Bees in Anthills!

April 25, 2007 9:52 AM

Bees Behaving Strangely - Last weekend saw hundreds of bees hovering over anthill-like holes on the sunny side of a small hill. On occasion the bees would go into the holes, but with much hesitation... Can bees live under ground (this was in CT) or do they fight with ants?

These weren't yellowjackets, normal looking honey bees... Observed last Saturday.

posted by andrewyakovlev to Science & Nature (9 answers total)

You sure they weren't ground hornets?
posted by sharkfu at 10:06 AM on April 25, 2007

It's not that uncommon for bees to have ground hives - I have a couple of them in backyard right now. They're sometimes called digger bees or ground bees or Andrenid bees.

I wonder who would win in a bee vs. ant war though...
posted by iconomy at 10:11 AM on April 25, 2007

(andrenid bees usually live alone but they have cute little nests which they will invite you into and then kill you)
posted by iconomy at 10:14 AM on April 25, 2007

Having accidentally stepped on them, I can personally verify that bees have ground nests. (As do hornets. And some types of wasps. If there's an insect that nests in the ground, I've probably stepped in it.)

I'm no expert on insect behavior but it seems like beehives always have a certain number of bees just hovering around the entrance; I always assumed they were guarding it or otherwise protecting it in some way.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:27 AM on April 25, 2007

Having witnessed my father step on a nest in Southern CT, yes, there are bees with ground nests here. They weren't hornets or wasps, so sayeth the ER.
posted by cobaltnine at 11:09 AM on April 25, 2007

There are a LOT of different varieties of bees, and many of them nest underground. Bumblebees nest underground (at least some of them).
posted by nanojath at 1:07 PM on April 25, 2007

iconomy: Can you elaborate on that? (Inviting you into their nest and then killing you.) It sounds really neat.
posted by qvtqht at 4:27 PM on April 25, 2007

I heard a lady on Coast to Coast AM the other week claim that the bees in her neighborhood (San Diego, I think) had vanished, and that first she saw some of them disappearing into holes in a hillside. Might you have seen something related to the current strange situation with vanishing honeybees?
posted by Scram at 6:44 PM on April 25, 2007

I once watched a bumblebee land on the ground next to where I sat (in a park, under trees). The bee pulled up a chip of bark, climbed under, then dragged the chip back over his head. But I've also seen bumblebees nest in a garden shed.
posted by Goofyy at 2:53 AM on April 26, 2007