Ground-nesting wild bees

Perennial flower strips are gaining increasing importance as a measure to promote biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Wild bees, in particular, benefit from such flower strips: In addition to providing a broad range of food resources, they also offer essential nesting habitats for native wild bee species most of which nest in the ground.

With regard to ground-nesting wild bees, which are important pollinators of both wild and cultivated plants, the question arises as to how soil cultivation practices, such as ploughing, affect the bees and their nests. Currently, there is little scientific knowledge on this topic. In particular, it remains unclear how many of the wild bees foraging in flower strips also use these areas for nesting.

Objectives and methods

As part of a project funded by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector of Baden-Württemberg, both annual and perennial flower strips in the agricultural landscape of Baden-Württemberg are being investigated and compared in terms of their foraging and ground-nesting wild bee communities. The study aims to assess how ploughing, as a soil management measure in flower strips, impacts the nests of ground-nesting wild bees. To this end, methods for locating nests within flower strips are being evaluated and further developed, and nest sites as well as the nesting wild bee species are being systematically recorded.

Through its ecological and methodological findings, the project contributes to improving the evaluation of measures implemented under current agri-environmental schemes, such as the Baden-Württemberg Agri-Environment, Climate Protection and Animal Welfare Programme (FAKT), and the “eco-schemes” introduced with the reform of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

• Funding programme for agri-environment, climate protection and animal welfare (FAKT)

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Publications

• Hellerich, C., Garratt, M., Klein, A.M., Fornoff, F. & Mupepele, A.C. (2026): Reducing ploughing promotes ground-nesting flying insects. Agriculture, Ecosystems and the Environments 405: 110399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2026.110399
• Hellerich, C., Klein, A.M., Garratt, M., Mix, M., Mupepele A.C. & Fornoff, F. (2025): Beneath the buzz: Quantifying nest locations and densities of ground-nesting wild bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila). Methods in Ecology and Evolution 16: 1334–1349. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.70062