Read Pacific Northwest bee news from Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, then use the field guide below to recognize native bee groups.
Bee conservation in your region
Pacific Northwest bee news from the field
How do you keep a honey bee colony through an Anchorage winter? How do researchers track wild bumble bees across three states? The stories below follow local people working on each question. The regional guide also introduces the bee groups you might see close to home.
What makes a garden useful to bumble bees in the Northwest?
The Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas began in 2018 in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Its field guide asks landowners to look for three things: flowers across the growing season, places such as bunch grasses where a queen can start a nest, and sheltered ground where new queens can spend the winter. Start by walking your site once in spring and again in late summer to see when the flowers run out.
Native bee guide
Meet important Pacific Northwest bee groups
For a first identification, look at where the bee carries pollen and how it enters its nest. A clear photo from the side can show details that color alone misses. The Washington Bee Atlas has examples from across the state.
Bumble Bees (Bombus)
A bumble bee queen starts a colony in spring. Later, workers bring food to the nest. Watch one on a tomato flower and you may hear the buzz as it vibrates the flower to release pollen. Pollen-carrying workers pack their loads onto the outer faces of their hind legs. Hair color and banding vary among species.
Mason Bees (Osmia)
A blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) may visit apple, pear or cherry blossoms. The female carries pollen beneath her abdomen. She brings it to a nest in a hole or hollow stem, lays an egg with its food and divides the nest into cells with mud. Oregon State’s illustrated guide to mason and leafcutter bees shows the nest cells and pollen-carrying hairs.
Leafcutter Bees (Megachile spp.)
A neat, rounded notch in a leaf is one clue to a leafcutter bee. The female uses her jaws to cut pieces for nest cells and carries each piece back to the nest. Like mason bees, female leafcutters carry pollen on the underside of the abdomen. Watch a bee working rather than opening an occupied nest.
Mining Bees (Andrenidae)
Look for bees returning to small openings in bare or thinly covered soil. Many mining bees nest close to one another, with each female digging and stocking her own nest. Watch several entrances before assuming the bees share a single colony. A photograph of the bee can help distinguish it from other ground-nesting insects.
Sweat Bees
Some sweat bees are small and dark with pale bands. Others shine bright metallic green. Pollen-carrying females usually have a load on the hind legs. The group includes both solitary and social species. A small bee on a flower may be hard to identify to species, so note its size, location and the plant it visited.
From the archives
Pacific Northwest bee news archive
Bees on the brink
WSU Delivers | January 28, 2026 WSU scientists are fighting to save honey bees from multiple threats.
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Alaska beekeepers kill their colonies every fall, but an Anchorage man has another way
By Rachel Cassandra, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage – January 10, 2024 Alaska beekeepers have to make sure their colonies have enough food to survive the winter. Huffman gives his colony extra sugar syrup in the fall so they can save it for the winter and he puts sugar in their hives early in winter just in case they run out of food.
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Tracking Bumble Bees in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
Due to limited information on bumble bees, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Xerces Society established the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas (PNWBBA). Now in its 6th year, with the support of hundreds of volunteer citizen scientists online, the PNWBBA represents unprecedented contemporary information on the state of bees in the Pacific Northwest. Approximately 300 participants observed nearly 14,000 bumble bees over the past 5 years, including 1,000 observations of 4 out of 5 most vulnerable species in the area. The PNWBBA is partnering with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit to turn this unprecedented information into scientific insight.
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Western Innovator: Researchers build a robotic ‘bee’
The prototype, called the Bee++, can twist, fly in any direction, and achieve the same 6 degrees of free movement that a typical insect can. The tiny robot has four wings made of carbon fiber and mylar and four actuators, devices that control how the individual wings move.
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