5.5 Million Bees Found Thriving Under NY Cemetery

Beneath the quiet headstones of a cemetery in Ithaca, New York, 5.5 million bees have been living and working completely unnoticed for over 100 years.

Cornell University lab technician Rachel Fordyce made the discovery while walking through East Lawn Cemetery. She noticed more bees than usual buzzing around the ground, so instead of walking away, she grabbed a jar and collected samples.

What started as simple curiosity turned into one of the most remarkable bee discoveries on record. Working with entomology professor Bryan Danforth, Fordyce identified the bees as regular mining bees, a ground-nesting species that builds tunnels underground.

The team decided to find out exactly how many bees called the cemetery home. Using mesh emergence traps placed over patches of soil, they collected bees as they emerged from underground tunnels over several weeks in spring 2023.

The calculations left even the researchers stunned. Roughly 5.5 million bees were living beneath just 1.5 acres of cemetery land.

"I was completely floored when we did the calculations," Danforth told Scientific American. "I have seen published estimates of bee aggregations in the hundreds of thousands, but I never really imagined that it would be 5.56 million bees."

Here's what makes this even more incredible: the colony isn't new. East Lawn Cemetery was established in 1878, and records show these same bees have been collected there since the early 1900s.

This colony has been thriving for more than a century, quietly supporting local ecosystems while people walked right over it. The cemetery's location about a third of a mile from Cornell Orchards gives the bees perfect access to early spring blooms and apple blossoms.

Why This Inspires

This discovery shines a light on the 75% of bee species that don't live in hives but quietly nest underground. These solitary ground-nesters are critical crop pollinators, yet they've received far less attention than honeybees.

The study, published in the journal Apidologie, also reveals something hopeful about conservation. Cemeteries offer exactly what ground-nesting bees need: stable soil, minimal disturbance, no pesticides, and protected green space.

"The research elevates the value of solitary ground-nesting bees and shows just how abundant these bees are, how important they are as crop pollinators, and that we need to be aware of these nest sites and preserve them," Danforth explained.

The stakes matter beyond just numbers. If someone paved over this cemetery, we could lose 5.5 million essential pollinators in an instant.

Right now, millions of bees are tunneling beneath that quiet cemetery, pollinating orchards and supporting life—a hidden ecosystem thriving in the most unexpected place.