5.5 million wild bees found beneath just 1.5 acres of New York cemetery

Beneath the quiet lawns and weathered headstones of a small cemetery in Ithaca, New York, scientists have uncovered one of the most astonishing bee discoveries in recent memory. In a carefully studied 1.5-acre section of the cemetery grounds, researchers estimated that about 5.5 million wild, ground-nesting bees live in a dense network of underground nests. That number is more than three times the entire human population of Manhattan, packed into an area smaller than many city blocks. As reported by Cornell University and ScienceDaily, the finding highlights how urban and suburban landscapes can harbour vast, hidden reservoirs of biodiversity, and it challenges common assumptions about where nature thrives in a developed world.A cemetery that hums with lifeTo the casual visitor, the cemetery looks like many others in the Northeast. Grass is mowed in neat rows. Trees shade winding paths. Gravestones stand in orderly lines. But in late spring and early summer, the ground in certain sections comes alive in a different way. Tiny holes dot the soil, each one the entrance to a bee nest. From these openings, thousands of small, dark bees emerge and return in a constant, low hum.The bees a...