Living with Bees: Urban Harmony & Habitat (Ep. 65)

By 2030, the United Nations predicts that 60% of the world’s population will live in cities. As urban areas expand to accommodate this growth, natural habitats are often replaced with concrete ones. That shift raises an important question: can urban landscapes evolve to incorporate and support bee-friendly designs?

Cities might seem like unlikely habitats for bees, but they hold surprising potential. The abundance of flowers is one plus, though it’s often offset by urban fragmentation. Generalist bees—those that can forage from a wide variety of plants—tend to do well in these patchy environments. But our specialist bees, the ones typically more rare and threatened, struggle when their preferred pollen sources disappear.

In this episode, I talk with Matthew Donahue about what it’s like to be a city-dwelling bee. We explore how urban environments shape bee behavior, survival, and community dynamics.

Pollination is just one part of the story—bees play a much bigger role in supporting urban biodiversity. They’re key players in local ecosystems, drawing in other species and even improving soil health through their ground-nesting habits. When cities create spaces where bees can flourish, they’re also strengthening the wider web of life that benefits countless other creatures.

Matthew’s current work is investigating the evolution dynamics of solitary and subsocial bees in cities versus undeveloped areas. You can learn more about him here, and be sure to follow his Instagram, @urban_beevolution for lots of bee fun.

Good to know

Matthew mentioned that ground-nesting bees are handy to have in your garden as they aerate the soil,  supporting both biodiversity and soil health. As they dig their burrows, they do this naturally—improving water flow, nutrient absorption, and reducing compaction, much like earthworms do. They don’t harm lawns or pose any threat to people, and they tend to nest in dry, sandy areas with sparse grass. They can’t create these conditions themselves so think about a dry spot in your yard you could leave available for them.

Transcript

Jacy: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bees Knees. A podcast wild about native bees. Wild and native bees are under threat worldwide. In each episode, we look at actionable things we can do to support these adorable little guys whose pollination work is crucial for maintaining biodiversity. I’m Jacy Meyer and I thank you for being here.

I recently had a discussion with a colleague who mentioned they were thinking of putting beehives on the roof of our office building, but didn’t for health and safety reasons. I immediately went into a big pollinator garden pitch, hoping to convince her that continuously blooming flowers on our roof will create a space filled with joy for our employees.

She said no for the same reason as the beehives. The risk of bee stings. When I tell people I have a podcast about native bees, I’m often met with a, I got stung by a bee story. [00:01:00] So today we’re buzzing into the city to explore what it really means to live with bees in an urban setting. With our guest Matthew Donahue, we talk about how to make city living a bit better for our native bees.

How and why bees actually sting. And what are the differences between bees and wasps? So first, can we talk about how urban habitats differ from wild bee habitats?

Matthew: They’re quite different, but I think one of the biggest differences is maybe a bit counterintuitive because typically cities are bad for wild species, but in some cases cities are actually quite good for bees.

Cities have lots and lots of flowers. And they’re a pretty big diversity of flowers. Part of that is because of invasive flowers, which maybe isn’t that helpful, and it actually brings around some invasive bee species who live in cities that maybe you don’t get in wild places, but. These increased [00:02:00] flowers mean that if you’re a bee who can find a place to live in a city, you might wind up with a lot of floral resources to feed your babies.

So some bee species can do really well in cities. A lot of them don’t, unfortunately, and part of that group of species who don’t do well in cities are specialist bees who can really only feed their babies one or two particular types of pollen. And if the plant that makes that type of pollen isn’t in the city, then the bees can’t live in the cities.

Some of these are flowers we might not think of like wild geranium or grass of parnassus, and these just aren’t gonna be in a city ’cause no one’s planting them, which means that these bees don’t do very well in the cities. There’s also some thought that the flowers in cities are very concentrated. So you’ll have all these spots with no flowers, and then there’s a flower bed that has lots of flowers on it, or maybe there’s just one apple tree, and so all the bees have to go there.

So there’s some conversation [00:03:00] about whether these really concentrated resources in cities might be bad for bees. ’cause everybody’s eating from the same trough basically. So diseases might be able to spread really easy around city bees. I think the jury’s still a little out on that one. And in some of my research I’ve been in wild places where the flowers are also very concentrated.

So this is still a little bit up to debate, but regardless, the resources in cities are often very fragmented. You might have a park here and then no resources for another half mile, quarter mile until you get to one person’s pollinator garden. And there’s really small, so these wild or these city areas we think are also very fragmented compared with natural bee habitats where bee might be able to move.

Over several generations across a landscape moving beyond flowers. There’s lots of places for bees to nest in wild areas that might be gone in cities, especially for ground nesting bees. ’cause cities pave over places. [00:04:00] That’s, that’s part of what being in a city is, is there’s sidewalks and there’s roads, and there’s parking lots and buildings, which means there’s not a lot of habitat for ground nesting, bee species who need loose dirt in sunny areas.

So typically in a city, almost all of your species are going to be above ground nesting bee species, and you’ll just get a few that are in the ground.

Jacy: Could you share some examples of how cities can be designed or adapted maybe to support bee populations? I’m thinking through architecture, green spaces, community initiatives.

Matthew: Fortunately, there are already plenty of examples ’cause there are lots of people who care about bees and they’re doing things to help them. And since cities are already sort of hit or miss with bees, there are a few things we know we can do that help these bees that cities are already a miss for. So one of the first things you can do is when you’re designing a place or when you’re just doing your own landscaping, try to leave some bare areas around.

That bee species who nest in the ground can [00:05:00] use as their habitat. An easy way to do this just is instead of putting down really heavy mulch that the bees can’t make it through, you can just leave a thin layer of gravel that has a little bit of dirt between it and those ground nesting species, believe it or not, will find those little bits of dirt between your small rocks and they’ll build their nests there, which is really exciting to see.

You’ll be really happy. You’ll see this mound of dirt around your rocks, and you’ll know a bee has built its nest in this spot. You left for it. Or if you have a spot where maybe you’re struggling to grow grass or you’re struggling to get plants in, just leave it bare. Especially if you have sort of a loose, dry soil already there, or it’s a sunny spot, the bees will find that spot and they’ll build their nest.

And again, you’ll see the bees come in within a year or two of this bare ground being here. And it’ll really be a treat for you to be able to see these nests. Um, but if you’re looking for something maybe a little further above the ground, you can plant trees that bloom in the spring. Um, especially trees that actually grow pollen.

Lots of the cultivars that we [00:06:00] have of spring flowering trees to put in cities. Don’t produce pollen because people are afraid of allergies to this pollen. But for the most part, that’s not a worry. Especially plants that have like big flowers that rely on bees for pollination. They don’t want to just throw their pollen to the wind to wind up in your nose.

They want a bee to wind up with it. So things like, like black tupelo, black cherry, these wild native trees that have lots of flowers are beautiful in the spring and they’re also great for bees. But if you don’t have that much space, you can’t put in a tree. You can’t afford a, a well-developed tree.

Already. Just planting anything with a flower will help a bee. You know, native is always nice, but if you can’t do native for some reason, anything with a flower will help a bee. So you can start simple. Just plant a flower. But if you’re on a big city landscape scale, then something you can do is either make your parks have more wild spaces in them, or really petition for your parks department to [00:07:00] leave wild spaces or leave the forests more untouched.

If you think of Central Park in New York City, lots of Central Park is woods and that’s great for bees ’cause there are the trees that have the flowers they need, but there’s also bare ground underneath. The woods for ground nesting bees to live in. If the trees fall or they drop a branch, then there’s rotting logs on the ground that other species of bees can live in.

If a woodpecker comes and pecks a hole in a tree, then there’s a hole in a tree that a bee can live in. So these wild areas really leave lots of habitat for bees. But if you’re just. Thinking maybe what can I do? Think of a bee species that maybe isn’t super common in cities. You can look on iNaturalist and see what bees aren’t around, and then think of one specific thing that you can do for that species of bee and that would help out the bees that aren’t already being helped by the way cities are.

Jacy: Living with bees in cities, many people fear them or maybe don’t want to create these pollinator spaces for them [00:08:00] because they’re worried about bee stings, especially if you have children around. Can you help us understand which bees actually sting and under which circumstances they might sting?

Matthew: This is sort of a, an important topic, especially if you’re doing bees in the cities.

I’ve been putting some bee habitats around cities for my own research, and I did have to take one down because someone at the store right across the street was allergic to bee stings and the bees that would come to my habitats, they can sting. They won’t normally, almost every species of bee can sting, but almost no species of bee will sting you.

There’s one exception to this. Those are the mining bees. There are bees that nest in the ground. They dig their holes, sometimes almost a meter deep, so they can go really deep into the ground. Those bees cannot sting you, so even the females you can hold in your hands and sort of look at them and appreciate them and they can’t sting, which is lots of fun.

They’re really gentle docile bees. No male bees [00:09:00] can sting because the organs that bees use to sting are the ovipositor . So what’s the organ they use to lay their eggs? Male bees don’t lay eggs, so they don’t have an ovipositor and they can’t sting you, which also makes them really easy to appreciate, just holding in your hand.

But the bees that can sting, most of them don’t want to. And a good way to think about this is maybe when would you get in a fight with a bear? And you would almost never get in a fight with a bear. It’s a lot bigger than you. It’s a lot more threatening and that’s how bees see us. But if a bear was about to attack your children or was about to kill you, then you might fight back against that bear.

And bees pretty much feel the same way. If they think you’re gonna hurt their nest, then they’ll try to defend their nest or defend their babies, or if they think that you’re about to hurt them. Then they’ll give you a quick sting just to scare you for a second, so that it can fly away. Even if they do sting you.

Most of these solitary bee species are the ones that live on their own instead of in a colony. Their stings are a lot less bad. They have a lot less venom in [00:10:00] them, and their stingers don’t have barbs like the honeybee stinger does. So it’ll be just feeling like a quick prick with a push pin or maybe like you’re getting a vaccination.

And then that’ll be all you feel. So they, they’ll heal pretty quick. I’ve been stung this summer. I’ve handled about 4,000 bees and I’ve been stung less than 10 times. And all of those times it’s been, I’ve had a bee in my net and I’ve stuck my hand in there. And of course a few bee will feel very threatened by this big hand coming into grab it and then it’ll sting me and all of those things.

I don’t even feel them an hour or two later. So really bee stings, there are almost nothing to worry about. Of course, you should treat it, a bee gently and respectfully. But if you do that, bee stings are so far and in between that there’s nothing to worry about.

Jacy: And would you say there’s a difference in the possibility of you being stung between a solitary bee and a social bee, a bumblebee honeybee that might be defending their hive or their colony?

Matthew: Yes, there definitely. When I think people are most worried about bee [00:11:00] stings because they get stung by honeybees, that’s partially more likely to happen just because in cities and in human dominated areas there are so many honeybees and one hive of honeybees might have 30,000 bees in it, and that’s a lot more than any of the native bees or solitary bees living around.

But also for these workers solid or these worker social bees, their only job is to defend the hive so they feel okay, sort of sacrificing themselves for the cause. But a solitary bee, she knows that she’s the only breadwinner for the family, and so she has to stay around to keep providing for her babies.

And if she. You know, it gets a little reckless and starts stinging when she shouldn’t. Then there’s no one around to provide for the babies anymore. So really, your chances of getting stung by a solitary bee are quite low I know you’re

Jacy: a guy, but can you maybe explain the difference between bees and wasps?

Matthew: I am a bee guy, but I love wasps too. They’re really fun to watch and they’re quite related, so they’re pretty similar. [00:12:00] Bees and wasps are as closely related as a chimpanzee and a lemur. And if you think about these two things you’ll say, okay, chimpanzees and lemurs, they’re pretty different, but you could be forgiven for mixing them up every now and then.

Bees and wasps are both in the order. Hymenoptera. Which is the narrow wasted insects. They’re also in the same group as ants and soft flies. So there’s a, a bunch of species in this order, but the big difference is that bees are pollen collecting and they actually evolved from wasps. So they’re a group inside of wasps, but all they can do is collect pollen, which it makes it a little easier to tell a bee apart from a wasp because the bee will be quite fuzzy.

Um, the bee is adapted to gather all the pollen it can. So it has. Typically pretty fuzzy hair. And if you zoom in with a microscope, you’ll see the bee hair is branched almost like a tree has lots of branches coming off of it, or almost like a hair brush. And again, that’s an adaptation to help it collect pollen.

Occasionally you’ll see a bee that’s not so fuzzy. The [00:13:00] bees that are parasites on other bees have lost most of that fuzzy hair. They don’t need it since they don’t collect pollen. And there’s a few species of bees. They’ll actually eat the pollen and then spit it back up to feed their babies. And those bees also don’t have the hairs, so those ones might confuse you.

But if you’re looking at something and you can’t tell if it’s a bee or a wasp because it’s not fuzzy, you can also look at where the antenna are. And the antenna of bees are kind of in the middle of the head, maybe a little closer to the top, but the antennae of a wasp will be a little bit lower, closer to the chin.

And that might be something you would need a camera to look at. If you’re just looking at behaviors though, if a bee is on a flower, it’s either getting nectar or pollen, and you’ll see it trying to get the pollen. If it’s doing that wasps since they don’t eat, pollen will only be on the flowers for the nectar, and so you’ll be visiting the flowers very quickly, just sticking their tongue in.

Getting nectar and leaving, but they’re, they do have their similarities, you know, you might see both of them coming for [00:14:00] nectar. They both live above and below the ground. They both have about the same shape with that narrow waist, and they’re both generally very docile, especially the solitary species of bees and wasps.

Jacy: So let’s go back to bees and kind of in our cities and living with them. What role do they play in urban biodiversity? I’m thinking especially, and how does their presence benefit humans beyond pollination?

Matthew: Pollination’s a great one, right? Like they might pollinate our urban gardens, which is great. You know, we love to have a nice juicy apple or a homegrown tomato, but bees are a lot more important than just what they pollinate.

I think this sort of gets lost because bees provide such a. An important contribution pollinating so many different plants, especially plants we eat, but really bees are just good. These animals that exist, they’re intrinsically good. They don’t even have to provide us a service to be beautiful or to be fun to look at or to inspire wonder in children and [00:15:00] adults.

I mean, if you look at a shiny green bee. It’s beautiful and you might not have even known it was there if you didn’t look. So I think they’re important just because they’re there and they’re wonderful things, but having a bee also attracts other diversity. So if you have a bee, there are going to be other insects that live in the nest of the bee.

There are going to be other microbial organisms that live in the nest of a bee. They’re gonna be insects that eat the bee, or birds that eat the bee. And if you plant a bee habitat. You also start to bring more diversity. You might plant a pollinator garden, but in the fall, the migrating birds stop at your garden and eat the seeds.

Or in the winter, the native mice are going through and getting seeds, or they’re collecting little bits of stems. Or you might even see like a, a porcupine or a hedgehog depending on where you are going through your pollinator garden, because it’s a good place to hide so that you can bring about other diversity if you’re trying to help bees.

But sort of a, a secret benefit that people don’t think about with bees is that ground [00:16:00] nesting bees are actually very good at aerating soil because they’re digging up lots of dirt and leaving an air filled tunnel in the middle. So if you don’t want to aerate your lawn for a year, maybe you could leave bits of it for ground nesting bees and they’ll do the work for you.

Jacy: So if you could recommend people do just one thing to support native bees, what would it be?

Matthew: I think one of the best things you can do, especially if you already live in a human dominated area, is just leave a little bit of bare ground for a bee to nest. In a lot of the bees that are doing well in human habitats live above the ground, they really like living in your chimney or in your wall or in a bee hotel, and that means that these ground nesting bees are sort of getting left behind.

But if you leave just a little bit, it can even just be a square meter. Or it can be a pot that you leave loose dirt in. These bees will find these areas of bare. They’ll come and make their nests, and typically in the spring, but sometimes in the fall, you can see them building their nests. And [00:17:00] that’ll be a lot of fun for you to be able to watch as these little mounds of dirt form.

And you’ll see a hole about the size of a pencil in the ground. And if you watch it in the morning, you can see the bees come in and out and really be a treat.

Jacy: I love Matthew’s positive outlook on all the ways bees can thrive in cities. With some help from their human friends and lots of native flowers and a little bare ground.

Thank you, Matthew, for joining us today, and thank you for listening to the Bees Knees. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend or visit the Bees knees.website for more ways to support native bees in your neighborhood. Until next time, be special.