Overview
- Cornell researchers report in Apidologie that East Lawn Cemetery hosts one of the largest documented aggregations of ground‑nesting bees, with an average estimate of 5.56 million.
- The team set small mesh emergence traps during spring 2023 and extrapolated counts per square meter across roughly 6,000 to 6,500 square meters.
- Traps collected 3,251 insects from 16 species, with the miner bee Andrena regularis dominating and males emerging days before females.
- The species overwinters as adults and flies early in spring to match apple bloom, likely drawing food from nearby Cornell Orchards.
- Historical records place A. regularis at the site since at least 1935, and researchers warn that paving or intensive mowing could wipe out a major pollinator stronghold.