The Bees Living in Your Backyard Right Now

The Bees Living in Your Backyard Right Now (And Why They Need You to Wait)

Up to 70% of native bees nest underground — and in Newburyport, many are still down there this spring.

There's a good chance your yard is home to bees right now — not in a hive, not in a box, but tucked a few inches below the soil surface, waiting for the world to warm up enough to emerge.

Most people picture bees living in hives, but the vast majority of our native species are solitary ground nesters. In coastal Essex County, that includes digger bees, sweat bees, and mining bees — small, mostly gentle creatures that do an enormous amount of pollination work across our gardens, parks, and the Clipper City Rail Trail corridor. Unlike honeybees, these bees don't have a colony to protect, which makes them remarkably non-aggressive. You've almost certainly walked past their nests hundreds of times without knowing it.

What they're doing right now

Native ground bees spent the winter as larvae or pupae in underground chambers, sealed inside tunnels their mothers dug last summer. Right now, in mid-March, they're still down there — finishing development, waiting for soil temperatures to consistently reach the threshold that signals it's safe to emerge. That moment hasn't arrived yet in Newburyport. Our coastal soils take longer to warm than inland areas, and a late cold snap can be deadly for bees that emerge too early.

What puts them at risk in spring

This is where well-meaning gardeners can accidentally cause real harm. Raking, digging, and especially mulching over bare soil patches in early spring can destroy nests before the bees inside ever get a chance to emerge. Even light foot traffic compacts the soil in ways that make it harder for bees to dig out. And because ground bee nests look like nothing — just a small hole in bare or sparsely vegetated soil — they're very easy to disturb without realizing it.

The Xerces Society, the leading authority on invertebrate conservation, recommends leaving bare and undisturbed soil patches in your garden specifically to support ground-nesting bees. That "messy" patch you've been meaning to mulch over? It may be exactly what your local bee population needs.

What you can do

The single most helpful thing is simply to wait. Hold off on raking, digging, and mulching until daytime temperatures have been consistently above 50°F for at least a week — our rule of thumb for when most overwintering insects have had a chance to emerge. In coastal New England, that often means late April or even early May is safer than it feels.

When you do tidy up, leave a few patches of bare, undisturbed soil in a sunny corner. Ground-nesting bees actively seek these spots to build next season's nests. No special equipment, no expense — just a little intentional neglect.

If you're thinking about what to plant nearby to support these bees once they do emerge, our Native Pollinator Garden Planner has 100 New England-native options filtered by sun, soil, and bloom time — including early spring bloomers that will be ready and waiting when your ground bees finally surface.

The bigger picture

Native ground bees are quiet, easy to overlook, and absolutely essential. They were pollinating New England long before European honeybees arrived, and they're still doing that work today — in your garden, along the rail trail, and in every unmulched corner of Essex County. They just need a few more weeks.

This post is part of our series on overwintering pollinators still emerging in your spring garden. Read our full guide to spring cleanup timing at pollinatorpowerworks.org/post/pollinators-spring-cleanup.