> The Ithaca area is just a bit of a special case, being an area where the USDA finds a distinct lack of oak trees in their surveys
Just one example, 6 miles south of Ithaca is the Fischer Old Growth Natural Area. This preserve is owned by Cornell University.
The upland forest ecological community types include hemlock-northern hardwood forest on steep, north-facing slopes and in ravines, and Appalachian oak-hickory forest on the upper slopes and ridges
Appalachian Oak Hickory Forest
A hardwood forest that occurs on well-drained sites, usually on flat hilltops, upper slopes, or south and west facing slopes. Dominant trees include one or more of red oak, white oak, and black oak. Mixed with oaks, are one or more of pignut, shagbark, and sweet pignut hickory. Common associates are white ash, red maple, and hop hornbeam. Small trees include flowering dogwood, witch hazel, shadbush, and choke cherry.
Hemlock Northern Hardwood Forest
A forest that typically occurs on lower slopes of ravines, on cool, mid-elevation slopes, and at the edges of drainage divide swamps. Hemlock is a codominant species with one to three others: beech, sugar maple, red maple, black cherry, white pine, yellow birch, black birch, red oak, and basswood.
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But it is a good question whether bees have "preferences" for certain types of trees. A. Avitabile, D. P. Stafstrom & K. J. Donovan (1978) assayed 108 bee trees and found that
The deciduous (angiosperm) trees maple, oak and ash were most used, and these are the predominant genera (27%, 32%, 4% respectively) in Connecticut forest.
In other words, they seemed to be taking what they could find, what was available, with no clear preference. One factor that stood out was that most of the occupied trees (102 of 108) were alive. But again, that would not indicate preference but happenstance.
PLB
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