10/10/2026
Before the garden gets cut down this fall, look at the ends of the stems. Some of them are occupied.
Many native bees — small carpenter bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees — spend the winter inside hollow and pithy stems: bee balm, coneflower, Joe-Pye w**d, raspberry canes, goldenrod, sumac.
The mothers packed them with pollen over the summer and sealed in the next generation. Cut and bag those stems now, and the bees go out with the trash.
✂️ The fix, in two steps:
- This fall, leave the stalks standing. Cut nothing that doesn't have to go
- Next spring, once it's warm, cut the old stalks back to somewhere between eight and twenty-four inches and leave the stubble. The bees inside chew their way out, and new ones move into the cut stems to nest
Within a season, the new growth hides the stubble.
A messier fall bed, and more bees next year.
The stems look dead. They're full. 🐝
