Gillette's Habitat GardenField notes / Article
Bees, Butterflies and Moths Recorded in a Columbus, Ohio Habitat Garden
All five Ohio bee families, every major bee nesting mode, monarch breeding and a lemon cuckoo bumble bee, documented on iNaturalist on a 0.17-acre lot.
This lot houses pollinators rather than just feeding them. Every major bee nesting mode is recorded on site, and the predator and parasitoid layer is intact. The iNaturalist project "Gillette's Habitat Garden" holds 229+ observations since April 2023 (112 plants, 102 insects, 12 birds), 59+ of them research grade, with all five Ohio bee families confirmed.
Bees
| Nesting mode | Recorded on site |
|---|---|
| Ground | mining bees (Andrena), furrow bees (Halictus), bicolored striped sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens), long-horned bees (Melissodes, including M. trinodis and M. denticulatus), sweat bees (Lasioglossum, Dialictus) |
| Pith and stem | small carpenter bee (Ceratina calcarata), which needs standing dead stems over winter |
| Rotting wood | pure green sweat bee (Augochlora pura) |
| Excavated wood | carpenter bees (Xylocopa) |
| Cavity and resin | masked bees (Hylaeus mesillae, Hylaeus punctatus), wool carder bees (Anthidium) |
| Bumble bees | brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis, 22 records), common eastern bumble bee (B. impatiens, 16), lemon cuckoo bumble bee (B. citrinus), possibly two-spotted bumble bee (B. bimaculatus) |
Native bumble bees outnumber honey bees (4 records), which is unusual for urban Franklin County. The lemon cuckoo bumble bee (Bombus citrinus) is the most meaningful record. It's a social parasite, so its presence means host colonies are nesting nearby in good numbers. A Rudbeckia specialist mining bee (Andrena rudbeckiae) confirms the sweet coneflower is doing specialist work. Long-horned bee (Melissodes) males have been logged on oxeye sunflower and females on purple prairie clover.
Missing so far: leafcutter bees (Megachile), mason bees (Osmia), cellophane bees (Colletes) and nomad bees (Nomada). The spring bee fauna is probably undersurveyed rather than absent. A few March and April sessions would test that, including whether the spring beauty mining bee (Andrena erigeniae) is here.
Butterflies and moths
| Record | Where and when | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Monarch caterpillars, 5+ at once | Bed 1 milkweeds, 2025 | Working breeding waystation |
| Black swallowtail caterpillars | Golden Alexanders, Bed 1, May 2026 | Host plant doing its job |
| Peck's, Zabulon and fiery skippers; eastern tailed-blue | Lawn | The unsprayed lawn mowed at 4 in produces butterflies |
| 2026 butterflies seen | Property-wide | Monarch, skippers, painted lady, swallowtail, cabbage white (non-native) |
| Ithaca clearwing (Carmenta ithacae) | iNaturalist record | Rarely photographed without lures; larvae feed on asters |
| Maple clearwing (Synanthedon acerrubri) | iNaturalist record | A second clearwing on one small lot |
| Yellow-collared scape moths x2 | Smooth blue aster, September 2026 | Grass and sedge host plus aster nectar on site; a new moth family for the record |
| Celery looper (likely Anagrapha falcifera) | Fall asters, September 19 | Night nectaring on the fall bloom |
| Looper, green cloverworm, vagabond crambus | Night sessions, September 2026 | Calamint and goldenrod feed moths after dark; bumble bee males roost on the goldenrod |
Other notable records
- Mydas fly (Mydas clavatus), double-banded scoliid (Scolia bicincta) and great golden digger wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus): large predators and parasitoids that develop on soil grubs and katydids.
- A parasitoid wasp of hover fly larvae (Diplazon laetatorius), four trophic levels deep.
- Mud nesters: fraternal potter wasp (Eumenes fraternus) and a mason wasp (Parancistrocerus leionotus).
- Case-bearing leaf beetle larvae (Neochlamisus) on milkweed, September 2026.
- A fly-killing fungus (Entomophthora muscae) on the harebell tips, July 2026.
- Eastern bluebird and red-bellied woodpecker.
Neighborhood signals
Several records point off-property, so the lot works as a corridor node, not an island. The ailanthus webworm moth (Atteva aurea) means tree of heaven grows nearby. The long-horned bee Melissodes denticulatus is an ironweed specialist, and the neighbor's ironweed is the source. The clearwings, the woodpecker and the pure green sweat bee point to mature hardwoods with standing deadwood nearby.
Goals: more butterfly species and more monarchs, a stop on the monarch migration, and Monarch Waystation certification, which the property already qualifies for.
Specialist gaps still open: the spring beauty mining bee (Andrena erigeniae), which waits on a successful spring beauty planting, and the Baltimore checkerspot, unserved by choice.