From the founders
Before we get to this month's feature, a note to everyone in the path of the extreme cold moving through the eastern U.S.: we hope you and your families are safe and warm.
For beekeepers, these conditions bring added worry. Here are steps you can take right now to help your colonies—regardless of your hive type:
→ Reduce entrances (don't seal them completely)
→ Add insulation above the nest if you have an empty super
→ Cover entrances to prevent snow from blocking airflow
→ Elevate hives off frozen ground
→ Spread hay or straw in front of the entrance - bees that land on snow during cleansing flights rarely survive
These steps won't guarantee survival, but they improve the odds. And if you're in a Primal Bee hive, your colonies have a significant advantage right now. R-30 insulation was designed for exactly these moments.
Stay safe out there.
— The Primal Bee Team
Native Bee of the Month: Solitary bees
We're launching something new this month. Each installment will profile a different pollinator group, covering identification, biology, and habitat. We're starting with solitary bees—the largest category of native pollinators in North America.
Why dedicate newsletter space to bees that don't make honey?
Because most of us walk past dozens of them every day without recognizing them. There are over 20,000 bee species in the world. One makes honey and lives in managed hives. The majority of the rest are solitary - and research shows many pollinate two to four times more effectively per flower visit than honey bees.
Dr. Jason Graham, our Senior Beekeeping Advisor, spent his PhD at the University of Florida studying solitary bees. "Solitary bees are the single moms of the insect world," he explains. "Each female does everything alone. She builds the nest, collects the pollen, provisions each cell, and lays the eggs. Then she dies before her offspring ever emerge."
This month's guide covers the four solitary bee groups you're most likely to see in your garden, how to identify them, and simple ways to support them.
Four solitary bee groups probably visiting your garden:
→ Mason bees: Metallic blue or green, active early spring, nest in hollow tubes
→ Leafcutter bees: Cut circular leaf discs for nests, carry pollen on fuzzy abdomens
→ Mining bees: Excavate ground burrows, create small holes with soil mounds
→ Carpenter bees: Large, often metallic, tunnel into wood structures
You can identify them using the iNaturalist app - it's increasingly effective at IDing bees from photos, often to genus or even species level. You'll quickly learn to recognize the major groups visiting your garden. Our blog post has photos for you to reference as you start looking more closely!
🐝 That blurry bee photo you uploaded? It might end up in a research paper.
🌱 Habitat restoration is good. But ignoring disease dynamics? Not so much.
👽 Scientists want to talk to aliens. Their test subject? Bees.
Bee fact of the week 🐝
A single mason bee female makes roughly 1,800 flower visits to provision just one egg. She collects pollen, packs it into a cell, lays an egg on top, seals the chamber with mud, then starts over. By the time she's done, she may have provisioned 20-30 cells, visiting tens of thousands of flowers in her short 4-6 week lifespan.
Until next time
Until next time - stay curious, stay kind to your bees, and keep an eye out for the solitary ones working quietly in your garden.
Coming up: We're exploring the therapeutic effects of beekeeping, featuring an exclusive interview with Julia Mahood (president of the Georgia Beekeeper’s Association, and one of the coordinators of the Georgia Prison Beekeeping Program) on how time at the hive can support mental health and wellbeing.
— The Primal Bee Team 🐝