A giant colony of bees was discovered underground in a cemetery

It's about one of the largest known colonies in the world.

Details

An unusual discovery was made in the city of Ithaca (New York State). The study began by accident: a university employee noticed a large number of bees in the cemetery and brought samples to the laboratory.

These turned out to be solitary soil bees of the species Andrena regularis, one of the common but poorly studied pollinators.

Unlike honeybees, they don't live in hives, but dig nests in the ground. Females create underground chambers where they lay their eggs and store food for their larvae.

To estimate the scale of the colony, scientists used special traps that record insects emerging from the ground. Based on the density of bees, they calculated the total population.

It was estimated that between 3 and 8 million bees live under the cemetery, with an average of about 5.5 million.

They also found that:

• males emerge first in the spring
• females emerge later and start building nests
• parasitic species are present in the colony and lay eggs in other nests

Why it's important

Soil bees are one of the key pollinators, especially for early flowering plants.

They:

• help pollinate fruit trees, including apple trees
• support ecosystems and agriculture
• make up about 75 per cent of all bee species

That said, such colonies are easy to destroy - for example, during construction or tarmacking.

The loss of even one such site could mean the death of millions of pollinators.

Backcountry

Cemeteries are often a haven for wildlife because pesticides are rarely used there and the soil is not disturbed. This makes them important biodiversity conservation areas, especially in urban areas.

Source

The study was conducted by scientists at Cornell University. The work was published in the journal Apidologie (2026).