Wild bees in Israel

When people say bee, most of us picture a honey bee and a jar of honey. But the honey bee is only one species among roughly 20,000 bee species in the world, and about 1,100 wild bee species live in Israel. Most species live alone, do not live in a hive and do not make honey.

How wild bees live

Bees are a relatively large group of insects with complete metamorphosis, counting about 20,000 species worldwide. Around 90 percent of the species lead a solitary life: there is no overlap between generations and no care of the young, apart from gathering food and provisioning the cells of the nest. Only a minority of species form a social colony with a queen and workers.

About 60 percent of the species nest in the ground, and the rest use various materials for nesting: wood, dry plant stems, leaf pieces, galls, resin and plant fibers, stones, soil, and even empty snail shells.

Many bees are parasites, cuckoos: they do not build nests of their own but invade the nests of other bees, destroy the egg of the host and lay an egg in its place.

Why they matter so much

Bees are closely tied to flowering plants: nectar and pollen feed the larvae, and the plants also provide a place to meet for mating and a roost for adults. As a result, bees developed unique structural, physiological and behavioral adaptations for collecting and carrying pollen. That is why bees are usually more effective and more faithful pollinators than other flower visiting insects such as wasps, butterflies, beetles and flies, and they are considered the largest and most important group of pollinators in nature.

Their contribution is not only to nature: bees are decisive in pollinating cultivated plants and field crops, in improving yields of fruit and vegetables, in fibers such as cotton and in forage for cattle such as alfalfa.

Wild bees in Israel

Israel was granted great wealth of wild bees thanks to its geographic position and the variety of climate and vegetation. About 1,100 wild bee species are known from here, and every year new species are discovered that science has not yet described. Only two bee species in Israel are used commercially in agriculture: the western honey bee and the earth bumblebee. All the other species are wild bees, a significant part of the diversity of the Israeli wild, and their importance for the functioning of nature is enormous.

What threatens them

Wild bees are still not protected by law, except inside nature reserves and national parks. Habitat loss through building, infrastructure development, agriculture and forestry is the central threat to wild bee populations in Israel, especially in the Mediterranean region of the country.

Many species, particularly small bees that can fly only a few hundred meters, are expected to be especially sensitive to the fragmentation and isolation of habitat. Others, such as large bees that consume a great deal of nectar and pollen to raise their young, may be sensitive to competition from honey bees kept for commercial use and placed in hives at high density, even a few kilometers from natural habitats, because of the enormous number of foragers. Agricultural spraying and pesticides harm wild bees as well.

Since they are the main pollinators of wild plants, protecting wild bee populations should be a central goal of nature conservation in Israel.

What a garden can do

A home garden can give wild bees a place too, without harming anyone:

• Leave patches of bare soil and open grass areas, where most bees nest.

• Sow local wild plants that flower across the whole season, without spraying.

• Leave dry wood, dried stems and empty snail shells in an untidy corner of the garden.

• Use as few pesticides as possible, and do not spray in the hours when bees are active.

How to recognize them

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel published a field guide to the wild bees of Israel, with illustrations and identification notes. Below are ten of the common genera listed in it, with their family, their pollen plants, their nesting site and their size. The full descriptions and the illustrations can be read in the complete guide of the society.

• דזיפודה כרמלית (Dasypoda turoki): family Melittidae, all pollen plants of the Lamiaceae, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• דבורת עץ צהובה: family Apidae, all round pollen collector, nests in wood and stems, size over 10 millimeters.

• בומבוס האדמה: family Apidae, all round pollen collector, ground nester, size over 10 millimeters.

• מדרונית ארוכת-פסה: family Apidae, all round pollen collector, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• פסית גדולה: family Apidae, all round collector that prefers Lamiaceae, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• מחושית אדמונית: family Apidae, all round collector that prefers Lamiaceae, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• מחושית-בעל: family Apidae, pollen of Boraginaceae, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• רחפנית הדורה: family Andrenidae, pollen of Fabaceae, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• אנסילה מזרחית: family Apidae, pollen of Apiaceae, nests in the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

• בנאית אדמונית: family Megachilidae, all round collector that prefers Fabaceae, nests in a structure on the ground, size over 10 millimeters.

For more: the wild bees page of Teva BIZ, the full field guide (PDF), the poster Protecting wild bees (PDF) and 5 things you did not know about bees. The guide material comes with illustrations by Tuvia Kuntz and scientific consulting by Dr. Ahik Dorchin. All rights reserved to the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, 2018.

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