Wasps get a bad rap, mostly because of aggressive yellow jackets. Most wasp species are solitary and so have no need to defend their colony. Wasps play an essential role in yards and natural ecosystems by controlling pests and pollinating flowers. Unlike their cousins the bees that eat pollen, wasps eat other insects, like caterpillars, flies, and beetles. They are predators or parasitoids of a variety of pest insects that are over populating. Adult wasps hunt other insects to feed their protein-hungry larvae and are important parts of the food-web. Many parasitoid wasps overwinter within their hosts in leaf litter or on senesced plant stems. Parasitoid wasps can’t even sting because that body part has evolved into an ovipositor in order to place their eggs inside the host. A wasp many of us are familiar with is the mud daubers. These parasitic wasps make mud tubes under decks that look like pipe organs by collecting mud one mouthful at a time. They stuff these tubes with spiders that they have pearlized but are still living so they don’t spoil. Once a tube has enough spiders, the wasp lays an egg and seals up the tube. The baby wasp hatches and eats its spiders and then emerges from the tube to start the process over. Cicada killer wasps are large, big enough to carry a cicada. The cicada killers nest underground, sometimes a bunch of them will nest near each other in a lawn. When there is a cicada boom year the wasps collect the cicadas and bring them down into their nests. Watching a cicada killer at work is impressive, I recommend it. I love to see the giant shinny blue wasps called the great black wasp. They can be 1.5 inches long! They are black with a blue iridescence and seem almost tame when visiting a flower so I can get some good photos. This is a great wasp because it pollinates milkweed and can eat up to 16 grasshoppers a day. Wasps spend a lot of their time pollinating flowers. The much-adored butterflies are actually not as good at pollinating as wasps are. Wasps eat nectar and in return transfer pollen between the plants they visit. Orchids lure wasps to their flowers by mimicking the scent and pattern of female wasps, but instead of a date the guy gets covered in pollen. If you want to grow native orchids, you are going to need to provide habitat for its wasp. https://xerces.org/blog/wasp-world

We can all become better insect ambassadors. Insects often are blamed for garden problems they did not cause or are even there to fix. We should not tolerate false information or negativity about insects and instead counter these negative perceptions. As gardeners we lead by example, welcoming insects to our gardens. Our gardening practices help to educate friends and neighbors about the benefits of insects. Pesticide free gardening benefits entire ecosystems and creates a delicate balance of predators and prey. Insect friendly environmental policies protect food webs including supporting birds and keeping plant populations stable. Understanding what the best environmental policies are requires good science. We can support science by joining citizen science projects in our area and encouraging others to join us. As native gardeners we are always at the front of the wave of land stewardship. We know that insects are beneficial, and we need to stand up for them. Our gardens need insects, and insects need our gardens. It is our obligation to carry insects forward with us and make sure they get the respect they deserve in the native plant movement. “The easiest way to protect habitat is to leave it alone as much as possible. Sites with ground nests should not be tilled, mulched, or sprayed with insecticides. Rodent burrows can be left to become bumble bee nests, and beetle-riddled snags can be saved for mason and leafcutter bees. Similarly, rotting logs along forest edges can be retained as nest sites for some metallic green sweat bees such as Augochora. Sites on which good forage plants grow should be protected from insecticides and herbicides. Overgrown areas, rock piles, and brush piles may be providing cover for pupating butterflies or protected overwintering sites for bumble bees.” ~ Xerces Society, Attracting Native Pollinators, p. 92

My yard is on the downhill side of a street with no curbs, so a lot of water comes into my garden every time it rains. One solution would be to put in a curb but that will just run the water down to the neighbor's garage which is not a nice thing to do, and rainwater can be a good thing as long as I can control where it ends up. An alternative solution is to try to direct and absorb the water using swales and raingardens. Swales are just shallow ditches that are strategically placed where water needs to be sent from one place to another. To absorb the most water, dig your swale on contour, parallel to the slope, placing the displaced soil on the lower side of the ditch to form a berm. At the top of my yard, I have dug a shallow ditch parallel to the slope and planted sedges in it. The sedge loves the water that gets trapped in the swale and helps to slow the flow as it comes into the garden. Since one swale didn't seem to catch all the water, I dug three more at about 5 foot intervals parallel down the slope. The top one fills up and flows into the next. The ditches slow the flow to prevent erosion and hold a little water absorbing it into the soil. The top swale also catches a lot of trash that runs off the street, so I go out and pick that up after every rain. Below my swales my garden is constricted as it goes around my porch, so I built a series of three small rain gardens to catch, infiltrate, and direct the water as it continues down the hill. We are about halfway down the garden now, so the water has been significantly slowed and during a short rain it has been trapped to absorb into the soil. However, in the spring there is still more water coming off the street and all my swales and rain gardens are overflowing so I made two more swales to bring the water across away from the porch and into another two larger rain gardens. This spring all this was still not enough to catch all the water, but I still call this success. My garden paths and patio are above water and not washed out. The rain goes from one part of the garden to another without washing out all my plants. I have trapped and absorbed a significant amount of rain to sustain my native plants through the summer. I am putting the rain to work for me, and all of my contouring has added character to my garden. Plants that grow well in swales are: Shady swales: Palm sedge, Carex muskingumensis Golden groundsel, Packera obovata Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides American beak grain, Diarrhena obovata Sunny swales: Fox Sedge, Carex vulpinoidea Common spikerush, Eleocharis palustris Lizard's tail, Saururus cernuus Soft rush, Juncus effusus Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis Wild strawberry, Fragaria virginiana

My neighbor planted a Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, on the edge of her patio to attract monarchs, Danaus plexippus, to her garden. Swamp milkweed may be their most preferred food source of the milkweed genus, which the monarchs depend on during their caterpillar stage. This specimen grew to be about 4 foot tall and about as big around. The flowers bloomed but the monarchs didn’t come. Sometimes it can take some time for an adult monarch to find a new source of host plant. Allowing the plant to become well established before the caterpillars begin feeding is better than freshly emerged seedlings being eaten to the ground by a very hungry caterpillar that showed up early. Eventually, the monarchs will arrive, seeking out each milkweed to serve as the host plant for a new generation. First the milkweeds leaves begin to be colonized by aphids. The orange aphids are milkweed aphids, Aphis nerii, an introduced species from the Mediterranean that clones itself instead of reproducing sexually. Milkweed aphids store the cardiac glycosides produced by the milkweed plant. Their bright orange/yellow warning coloration serves to warn predators that they are poisonous. When aphids colonize a plant, many gardeners reach for the insecticides but when you are gardening for monarchs, insecticides, even organic insecticidal soap, would kill the very species you are trying to attract. Other common solutions to aphids are to spray them off with water or manually squishing them. But my advice to my neighbor was to just leave them alone, let the food web naturally form, the predators will come. Of course, it is very hard to watch a plant you have nurtured from a seed be damaged by an invasive aphid, sucking all of its life fluids. But patience can bring exciting results. A few days later we were having coffee on her patio with the attacked/suffering milkweed standing nearby. The aphids were still present in force but there were also a few black and orange striped lady beetle nymphs, Coccinellidae, systematically piercing aphids to suck them dry and leaving a path of dead aphids behind. On closer inspection we found golden eggs clustered under the leaves in tight formation where the lady beetles had emerged. More pale eggs nearby were suspended on threads, these are the eggs of the aphid lions, Chrysoperla sp. Born so ferocious that their parents must separate them at birth on their own threads to make sure that they don’t eat their siblings. Aphid lions look like little alligators snapping up aphids in their tiny but strong jaws and mature into delicate green lacewings. We also find flower or syrphid fly’s youngsters, Syrphidae, which are white, pointy-ended maggots that parasitize aphids causing them to turn brown. When the maggots become adults, they are important pollinators of the plant they just protected from aphids. And, jackpot, under a leaf is the tiny crystal meringue of a monarch egg. Now that the predators have arrived on site the milkweed plant is feeling some relief from the aphids. But now our monarch babies may also be in danger as predators do not know to avoid the endangered species when they are feeding. Monarch caterpillars concentrate the cardiac glycosides from the milkweed plant in their bodies and even retain this deadly chemical in their adult butterfly form which makes them distasteful to predators. Many of the species dependent on milkweed as their host plant have learned to work around or even co-opt the chemicals the milkweed plants have developed to protect themselves from predators. Soon the monarch caterpillars hatch. They are easy to spot by the damaged leaves. Flip one over and a tiny striped monarch baby will be busily munching underneath. The caterpillars seem to double in size overnight and we must check on them daily and marvel at their growth. The adult butterflies are also seen visiting the garden more often, laying even more eggs. My neighbor is relieved that the butterflies have found her garden a suitable place to start a family. The life of a butterfly is not easy and mortality is high out in the wild even when you are a monarch. As the food web develops around the milkweed plant, larger predators arrive. Flower spiders, Misumena sp., stand guard on the flower head to nab unwary visitors, changing their color to match the flower for camouflage and ambush their prey. Praying mantises, Stagomantis Carolina, dangle from the stem grabbing bugs and beetles as they are distracted by the aphid harvest. Visiting pollinators may also be captured and although it is all part of the food web, it can be hard to watch a butterfly being eaten and its torn wings drift slowly to the ground. I find it amusing, in a morbidly necessary way, that the aphids pierce the plant to suck out the sap, and in turn the aphids are pierced by their predators, which suck out the aphids’ body fluids. The whole system is like one complicated straw, sucking nutrients upwards out of the air and soil from plant to insect, until a bird comes along and plucks an unwary predator and stuffs it into a chick’s mouth. Who needs TV when you can sit near a swamp milkweed and watch battles rage from stem to stem, birth and death, eggs becoming nymphs becoming adults, so many different species doing what they do best. Plants are eaten by aphids, then eaten by beetles, who are eaten by mantes, in turn then eaten by birds, who then disperse to far corners and eventually be eaten themselves. Eggs are carefully laid on a selected host and hatch and eat and grow. The lucky few that avoid predation become adults to start the cycle over again. We could (and do) sit here for hours, fascinated by the drama in front of our eyes. This milkweed was planted to attract monarchs, but it has summoned an entire ecosystem.

Native gardens have a reputation for not needing to be watered. This can be true once a garden is mature with all plants situated in appropriate locations. Placing plants with attention to the natural amount of soil moisture compared to the requirements of the plant will lead to happier, lower maintenance plants. Native gardens still need coddling during the establishment phase with regular watering until their roots have extended far enough to draw in the plants moisture requirements. To encourage roots to expand water the entire root zone and not just the base of the plant. Garden plants prefer being watered with rainwater instead of tap water. Additionally, why waste precious drinking water on plants that do not need or want their water purified. Rain barrels are an excellent way to collect rainwater for irrigating the yard. The regular 55 gallon rain barrel holds enough water to keep a small garden watered. If the garden contains water features, these should be filled only with rain water. Treated water may kill tadpoles and any other wildlife that depends on that pond. Water new plants weekly the first year after planting. Plants straight from the garden center are used to being watered every day. They will need some time to establish and should not be allowed to dry out during that time. Younger plants need less water to establish. Buying first year plants gives them more opportunity to establish healthy root systems in their home soil. Also, when digging a planting hole be sure to break up the clay at the base and sides so that roots can escape. Mulching around new plantings traps moisture so they don’t need to be watered as often. Health roots is the key to drought resistant plants. As our climate changes, droughts have become more common. Some of our common garden plants are being pushed to the limits of their tolerance. We must either, plant more drought/heat tolerant plants or be ready to water during droughts. Even native plants, especially trees, require water during droughts, even in winter. Saving water during times of abundance in rain barrels to supplement the yard during times of scarcity is one way to help a garden through a drought. Unfiltered rain barrel water is notorious for clogging sprinklers and drip irrigation lines. I generally run my rainwater through a hose and walk around the garden to each thirsty plant. This also allows me to personally inspect each plant in case it has other maintenance needs. If drip irrigation is already set up, it is an easy way to water a new garden. However, a sustainable yard should not need irrigation. The easiest way to avoid watering is to absorb every drop of water arriving in the garden. Use rain scaping methods such as swales and rain gardens to catch water and retain it on site. Rain scaping is beneficial to the garden and reduces storm surges in local creeks. Make zero runoff your goal.

Gardening tasks that often make me sore can be easier on my body if I stretch first. Repetitive and strenuous tasks like shoveling, weeding on my hands and knees, hauling mulch in a wheelbarrow, or pruning with pruners, loppers, or hand saws often give me a sore back, knees, and shoulders. Since gardening is a lifelong project, it is best that we all take good care of our health and stretch before gardening so we don’t get laid up by knee replacements and other inconveniences. Here are a few stretches that feel good to me, I hope you find some stretches that feel good to you too. Loosen up: Stretch your arms up above your head and then reach down to the ground rounding your back as you go down. Hinge from the hips and don’t lock your knees. Coming back up, roll your shoulders forward and back. Lean your neck so your ear touches one shoulder then the other. Standing with your feet forward, twist your torso and arms as far around as you can. Lunge twist: With your left knee on the ground and your hips forward. Shift forward toward your right foot to stretch your hip flexors. Engage your core to support your lower back. Lower your left hand down inside your right leg while reaching your right hand up to the sky for a twist. Keep your core engaged, hug your shoulder blades toward your spine, and look up past your right hand. Switch sides. Stretch out your calves with your heel to the ground while you are down there. Cat and cow: With your hands and knees on the ground, arch your back up towards the sky until you feel a stretch. Then arch your belly button down towards the ground. Repeat up and down a few times. Then lower your but down on your feet leaving your arms stretched out forward. Stretch your shoulders and back against the ground. Toe touches: Sitting on the ground, extend your legs straight and reach for your feet. If you can’t reach your feet, bend your knees, grab your feet, and slowly extend your legs to stretch into your low back and hamstrings. Next extend one leg. Tuck your other foot into your opposite thigh. Reach toward your foot with one hand while stretching your other arm up and over toward your extended foot, twisting your chest toward the sky. Switch sides. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water throughout the day and I find that a well-timed snack break always perks me up.

Summer is when my garden starts to look like a jungle. As plants reach their full size, they crowd each other for space. A full garden is good, when the soil is completely covered in vegetation there is no light hitting the ground, so weeds have no space to grow. Another benefit of having no bare ground is less erosion damage. As rain droplets fall, they are intercepted by plant leaves that slow their speed when hitting the earth. However, this is the time of year when it is a good idea to take some notes about which plants should be moved around to give every plant the space they need. If a species is prolific and is crowding its neighbor, it may be time to send some of the plants on the edge to the compost pile. Also, plants crowding the path should be removed either to the compost or cut them back for now and transplant them later in the fall. Another solution to crowded walkways is to stop using some paths for the summer. Some of my more interior paths are just open during the spring when I need to get in there to weed and the paths disappear as the late summer bloomer mature. Newer gardens will still be producing annual weeds in the summer and even though it is hot, it is best to go pull them out before they go to seed. Invasive species are a constant problem in any garden and need to be removed regularly. Spring blooming invasives will begin to produce seed and should be removed before they can infest the garden with another generation. Plant diseases like aster yellows show up in summer. Stems and flower heads become deformed because of a virus that can be contagious to the other garden plants if the diseased material is not disposed of. If anything looks unusually about a plant, it is wise to try to figure out why right away incase there is a cure. Insect damage will also occur, but this is good because healthy insect populations support healthy ecosystems. Summer can be a time of drought. Native plants are generally drought tolerant or at least more so then exotic species. Newer plantings will still need to be watered regularly until they have mature root systems. The first two years of a garden bed becoming established it is a good practice to water the planting deeply once a week if it has not rained. Trees may want to be watered for even longer since they have such large root systems. Often transplanting can be very traumatic for a tree because so much of the root system is removed. To spend less time watering, plant smaller trees and flowers so that they can grow sufficient root systems quickly and support themselves. Spring blooming flowers will begin to set seed in the summer months or even earlier. Some species will have ripe seed all at the same time and some plants may produce one ripe seed a day. Walk the garden regularly to check for ready seeds to collect. Keep collected seeds in a dry cool place free of bugs and mice. If seed propagation seems intimidating try just collecting one species to get a feel for it. Remember that any seeds left out in the garden will either become food for some creature or will fall to the ground and germinate, maybe even in a place you like, if you’re lucky.

Did you know you can turn acorns into an edible flour? Acorns are very bitter with tannins if you try to eat them raw. The process of turning acorns into flour will be a tedious one the first time. But just like shelling walnuts, each time is easier. The trick is to shell the acorns and then soak them in several changes of clean water until all the tannins have leached out. Once the bitter part has been removed it is time to bake them and then grind them into flour. Acorn flour is nutritious and makes tasty breads and cookies. There are many other unique food items just waiting to be discovered at our feet if we are willing and eager to go to the trouble of collecting, cleaning, and processing our food. Many nuts and fruits are edible. It is always a joy to happen upon an arboreal offering of ripe fruit or nuts. I feel so lucky when I find a ripe pawpaw to eat. We can also prepare for these harvests by planting the trees that produce the things we like to eat in our yards. Mushrooms are a fun item to collect out in the woods or to grow at home. It is always a thrill to discover a patch of morels or chicken of the woods. Mushroom spores can be bought and inoculated into logs to be harvested. Mushroom logs can be arranged in decorative patterns in the shady landscape while we wait for the fruits to ripen. When I’m out hiking, I often end up with a little velcro triangle seed called beggars ticks stuck to my pants. When the seeds are green I like to peel off the outer capsule and eat the bean inside as a little trail snack. I wouldn’t want to depend on this seed for sustenance, but while hiking, it is a simple thing to do for amusement. A good source of protein is to try eating insects. I have tried fried worms and grubs, and with enough salt they taste fine. Common insects to eat are cicadas, grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, and worms. Other cultures are much more open to eating insects than ours but we are missing out on a whole variety of interesting foods. I don’t have any recipes to share but I’m willing to experiment with eating insects. Foraging etiquette dictates that you only take a small portion of the harvest you find and leave the rest to reproduce into next year’s harvest. Responsible foraging allows wild populations to fulfill their role in the ecosystem and withstand the pressures of harvesting. Growing favorite foraging crops at home is a way to insure they are harvested sustainably.

No Mow May is trending now. The idea is to not mow your yard during May in order to support pollinators who will feed on common lawn weeds like dandelion and violet. This trend is misguided and helps to continue to blur the line between a yard that is just weeds allowed to grow and a native garden. It would be better if everyone had a pollinator garden where plants bloom throughout the growing season to support a sustainable habitat for all insects. Native early pollinators come out much earlier than may. Having food sources available for native insects in March and even February is important. Native pollinators are looking for native plants. Shrubs like the plum, service berry, and spicebush bloom early to sustain spring pollinators. Many of the flowers growing in our lawns are not native. Dandelions, clover, purslane, and mustards are common lawn weeds that bloom, but they are not native and we don’t need to protect them. The majority of the bees visiting our lawn are non-native honeybees. Caring for honeybees is the responsibility of their owners, we do not need to devote our garden space to their care. Lawn care can harm pollinators. Mowing can destroy hibernating butterflies and crush the underground burrows of bumblebees and beetles. Mower engines usually do not have mufflers and will drown out bird songs which can interrupt their ability to defend their territory and find mates. Lawn mowers pollute a lot, more then cars even. If you have a lawn service, they may be adding fertilizers and pesticides to your lawn that kills pollinators and pollutes soil and ground water. Let’s call it Less Lawn May, or Murder your lawn May? May is a great time to put in a new native plant garden. Less lawn and more native plants mean more habitat for pollinators, birds, and all creatures. Gardening for pollinators means you need a variety of plants with blooms occurring throughout the year. Plant asters for blooms up till frost and witchazel for blooms on warm winter days.

We need to see more sustainable native landscaping in public spaces. Sustainable practices should be the standard in community gardens, pocket parks, churches, school gardens, greenways, cemeteries, and corporate campuses. If each of us adopted a public space to steward, we could influence a far larger segment of the population and make native gardening main stream. Step by step how to install a public garden When undertaking to create a garden in a public space we all want to dive right in and get some plants in the ground. However, before starting I wish more people would stop to ask some very important questions about the site. Questions to ask: What is the budget? Who is paying for each item? Who is applying for grants? Who is maintaining the garden forever? Are their maintenance staff or a volunteer group? How much training do they need to do proper maintenance? How many staff are on board? Are the people who will be using and maintaining the space all in agreement that this is what they want? What signs will there be? How will visitors be educated about the garden? What is the installation timeline? Is this a spring or fall planting? Does the installation need to be split into stages? How will the garden be protected? Who is picking up litter? Will the garden be spared any future development? Is there a maintenance budget? How will the garden be used? Will the visitors be returning often or infrequently? Does the garden need features like picnic tables, play space, bike lanes, etc? Should the garden be wheelchair accessible or is there any other accessibility requests? Site visit Sharing the above questions with the project leader before the initial site visit can help them be prepared for the visit with answers ready. At the site note soil moisture, irrigation options, shade patterns throughout the day, foot traffic through the site, area to be planted, hardscapes, possibility of garden features like benches, views from inside the building, emergency access needs, where mulch can be delivered, dangerous areas, and any specific plant requests. Take lots of pictures from every angle. Ask for a site map that is to scale. Design plan Draw up a landscape design that incorporate as many sustainable features as possible. The designed garden should also be easy to maintain. Plant lists can include information about where to get the plants. Including images of the mature plants can help the maintenance team become familiar with the plants. Write up short and long term maintenance plans. Maintenance plans can be copied from other projects or tailored to each site’s unique needs. Create a budget and get approval on the plan. Installation Public garden installation day is usually a big to do. Invite everyone who is in any way involved to come help with installation. Especially, get the maintenance team involved in the installation. Sometimes having a big crowd of native garden novices can make a project take even longer, but everyone with dirty hands at the end of the day will be one more person who will care about the garden. Education at site Signs in the garden help a lot with educating the public about what is going on in a garden. If a garden is used by a regular group, like at a school, an educational activity or presentation would be useful. Informational messages may also be sent out to staff with garden updates. Beginning education before the garden is installed can increase enthusiasm and decrease surprises. Maintenance inspections Set up times for maintenance inspections throughout the first year. This inspection is not a time to do maintenance but rather to walk around the garden with the maintenance team and identify any maintenance problems that need to be addressed. Sometimes I find making weed bouquets during a maintenance inspection to be helpful as a memory aid. Ask the head of maintenance to be ready to take notes on inspection days.

Our urban woodlands are suffering from foreign invaders that choke out native vegetation and eventually dominate the entire forest floor. The four most common invaders are bush honeysuckle, Japanese honeysuckle, wintercreeper, and garlic mustard. Seeds of these plants can be brought into a healthy woodland by birds that snack on the berries and then fly to a new area and poop, or flood waters picking up seeds from infested areas upstream, and even on our hiking boots as we are out enjoying parks. Bush honeysuckle commonly invades a woodland from the edge, slowly creeping in a little more each year. The shrub shades out all small trees trying to germinate in the understory leaving only the aged trees alive. Then come the vines, Japanese honeysuckle and wintercreeper, climbing the trees up into the canopy, overwhelming the upper branches. The tangle of invasive shrubs and vines can make a woodland impenetrable to the people who would like to care for it. Even if the shrubs are cut down, the vines persist on the forest floor, exploding with growth from the increased light available. Removing the shrubs and vines often causes erosion of the topsoil since there are no other plants to hold it in place. Garlic mustard joins the gang traveling in with flood waters and on boots, traveling deep into the heart of the forest. The mustard forms dense stands and spreads seeds that will last for years in the soil. Once a woodland plant community has been displaced by these invasives its ability to regenerate is impaired. Topsoil is lost from erosion where the ground is not covered. The monoculture of non-native plants destroys the soil’s natural biome; the community of fungi, microbes, and insects that process nutrients. Seeds from the native plants have tried to germinate but the competition for resources was too fierce. The seed bank becomes entirely made up of the invader’s seeds to resprout year after year disrupting restoration efforts. We are noticing these four horsemen invading our parks and yards. Early detection of the invasion is the best way to fight them. Woodlands will recover more quickly if they still have a wide variety of native plants to recolonize the area. Healthy soil with a rich microbiome can bounce back after restoration faster and fully. Help to save us from the apocalypse, don’t let the invasives get established.

The first bee you see this spring will probably be a bumble bee. Female bumble bees emerge from their underground nests earlier in the spring than other bees. Their large bodies and ability to regulate their body temperature by shivering and basking in the sun keeps them active on cool days in spring and late into fall. Look for them on early blooming plants like willows and late blooming flowers like goldenrod. The bumble bee will collect pollen in her pollen basket on her hind leg and carry it back to her nest to feed her babies. The flower fly, Volucella, has learned to mimic the bumble bee so that it can enter the bumble bees nest and lay eggs. The fly larva act as nets cleaners, feeding on dead bees and other detritus. Thus, the bumble bee colony benefits from its guests / house cleaners and the fly larva have the protection of the bumble bee colony. To find a bumble bee nest keep your eyes on the ground. They are generally located in bare patches of soil that are well drained and on a slight slope. The entrance hole is as small as the bee and may sometimes have a pile of excavated soil next to it like an ant nest. Watch for bees flying low to the ground in a zig zag pattern and watch for them to land. Keep a few patches of undisturbed bare soil in your yard to invite bumble bees to nest.