Study: Georgia’s Native Bees Thrive With Fewer Trees

There are hundreds of species of bees in Georgia, and unlike the European honeybees that people keep in hives, many native bees live alone, in holes in the ground. They haven’t been researched much, but a recent study looked at what kinds of forests are best for Georgia’s bees.

“What we found was that if you have fewer trees, you tend to have more bees,” said Jim Hanula, a research entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service who studied bees in the Oconee National Forest, southeast of Atlanta. He collected more than 120 species of bees during the study.