In ‘turf-loving’ Twin Cities suburbs, a push to help the state bee reshapes landscapes

"It's an issue that we're really concerned about, and it's also one that I don't feel we're making a lot of good headway, to be honest," said Angie Hong, water education senior specialist for the Washington County Conservation District.

The bee's endangered status brings some protection, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says bee nests are very hard to see: the rusty patched bumblebee lives in the ground, entering its hive through a small hole in the dirt. The agency gets just a few reports each year of rusty patched bumblebee nests for the entire country. One of the two nests found this year was in Minnesota, about three hours south of Minneapolis.

So even if Woodbury city staff scour a parcel for evidence of endangered species before the bulldozers move in, it's unlikely they'd spot a bee colony, even if one were present. Once a colony is dug up, its reproduction cycle is broken and all of the bees will die, Evans said.

Dana Boyle looks through her garden in Woodbury, Minn. on Sept. 6. Boyle ripped out her front yard and replaced it with a native plants pollinator garden, a move that could give the state bee, the rusty patched bumble bee, more habitat. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune) 'Turf-dominant suburb' Woodbury resident Dana Boyle loves her house in the Evergreen development but was never a fan of the non-native Kentucky blue grass filling all the front yards.

"A lovely but turf-dominant suburb," she calls her city.

Some of those homes use chemicals to keep the grass green, and whenever the chemical company truck came through the neighborhood to spray, Boyle knew, even if she didn't see it. She said she could taste it in the air.