InsectsUrban Projects

Let’s Invite Leaf Cutter Bees into Our Gardens


Africanized honey bee with the corbicula full of pollen

Yummy, yummy! is the phrase that comes to our minds when remembering Winnie the Pooh eating all those pots of honey. Many of us may only have thought about honey bees for the first time when we were kids, thanks to that cute bear with the sweet tooth. Then we learned that we are not only indebted to honey bees for the wonderful miracle of honey, but also for the privilege of eating many of our delicious vegetables and fruits every day. Yes! Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are one of the most important pollinators of the crops that we the humans use all the time.

Some of us got so enthusiastic about this insect that we fell in love with it and became backyard beekeepers — we spend hours watching them buzzing around our sunflowers, pumpkins, lemons, sage and many other beautiful plants in our gardens.

What many of us do not know, however, is that there are other bees that can live and work in our gardens — and perform very important roles within them.

Leaf cutter bees are very interesting solitary bees. They belong to the family Megachilidae and they nest inside cavities and build their egg cells with pieces of leaves. They build multiple egg chambers per nest hole and in every one of them they deposit an egg with a little bit of pollen, nectar and saliva for the further development of the larvae (1, 2, 3).

You may be surprised and feel like you have never met one of these guys. Well think again and remember those times when you were walking around the garden and discovered some circular holes in your Roses’ leaves. You probably thought they were leaf cutting ants and were upset about them, but bee happy — there’s a good chance they were actually the female leaf cutting bees taking the material they use to lay their eggs.

Megachilidae are wonderful insects. Watching them carrying leaves and working to cover their nests is very beautiful, but they are also very important pollinators of crops like clover, alfalfa, fruits, some vegetables — such as onions and carrots — and wildflowers (5, 6, 7, 8).


Leaf cutting bee coming home

You probably don’t know it, but the pollination of alfalfa improved after the 1940s, when the leaf cutter bee from Asia (Megachile rotundata) entered the United States by accident. Suddenly, more alfalfa flowers got into seed and farmers began to reproduce these solitary bees and to create appropriate nesting boxes for them. This species is now present on all continents but Antarctica and keeps doing its job very efficiently, giving us the benefits of Alfalfa seeds (4, 9, 10).

How can you recognize leaf cutter bees? They are the size of a honey bee and for an untrained eye they look very similar, but here is the tip: while honey bees carry pollen in their corbicula (special structures in the tibia of the hind leg), leaf cutter bees carry the pollen that they collect on their scopa (elongated hairs on the abdomen). Also, many times you will see these bees carrying parts of leaves back to their nest and honey bees do not have this behavior.


Leaf cutter bee. Appreciate the long hairs on the abdomen for carrying pollen (scopa)

How can you attract these allies to your home garden?

  1. Take a wood block or a log (it doesn’t have to be too thick — 10 inches would be more than sufficient).
  2. With a drill, make some small holes
  3. If you want you can put a small roof onto the block to protect it from rain
  4. Hang the “leaf cutter bee house” in a sunny or partially sunny part of your garden
  5. Wait for the bees!

Read more on making a leaf cutter bee house here.

For those of you who are scared of bees, you’ll be glad to know that leaf cutter bees are not aggressive; they do not defend their nests like honey bees do. They only sting if they are manipulated and usually they bite before they sting. Furthermore, the sting is not as painful as those from honey bees.

Other friends of your garden will hopefully also inhabit some of the holes in the box.


Wasp

Suddenly your small construction can become a very interesting community of amazing and very useful insects!


Bee and wasp

References:

  1. Leaf Cutter Bees”. 2012. WS Cranshaw, Colorado State University Extension
  2. “Leaf Cutter Bee", Megachile centuncularis. The Wildlife Trusts.
  3. Leaf Cutter Bee, Genus Megachile” Aussie Bee Homepage.
  4. The Domestication of the Leaf Cutter Bee”. 2008. Pollination Canada
  5. The Leaf Cutter Bee”. 2014.
  6. Leaf cutter bees-harmless, useful and often neglected pollinator”. 2011.
  7. Leaf Cutting Bees”. 2005. David Serrano.
  8. Leaf Cutting Bees, Megachile spp.” Beatriz Moisett
  9. “Alfalfa Leafcutting Bee, Megachile rotundata (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). 2008. Mark S. Goettel. Encyclopedia of Entomology, pp 98-101.
  10. The Alfalfa Leafcutting Bee, Megachile rotundata: The World’s Most Intensively Managed Solitary Bee”. 2011. Theresa L. Pitts-Singer and James H. Cane. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 56: 221 – 37.

18 Comments

  1. Hmmmm. One size fits all? Perhaps but it seems to me that Nature doesn’t produce the uniformity inherent in wooden block nest structures. Rather than try to “mimic” nature, let’s use nature – spent reeds, goldenrod, any dried plant material with a small, tube-like structure. The variety of different sizes attracts a really wide range of insects not just wild bees.

    We use ditch lilies to stabilize a rocky bank. After flowering, we harvest the stems, tie them with jute, and cut them into 6-8″ lengths. We stick them everywhere, angling the entrance end of the bundle downward a bit so that water doesn’t drain in. The next season or whenever we find them again, the old nest material goes to the compost pile. A very regenerative process with stacked uses.

  2. Xerces Society has a PDF about the different diameter holes to drill in a log to provide nesting sites for a variety of bees.

  3. I have so many leaf cutter bees they have killed many of my small trees and bushes. There has to bee some middle ground. :)

    1. I have never read before that they were able to kill a plant… are you sure that the leaf cutter bees are the ones that are doing that?. I thought that their damage was only coemetic

      1. Hi
        I know how you feel.
        They have eaten so many of the leaves on my once beautiful roses that they now look like I have put the poor plants through a shredder .
        I am over run with them and they do sting.
        I shall no longer dead head my roses without gloves on if I have any left that is.
        Sometimes we import foreign species without thinking of the consequences fully,
        Native bees did not kill off my roses and pollinated without damage while producing honey.

  4. They love my old milking stand in the barn and most parts of the old barn housing my goats. Sometimes have to push them away during milking. They are wonderful pollinators.

  5. I am wondering if they are a problem in Australia? I have them in central Victoria, they are causing quite a bit of damage to my deciduous trees.

  6. What is that wasp?? They are causing me lots of problems with lots of different plants :( It borrows holes into the different potting mixes i use. Just looking for a way to deter the little fellas

  7. I recently discovered a leaf cutter making a nest in one of my aloe pots. It’s not a large pot, so my question is will her nest crowd or damage my plant or its roots? Also will watering affect her nest?

    1. Hello Jill,

      its nest would not damage your plant… do not worry… and it would be easier too see if water will ruin her nest if you post a picture…

      good day,

    1. Drill holes from 3mm to 10 mm in diameter, so they look like termite holes, which is what they use naturally.

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