FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Has anyone had experience with Agapostemon (aka metallic green sweat) bees nesting in their CP bogs? I have noticed some crawling into the drainage holes on my mini bog planters this year. I'm far from 100% sure of the identification, but they are definitely metallic green, and this type of bee is a ground-nesting type (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agapostemon).

Do you think this would harm my plants at all? So far everything is thriving in those planters, but I have no idea how long the bees have been there. It of course also makes me nervous about doing any digging, since my usual method of moving plants around is just to plunge my hand in and feel around to loosen the roots before I pull them out. Of course I won't be doing much repotting until winter, but still, a hand full of bee nest doesn't sound great...

Anyway any stories of personal experience would be appreciated.

There are other bees that look similar. Most are solitary nesters so, on the plus side, you're not likely to get a "handful of bee nest". Should do any harm to your plants. The tiny bees are actually very good pollinators -- far more efficient than honeybees.

Thanks @DragonsEye, good to know. I certainly hope there's not entire nests of bees in there, for their sake. My planters are undrained, the "drainage holes" I mentioned are actually just the overflow holes drilled about an inch below the soil line. So I would imagine building your home below the line would be a very wet and miserable experience!

I had some fire ants try to make a home in one of my mini bogs last year. I plugged the drainage holes and flooded the bog. They were gone the next day.

@Panman, thanks, if it gets to be a problem I will try evicting them that way.