Behind the Scenes at the Federal Bee Lab Powered by Native Plants

Down an unmarked road in Maryland’s 13,000-acre Patuxent Research Refuge, on the grounds of an abandoned Whooping Crane breeding facility, sits an unusual government research facility. Its sign is a mosaic of mirror shards and broken crockery, and the main building is a garage once used to inseminate the cranes. Outside, old bathtubs overflow with carnivorous plants, sinks serve as makeshift bogs, and cacti grow in toilet tanks. 

This is the U.S. Geological Survey’s Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab, where federal scientists work to survey and investigate the ecological role of North America’s roughly 4,000 species of native bees. Inside, amid salvaged lab tables and microscopes, stacks of what look like pizza boxes line the walls; peek in and you’ll find more than 750,000 native bee specimens from all 50 states, various U.S. territories, Canada, and even overseas, pinned, sorted, and classified.  

But according to Sam Droege, the wildlife biologist who leads the lab, what’s growing outside is just as important as the collections indoors. From March to October, something is always sprouting in the greenhouses or blooming in the lab’s acres of native flowers. “Native plants support thousands of other native organisms,” Droege says, “everything from fungi and bacteria to the insects that live in them, suck on them, and eat them.” 

Before he turned to bees, Droege studied birds (even coordinating the North American Breeding Bird Survey) and then amphibians. As he shifted focus, he came to believe that at the core of conservation, regardless of your species of interest, are healthy native plant communities. Unlike introduced species, native plants have coevolved with insects and other wildlife, including birds, to form the interconnected webs of ecosystems. Supporting native plants, Droege says, “will lift all boats.” He points to studies like one conducted in the suburbs of D.C., not far from the bee lab, that found yards full of non-native plants create "food deserts" for birds and reduce breeding success. The links between native plants, pollinators, and birds are so strong that groups like Audubon Mid-Atlantic have successfully pushed for plant-focused legislation, including pollinator habitat requirements along state highways in Maryland, enacted this year. 

To reproduce, 70 to 80 percent of all plants rely on pollination by animals. While some birds, bats, and other insects pollinate plants, bees are the most important pollinators, particularly for food crops: By one estimate, bees pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in the United States. 

Honey bees introduced from Europe are celebrated for their wax, honey, and pollinating commercial food crops, but they do a poor job pollinating many native plants. Droege is blunt: “There is no ecological role for honey bees in North America.” Like some birds, many native bees are specialists, closely linked with particular native plants that occupy key ecological niches or grow in harsh environments, like deserts. “Ecosystems are like a brick house,” Droege says. “At some point, if you take out enough bricks, a section of the house collapses.” 

Unlike honey bees, 90 percent of native bees are solitary and do not build hives. Many rarely sting or have no stingers at all. Native bees also come in a kaleidoscope of colors: metallic blue, green, copper, gold, and even opalescent. Some sport masks like miniature superheroes, others have long proboscises that look like elephant trunks. Droege documents many at the lab in breathtaking macro photographs. 

The federal government’s interest in native bees and other pollinators for conservation is relatively new. In 2015 the Obama administration launched an initiative to address steep declines in pollinator populations and issued pollinator-friendly best management and landscaping practices for all federal properties. Three years later Droege, who had been working out of a drab office building in Beltsville, Maryland, secured the Patuxent facility.

Tasked with supporting agencies in the U.S. Department of the Interior, which together manage 500 million acres of federal lands, as well as aiding other state and federal agencies, academic researchers, and nonprofits, Droege envisioned a research garden where he could study living native bees and their interactions with plants. 

He also had bigger ideas. He wanted to find ways to restore corrupted landscapes like the one at the lab—then covered with invasive plants and poison ivy—with the least effort and herbicides, and share his findings with the public. 

Through trial and error, Droege and his sole employee, lab manager Sydney Shumar, found success with techniques like laying down a thick layer of wood chips to smother invasive plants and replenish depleted soils, and mowing just once a year, in winter. Once native plants reappeared at the lab, he says, the impact was dramatic. In the first year, many of the region’s 200 native bee species arrived in droves. Flocks of goldfinches grew, too, and birds Droege had never before seen on the premises began to turn up to feed on the native plant seeds, like Lincoln's Sparrows, Yellow-breasted Chats, Orchard Orioles, and Yellow-throated Vireos. So many monarch butterflies now visit the lab that researchers come there to study them.

To manage it all—and, more importantly, to share the lab’s resources and lessons learned—Droege has opened the lab’s doors to the public. Twice a week visitors and volunteers can stroll the grounds to enjoy the flowers and observe the wildlife, or roll up their sleeves to help plant seedlings and clear brush. 

In return, the lab offers seeds, soil, and pots—and even growing space in the greenhouses and old crane pens—giving away tens of thousands of native plants each year. As a result, conservation and gardening groups, park associations and parks departments, birders, military personnel, students, academics, and hundreds of volunteers flock to the lab to partake of the bounty. 

“All too often scientists develop conservation techniques that only reach other scientists,” Droege says. By building relationships with civic groups, the lab’s work benefits more communities, and Droege closely follows their successes and mistakes: “It’s like having an army of experimenters to learn from.”

Groups like Bee City College Park, part of a nationwide network begun by the Xerces Society to protect pollinators, use the lab’s resources and methods. Working with the city of College Park, Maryland, Bee City created more than a dozen native pollinator gardens and bee hotels in parks and playgrounds and alongside roads, trails, and community gardens. Maria Ulloa, a former U.S. Forest Service botanist who leads the group, says using native plants is still a learning curve for many city horticulturalists who have long relied on non-native species.

Fortunately, Ulloa says, College Park officials “were interested, good listeners, and willing to work with the group.” But the city lacked funds to purchase native plants. Enter the bee lab, which helped Bee City grow their own. Bee City and College Park have now developed a joint plan to integrate native plants into existing parks and to establish new native gardens. Other lab partners work with homeowner associations, long an obstacle to conservation gardening, to expand and embrace native plant landscaping in residential neighborhoods.

The Bee Lab’s plant-powered approach could be key to addressing future challenges. In 2023 the U.S. Forest Service reported that over the past 15 years, nearly two-fifths of bee species disappeared from studied southeastern forests, while the overall bee population dropped by more than 60 percent.

Bumble bees are of particular concern. A keystone species in many ecosystems, (and nearly the only insect pollinators of tomatoes), more than one quarter of bumble bee species in the U.S. and Canada face some level of extinction risk, and two have been listed as federally endangered. To help them, Droege and a colleague created a bumble bee flower finder web tool to make it easier for gardeners to select blooms that bumble bees love. 

Droege is often asked for practical tips to create pollinator-friendly native gardens. His advice is to diversify. “Use lots of different colors, have blooms from early spring to late fall,” he says. Droege also recommends choosing plants with a variety of flower forms—like dangling, tubular, or open-petaled—to attract different pollinators. “Those shapes are there for a reason.” 

This simple formula, like so much at the bee lab, is meant to translate research into action. And if the lab’s own flourishing grounds are any indication, Droege is onto something. As he puts it: “If you plant it, they will come.”