Solitary bee

Definition

Around 90% of the world's roughly 20,000 bee species are solitary. A female emerges, mates, builds a nest, provisions each cell with pollen and nectar, lays one egg per cell, and dies — usually before her offspring emerge. There is no colony, no honey, no queen and almost no defensive stinging. Many are also excellent pollinators, and several outperform honey bees on the crops they specialise in.

Where the word gets used loosely

Frequently absent from public discussion of bees altogether, which is how 'save the bees' came to mean keeping more honey bees — a response that adds competition for the species actually in trouble.

Honey records that discuss this

• Coolibah honeyMild and clean with a light caramel note and a soft buttery finish — undemanding and pleasant.

Plant records that discuss this

• IvyOne of the very few plants that is top-rated for both nectar and pollen, and it delivers them when the year's other options have finished. For overwintering insects this is decisive.
• Viper's buglossAmong the most productive nectar plants in the European flora per flower, and a good pollen source alongside it. In New Zealand, naturalised echium is a significant commercial honey source under the name blue borage.
• Woodland sageAn outstanding nectar source over an exceptionally long season, and one of the best border plants for bumblebees.
• Winter savoryAn outstanding nectar source for its size, and one of the best small aromatic herbs for bees.
• Giant catmintAn outstanding nectar source over one of the longest seasons of any garden perennial.

Bee records that discuss this

• Red mason beeThe bee in your bee hotel. Osmia bicornis is the commonest cavity-nesting solitary bee in northwest Europe, the one most gardeners actually manage to attract, and one of the most effective fruit pollinators known — a few hundred females will pollinate an orchard acre as thoroughly as a honey bee colony of tens of thousands. It is also, for practical purposes, incapable of stinging anyone.
• Tawny mining beeThe bright orange bee that appears on lawns in April and produces small volcano-shaped mounds of soil, prompting a great many alarmed enquiries about infestations. It is a solitary bee, it is entirely harmless, the mounds disappear within weeks, and it is one of the most conspicuous and most misidentified insects of the British spring.
• Small carpenter beesTiny, shiny, metallic dark-green or blue-black bees that excavate nests in the soft pith of broken stems — bramble, raspberry, elder, sumac — and then, unusually for a solitary bee, stay with their offspring. A Ceratina mother guards her nest through development and in some species is still alive when her young emerge, which puts the genus at one of the evolutionary staging posts between solitary living and true sociality.
• Alfalfa leafcutter beeThe most intensively managed solitary bee in the world, and the animal that makes alfalfa seed production possible. Honey bees learn to rob alfalfa flowers from the side to avoid being struck on the head by the tripping mechanism, which means they gather nectar and pollinate nothing. The alfalfa leafcutter bee tolerates being tripped, and North American seed growers deploy it by the hundreds of millions.
• Eastern carpenter beeNorth America's familiar large carpenter bee, and the one that hovers menacingly in front of people around porches and decking each spring. The hovering is done by males, which have no sting whatsoever. It excavates remarkably clean round tunnels in dead softwood, and unusually for a solitary bee it shows the beginnings of social behaviour — related females may share a nest with one reproducing.

Guide records that discuss this

• How far do bees travel to forage?A honey bee will fly ten kilometres if she has to and would much rather fly one. A solitary bee may not manage three hundred metres. That gap decides what 'planting for bees' actually means.