Even if you water the area, the water collects on top while the soil below the surface stays bone dry. Hydrophobic soil is soil that’s old and does not let water run down into the ground. This includes hydrophobic soil in plant pots ( which ants also love to nest in) and flower beds, bare patches in your lawn, and dry, sandy areas around the perimeter of your property. You will find ground bee nests in areas with dry, sandy soil, where there’s not much vegetation or grass growing. An anthill mound may start off two to three inches wide, but depending on the type of ants building the nest, the anthill mound may keep growing to become several feet wide.

A ground bee’s nest mound is only a few inches wide, and never gets bigger than this.An anthill’s entrance hole is usually no more than one-quarter of an inch wide, and there are often many holes for the ants to get into and leave their underground nest. A ground bee nest has one hole in the middle, up to half an inch wide, for the entrance.Ground bee nests look a lot like anthills, but there are two main differences: Each bee nest has a hole in the middle that’s between one quarter to half an inch wide, where the bee enters and exits. These mounds are entrances to ground bee nests. The easiest way to tell if you have ground bees is to look for small mounds of soil a few inches wide in your yard.

Here are all the tell-tale signs to know if you have ground bees nesting in your yard or not: Look for small mounds of dirt with one hole If you’ve seen things buzzing in your backyard or signs in the soil that something’s moved in, you’re probably wondering if you have ground bees.

Underground bee hive