Cemetery Swarming With 5.6 Million Bees: Inside the World's Largest Urban Beekeeping Ecosystem

It began with a parking spot. In the spring of 2022, Rachel Fordyce, a lab technician in Cornell University's entomology department, left her car at a free plaza near campus and cut through East Lawn Cemetery on her morning commute. What she noticed at her feet was not a ghost, but a swarm of living insects so vast that it would eventually force scientists to recalibrate their understanding of urban biodiversity.

Fordyce collected a jar of specimens and carried them to her supervisor, Professor Bryan Danforth. The insects were identified as Andrena regularis — the regular mining bee — a solitary, ground-nesting species that had been recorded at the cemetery as far back as the early 1900s. What no one realized until now was the staggering scale of the population living beneath the gravestones.

An Underground Metropolis

Between late March and mid-May 2023, a research team led by then-undergraduate Steven Hoge set ten small mesh emergence traps across a 1.5-acre section of the cemetery. These tents, each covering less than a square meter, funnelled emerging insects into collection jars. Over 48 days, the team captured 3,251 individuals representing 16 species of bees, flies, and beetles. A. regularis dominated the sample.

By extrapolating the density captured in the traps across the full 6,000-square-meter nesting area, the researchers arrived at a figure that stunned even seasoned entomologists: an estimated 5.56 million bees emerging from the cemetery soil in a single spring. That is roughly equivalent to 140 to 180 average honeybee colonies packed into a plot the size of a small farm field. The biomass of these insects alone would weigh nearly 10,000 pounds — the equivalent of two fully grown giraffes.

"I was completely floored when we did the calculations. I have seen published estimates of bee aggregations in the hundreds of thousands. But I never really imagined that it would be 5.56 million bees." — Bryan Danforth, Professor of Entomology, Cornell University

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Apidologie in April 2026, establishes the East Lawn Cemetery aggregation as one of the largest and oldest known in the scientific literature. Historical records confirm the species has inhabited the site since at least 1935, and likely since the cemetery's founding in 1878.

Why Cemeteries Make Perfect Bee Cities

Contrary to popular imagination, bees do not typically live in communal hives. Approximately 75 to 90 percent of the world's bee species are solitary ground-nesters. A female mining bee digs her own vertical shaft six to ten inches deep, excavating side passages with her mandibles and legs. In each brood cell, she deposits a single egg atop a ball of pollen and nectar, then seals the chamber and backfills the tunnel. She repeats this process until she has laid six to eight eggs, then dies before summer arrives.

The larvae hatch underground, feeding on their provisions through several molts before pupating. By autumn they have reached adulthood, but they remain in a hibernation-like state called diapause until soil temperatures climb to around 70 degrees Fahrenheit the following spring. A. regularis overwinters as an adult — a relatively rare trait among bees — which allows it to emerge remarkably early, timed almost perfectly to the apple bloom at Cornell Orchards just 500 meters away.

Cemeteries provide an almost perfect habitat template for this lifestyle. The soil is rarely disturbed by construction or agriculture. Pesticides and herbicides are seldom used. The grounds are quiet, with limited foot traffic penetrating the older sections. And the sandy-loam substrate that made the land attractive to 19th-century gravediggers is equally ideal for a bee digging burrows.

The Hidden Economy of Wild Pollinators

The ecological significance of this discovery extends far beyond the cemetery gates. Solitary wild bees are the invisible engine behind much of the planet's pollination services. While honeybees dominate agricultural headlines, ground-nesting native species pollinate approximately 80 percent of the world's flowering plants. In New York State alone, A. regularis is a documented and economically valuable pollinator of apples and blueberries — crops worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Yet these insects remain drastically understudied. When Hoge began his literature review, the most comprehensive scientific resource on A. regularis dated to 1978. "It's the most common lifestyle for bees," Danforth notes, "but because they live underground and don't produce honey, they are almost entirely under the radar."

The research also documented a complex subterranean food web sharing the cemetery soil. Cuckoo bees (Nomada imbricata), a brood-parasitic species, lay their eggs inside the mining bees' brood cells. Blister beetles and conopid flies also prey on the bees at various life stages. Sam Droege, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Native Bee Lab who was not involved in the study, called the documentation of these relationships "unique" and emphasized that preserving large populations of common pollinators is just as critical as protecting rare species.

Urban Cemeteries as Conservation Arks

The East Lawn discovery arrives amid a growing scientific consensus that urban cemeteries function as accidental nature reserves. Across the United States and Europe, researchers have documented rare plants, migratory birds, foxes, coyotes, and bats thriving in burial grounds where development pressure is low and disturbance is minimal. A 2023 study in Conservation Biology found that cemeteries provide ecological value on par with city parks — and in some cases exceed them because they lack the heavy foot traffic, off-leash dogs, and vehicular traffic that stress wildlife.

"They are refuges from pesticide use, they have the right soil texture, they have pretty good floral diversity, they're quiet and undisturbed," Danforth explains. Keven Morse, superintendent of East Lawn Cemetery, has observed deer, geese, hawks, and foxes on the grounds over the years. Now he can add one of the largest known bee cities on Earth to that list.

The finding carries an urgent conservation message. Because these bees aggregate so densely, a single disruptive event — paving, deep excavation, or heavy pesticide application — could annihilate millions of pollinators at once. "If we don't preserve nest sites and someone paves over them, we could lose — in an instant — 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators," Danforth warns.

A Template for the Future

Spurred by the discovery, Danforth has launched a statewide survey of New York cemeteries and an iNaturalist citizen-science project to locate additional nesting sites. Early results suggest older graveyards are particularly valuable because they were historically sited on elevated, well-drained sandy soils — the same substrate preferred by ground-nesting bees.

For urban planners and homeowners, the lesson is clear: pollinator habitat does not require pristine wilderness. Sometimes it requires simply leaving the ground alone. Reducing lawn mowing, eliminating pesticides, and tolerating bare patches of soil can transform backyards, churchyards, and office parks into functional bee habitat. "We have an opportunity to help nature in the weirdest of all ways," says Droege.

As cities expand and natural habitats fragment, the 5.6 million bees beneath East Lawn Cemetery offer a powerful reminder that conservation is not always about protecting the remote and the wild. Sometimes the most vital ecosystems are hiding in plain sight, buzzing quietly beneath our feet.