A cemetery in Ithaca, New York, not only has a large number of graves but also an even greater number of bees. Researchers estimate there are perhaps 5.6 million underground bees in that plot of land. It is the largest known aggregation of ground-nesting solitary bees, known as miner bees or mining bees, in the family Andrenidae.
The Andrenidae family of bees consists of more than 1300 species. They don’t build hives, and they don’t swarm. They are solitary bees that live out their lives, build their nests, and raise their young underground. The species of bees that have found a home in the Ithaca cemetery is Andrena regularis. This particular species pollinates crops such as apples and blueberries.
Bees in the Andrenidae family of underground bees are designed to carry pollen on their legs. Various species within this family tend to pollinate specific plant species. We often think of honeybees as essential pollinators, but we tend not to think about or even know about the bees that don’t make honey but are still important pollinators
These underground bees emerge for a short period in the spring and do their pollination work. As temperatures get warmer, they go back underground. Because of the pollen-carrying features of these solitary bees, they can deposit more pollen than individual honey bees. This cemetery discovery is unusual because of how many of them are concentrated in one area. Researchers estimate that there are more than 800 bees per square meter.
God’s amazing web of life is often overlooked because many creatures are largely out of sight and therefore out of mind. These underground bees remind us that there is a lot of life underground, even in a cemetery.
— Roland Earnst © 2026
Reference: Discovermagazine.com
