5.6 Million Bees Found Thriving Under New York Cemetery

Beneath the headstones of a 145-year-old cemetery in upstate New York, 5.6 million bees are quietly thriving in one of the largest ground-nesting bee colonies ever documented.

Cornell University researchers made the stunning discovery at East Lawn Cemetery in Ithaca, where the regular mining bee has been living since at least the early 1900s. To put that number in perspective, this single bee population is more than three times larger than Manhattan's human population.

"I was completely floored when we did the calculations," said Bryan Danforth, an entomologist who led the study published in the journal Apidologie. His team used special mesh traps to count bees emerging from the ground between March and May 2023.

Most people picture bees living in hives hanging from trees, but about 70 percent of native bees actually nest underground. Female regular mining bees dig burrows and create compartments filled with nectar and pollen for their eggs, which hatch and grow into adults entirely below ground.

These particular bees survive winters as adults underground, a relatively rare trait that allows them to emerge early in spring. Their timing perfectly matches when apple trees and other plants bloom, making them essential pollinators for local agriculture.

The cemetery's undisturbed ground has protected these bees for over a century. Unlike developed land that gets paved or heavily landscaped, the quiet graveyard provides stable nesting sites across roughly 15,000 square meters.

The Ripple Effect

This discovery highlights how cemeteries and similar green spaces can serve as unexpected havens for wildlife in increasingly developed landscapes. Ground-nesting bees remain significantly understudied despite their importance to ecosystems.

Sean Brady from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History notes that while preserving rare species gets more attention, protecting large populations of common pollinators matters just as much. These millions of bees provide stable, large-scale pollination services that support local food systems and wild plant communities.

The research serves as a wake-up call about protecting nesting sites. "If someone paves over them, we could lose, in an instant, 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators," Danforth warns.

The good news is that now we know where to look and what to protect, giving these underground cities of pollinators a fighting chance.