles bees might be so diverse and why it matters.
  Audio Transcript

  This is the Natural Laboratory, a podcast exploring science for Bay Area national parks. I’m Daniel Strain. It’s early September, and Pinnacles National Monument is hot. Chamise scrub and orange pompoms of buckwheat cover the hills. But in this arid landscape, new life will soon be brewing.

  Paul Johnson: If you look at temperature and precipitation, October is very similar to May, and if you look at the plants and the butterflies and the bees, they know it. So I call it the second spring.

  Daniel Strain: Park wildlife biologist Paul Johnson and I are on the hunt for bees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture—or USDA Pinnacles hosts more bee species than any other surveyed area its size on Earth. So they shouldn’t be hard to find.

  Introduction

  Paul Johnson [Noise of walking] PJ: I would say this flows every winter or spring. This is Bear Gulch or Bear Creek. DS: Today, it’s a dry gravel bed. Skinny plants with purple flowers poke up through the stones. They’re vinegar weeds and, true to their name, smell acrid and sweet. [Buzzing] DS: Soon, the flowers get a visitor—a gray bee in a hurry. The bee zips from blossom to blossom, barely stopping to gulp down nectar. By late morning, the creek bed hums with moths, butterflies and more bees. PJ: There’s a lot of subtle beauty here. I’ve talked to some people who just look, and they say, “What’s the point?” But they haven’t stopped to take a closer look. If you’re willing to get down on your knees and look at those flowers that are down on the ground, you’ll be amazed what you see.

  The Natural Laboratory Podcast Script: The bees of Pinnacles National Monument Olivia Messinger

  DS: In the late 90s, Terry Griswold and a team from the USDA’s Logan Bee Lab in Utah set out to census Pinnacles’ bees. I talked over the phone with Olivia Messinger. At the time, she was a student worker under Griswold. Olivia Messinger: We expected it to be really diverse and have a lot of species. DS: But she caught more than a lot-- almost 400 bee species in 25 square miles. To put that into perspective, only 365 species live in all of New England. OM: At the time that I did this, I was a beginner in bee surveys, so to me that was like, holy cow, amazing. Olivia Messinger (continued)

  Conclusion DS: Despite their size, these bees aren’t trivial members of the Pinnacles community, Messinger says. She’s now a PhD student studying pollination ecology at Southern Illinois University. Pollinators—from bees to butterflies— ensure that plants can reproduce and fruits grow. OM: Anything with color that you enjoy eating is the result of bees pollinating it: Apples and cherries and almonds and avocados. Without them, a lot of things would really fall apart [laughs]. DS: And the team didn’t just find a lot of bees but bees of all shapes, colors and behaviors. OM: Most people when they think of a bee, they have this image in their head of a honeybee. It’s social, it lives in a hive, and it makes honey. And there’s a queen and workers and stuff. And that’s pretty unique as far as bees go. It’s not the norm. DS: Most of Pinnacles’ bees lead solitary, not communal, lives. Some—called kleptoparasites or cuckoo bees—only lay their eggs in other bees’ nests. OM: And then when the larva hatches it’s got these humongous, giant pinchers on it, and it will cut the other bee that’s supposed to be in there in half and then eat all of the pollen itself. DS: But why so many bees have crammed into Pinnacles is a tricky question to answer, Messinger says. Most animal groups do best in the tropics where the weather is wet. Bees, however, prefer it dry. Maybe because so many of them dig their nests in the dirt. OM: And if the ground is constantly moist, there’s a good chance for fungus to be in the nest, which is really bad for bees. DS: Pinnacles—like many chaparral communities—has dry soil. The park is an oasis of wild land in an area flush with fields and farms. So many bees pack in here, Messinger thinks, because they have nowhere else to go. And flowers bloom in this refuge nearly year-round. OM: And since many of these bees are so short lived—three, four weeks tops--that means that there’s plenty of resources for all sorts of different bees across the season. DS: In 2011, USDA scientists will return to the park to net and study more of these bees. Other teams are following in their stead. Wildlife biologist Paul Johnson. [Buzzing] PJ: I’ve started a moth inventory. I’m maybe halfway complete. We’ve got about 500 species. Some of those are probably new species. Who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered. DS: For him, that’s a good reason to get down in the dirt and take a closer look. For the Pacific Coast Science and Learning Center, I’m Daniel Strain.

Blog

See below for the latest on bees from the Bay Area Nature & Science Blog.