5.5 million wild bees live under Ithaca cemetery, study says

ITHACA, N.Y. — A study published in Apidologie describes a novel method for counting bees and reports about 5.5 million wild, ground-nesting bees living in a 1.5‑acre area beneath East Lawn Cemetery in Ithaca. The bees were identified as Andrena regularis, also known as the regular mining bee, a wild, solitary pollinator.

Rachel Fordyce, a technician in an entomology lab on Cornell’s campus, arrived at work in spring 2022 with a jar full of bees. She told her supervisor, Bryan Danforth, a professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, that the bees were “all over the cemetery.”

The jar led to a finding described as one of the largest and oldest recorded ground-nesting bee aggregations in the world. The estimated 5.5 million bees occupied 1.5 acres, more than 200 honeybee hives and more than three times the population of Manhattan.

First author Steve Hoge, class of 2024, said the bees are among the largest known aggregations in the literature, though he noted that other large aggregations may exist elsewhere.

Hoge conducted the research as an undergraduate in Danforth’s lab. The study published April 13 in Apidologie describes the counting method and notes that these wild bees are vital pollinators for New York apples. It also points to cemeteries as preserves of biological diversity.

The study was funded by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the National Science Foundation and the Federal Capacity Funds program.