24 breeding sites for rare wild bee species in the Rhine-Main area

Homeless wild bees find a home

Wild bee deaths in Germany

The drill is humming. Ron is using it to save wild bees. He is just drilling the last hole for the assembly of a wild bee house. The blue-black carpenter bee loves the dead hardwood of poplars or willows. The rusty red mason bee, on the other hand, prefers reed tubes. Wild bees are therefore demanding when it comes to choosing their accommodation. Unlike the colony-forming honey bees, wild bees usually live alone. They live in a single apartment in a prime location, where they nest their offspring. As with people, there is a great housing shortage among wild bees. In recent years there have been fewer and fewer nesting opportunities and food supplies.

need

Nesting aids for wild bees.

activity

Setting up wild bee nesting aids in prominent locations that meet the diverse needs of urban areas.

Measurable performance

Number of nesting sites created.

Result

Permanent settlement of wild bees. Approximately 1,600 offspring hatch per year from each wild bee nesting aid. Transfer of knowledge to students and adults.

Systemically relevant impact

Protection of wild bees. Increasing the urban population’s knowledge of wild bees and wild bee-friendly plants.

background

In Germany we know of around 560 species of wild bees, of which around 300 are on the "Red List". Nesting opportunities are becoming rarer as areas are increasingly sealed or undergrowth and dead trees are removed. Added to this are the negative effects of industrial agriculture through pesticides and monocultures. Therefore - although it sounds surprising - you can find a great variety of flowers in the city.

Some wild bees depend on certain types of flowers, for example the common sedge bee is specialized in the Fabaceae family, which includes important food plants such as peas, beans, lentils and forage plants such as clover. Certain plants are pollinated exclusively by a particular type of bee. If the wild bee species disappears, the plant disappears too. Studies even show that declines in some species trigger cascading extinction effects in associated species such as birds.

Wild bees are just as individually specialized in flower shapes as they are demanding when it comes to choosing their nesting sites. Commercially available “wild bee hotels” often cannot accommodate rare species.

Frankfurt am Main, Rhein-Main, Deutschland

The good deed

In the Rhine-Main region, needs-based “wild bee hotels” are being set up in prominent locations such as school gardens. Educational work is also being carried out.

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