When someone says "save the bees", they're almost always talking about honeybees. But - while there are real issues plaguing honeybees - the bees that REALLY need saving are the 4,000 native bee species that are in REAL trouble... Honeybees are NOT native to North America. They were brought from Europe in the 1600s. It's best to think of them more as livestock than a native species that needs to be protected That's not to say there aren't real issues with honeybees. Colony collapse disorder, varroa mites, and so on A few years back, I interviewed Peter Nelson, who directed The Pollinators documentary, for my @epicgardening podcast. He opened my eyes tot he world of "managed beekeeping." This is an entire industry where people literally truck honeybee colonies across the country to pollinate almonds, apples, you name it But why would you need to do this? Surely there are already bees in the area to pollinate these crops? Well, there WERE, but monocropping, pesticide use, and many other "modern" practices wiped out the native species in those areas North America has roughly 4,000 native bee species, most of which don't live in hives. Many are fully solitary creators. The craziest part is how specialized they are: up to 45% are "pollen specialists," meaning they feed from ONE plant or ONE plant family. If that plant disappears from your area, those bees are gone...forever So, while it's fine to add a honeybee hive to your property and harvest delicious raw honey, it's also possible they're outcompeting native wild bees for resources At the very least you should be planting for native species too: To do this, choose local native flowers that bloom at different times of year. Leave nesting areas, bare ground, dead stems left standing in fall. You can add a bee house too with sticks, logs with holes drilled in them, and so on to provide potential nesting habitat for native bee species So - the "save the bees" conversation NEEDS to include the 4,000 species nobody's talking about, but are a crucial part of North American ecosystems

While everyone argues about data centers and water, California almonds quietly use up to 80x more, AND the whole industry only survives because of trucked-in "livestock"... Every February, beekeepers transport nearly every commercial honeybee colony in the United States (around 2.8 million hives) to California to pollinate almonds. It's the largest "managed-pollination" event on the planet. Almonds cover 1.4 million acres and need bees to pollinate so they set nuts. So why do we need to truck them in? Well, almonds are grown in huge monoculture orchards, meaning the native bee species are all but eradicated...there's nothing for them to eat most of the year. To fix the problem WE created, we ship in bees from across the country. I interviewed the creator of the 2019 documentary The Pollinators, which followed this migration and brought a lot of this story into public view. First off, honeybees aren't native to North America. They were brought from Europe in the 1600s. The "bee crisis" you read about, with national colony losses around 55% last year and some commercial keepers losing 60 to 70% in a single season, is happening to a managed, introduced species. It's a livestock collapse driven by long-haul transport, pesticide exposure at bloom, hives packed together spreading mites and viruses, and a monoculture diet. Meanwhile, North America has roughly 4,000 native bee species. Most are solitary, don't make honey, don't sting, and quietly pollinate everything from squash to blueberries. Research out of UC Davis and UC Berkeley has been direct about this: when blue orchard bees, bumble bees, and other natives forage alongside honeybees in almond orchards, fruit set goes UP, not down. The presence of wild bees changes how honeybees move through the trees and makes the honeybees themselves more effective pollinators. So the fix isn't more honeybee hives. It's hedgerows, wildflower strips, bare ground for ground-nesting bees, and uncut field edges, aka habitat for the natives who were doing this work long before we started trucking in livestock. Honeybees are livestock. Native bees are the wildlife, and we should be planting to include them in our agriculture.