Let's not wait to conserve

We are just beginning to build the baseline data for the bees native to the Sonoran Desert Region that will help inform future conservation efforts.  However, there are some things that we can all do now to help protect our native pollinators.

Click here to learn how to create a pollinator paradise in your own backyard.

​Remember:
​
  • Choose native plants. 
  • Provide nesting sites. 
  • Avoid pesticides.
  • Have no fear.
Photo by Joan Fox
The time is now!

Plant a pollinator garden.

photo by Jay Pierstorff

Native bees need
Native plants

Photo by Bruce D Taubert
All of these photos of native bees were taken by Joan Fox of BeeStill in small pollinator gardens she made in her yard in Tucson, Arizona.  To read about her story, which she shared with Tucson Bee Collaborative, click here.

Native bees need
Nesting habitats

Bare dirt is a great nesting habitat and many of our native solitary bees nest in the ground. A female bee digs a nest, builds a brood chamber, provisions it with pollen and nectar, and lays one egg inside. When the egg hatches within the brood chamber, the larva feeds on the pollen/nectar mixture that its mother provided and that is what nourishes it throughout its development into adulthood. Native bees need to have nesting sites near where they forage for food.
Most impressively, some native bees like the cactus bee Diadasia rinconis, form large nesting aggregations in the soil.  These bees are solitary, each female digs her own nest and provisions it for her own young, but the females of this species choose to build their nests next door to one another.  Video by Steve Buchmann.
Other species build their nests out of mud, as seen in this video of a leaf cutter bee emerging from her nest built on the brick steps of a building on the University of Arizona campus. Video by Kathryn Busby.
Other native bees, such as the carpenter bees, excavate their nests in old sotol stalks. Soft dead wood is a good nesting habitat.
Other bees use holes drilled by other insects as their nesting sites.  Local artist and landscape architect, Greg Corman, makes beautiful garden sculptures that double as nesting sites for leafcutter bees, mason bees and resin bees which use the drilled holes to build their nests. 
Photo of the ASDM cactus garden by Jay Pierstorff

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