Native Bee Habitat

The best way to support native bees is to implement natural stewardship practices. There are a few simple things you can do in your landscape to support native bees:

Maintain perennial stem-nesting bee habitat: How to create habitat for stem-nesting bees.
Keep dead wood on site such as logs, stumps, snags (standing dead trees) for wood-nesting bees.
Instead of wood mulch, use leaf mulch or compost which is just as effective but is light enough for ground-nesting bees to pass through. Increase Nesting Habitat for Native Bees.
Leave some bare ground. Even 1 inch of wood mulch is too much for many native ground-nesting bees to burrow through.
Avoid Bad Bee Hotels which can do more harm than good if not constructed properly. Here is information on what can go wrong and what to look for in a good bee hotel: The horrors of mass-produced bee houses.
- Even well-built bee hotels can be harmful if they are not maintained properly. For proper maintenance of bee hotels, refer to this guide from Michigan State University: Building and Managing Bee Hotels for Wild Bees.