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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Watching the females enter and exit the nests. I recommend you expand this to full screen mode to see all the comings and goings.Cellophane bee nests in early May. Cellophane bees, also called polyester bees or plasterer bees, line their nests with a waterproof material that resembles clear plastic (cellophane) when it dries. Photo by Debbie Roos.Rufous-backed cellophane bee at nest entrance. Photo by Debbie Roos.Female squash bee in a squash bloom. These bees nest in the ground near squash plants. Squash bees are oligolectic and only collect pollen from plants in the Cucurbit family. Photo by Debbie Roos.As a group ground-nesting bees are active from February through November in North Carolina, although each species usually has a fairly short time period that it provisions its nest.For example, some of the earliest and most visible bees are the mining bees (genus Andrena) that start nesting in late February/early March. There are close to 100 species of mining bees in North Carolina! These are the bees I get the most phone calls about because they often nest in large aggregations and folks sometimes get concerned when they see so many tiny mounds of excavated soil in their lawn with hundreds of bees flying back and forth and hovering over the nest entrances. They worry their kids will get stung. This is not a concern with the mining bees for several reasons. Most of the bees seen hovering over the nests are males waiting to mate with the female bees and males
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