Common Bee Species: Ground Bees
There are a few different bee species that are known of and recognized today, and one of the most common and well known are the ground bees. In most situations it is not best to eliminate ground bees and wasps since they are valuable in agricultural production by either pollinating many different plants or by serving as useful predators in controlling harmful pests.
If ground nesting bees and wasps can be ignored and their tunnels tolerated, do so since they are valuable in agricultural production and helpful by controlling pests in nature. They are very important to life in general, and so you should never swat any bee and try to kill it because you never know if it is a ground bee, which are already on their way to becoming extinct.
About the Bees
There is a lot of important information that you should know about ground bees. For one, they are dependent on pollen as a protein source and on flower nectar or oils as an energy source. The pollen they inevitably lose in going from flower to flower is important to plants because some of the pollen that the bees are losing ends up on the pistils in the flowers, which results in cross-pollination because it lands on the pistils of other flowers of the same species.
There are some 20,000 species of bees worldwide, including ground bees as one of the most common, and this is just an average, there are probably many more. Most types of bees have specialized branched or feathery body hairs, and these help because they assist them in collecting the pollen.
Bees have very diverse nesting habits, and so ground bees for instance differ greatly in the way that they nest and live than say bumblebees do. This is actually one of the easiest ways that beekeepers can tell them apart, other than their obvious physical characteristics of course.
There are 11 different families of bees, and scientists are able to tell the difference between them all by the subtle differences that can be found in their wing veins and the structure of their mouthparts. Obviously it is necessary to pay attention to very small details then if you are trying to tell the difference between different families of bees.
Bees are truly fascinating and whether you are interested in learning about ground bees in particular or all sorts of different bees, there is much important information that you are going to want to know.
