Meet America's Native Bees

Scientists estimate there are about 4,000 species of native bees in the U.S.

- BY MEGHAN BARTELS

SPRING HAS ARRIVED IN THE U.S., bringing its bright spectacle of budding trees and migrating birds, along with more subtle but equally important changes— among them the annual emergence of native bees.

But “native bees” doesn’t include the insect most of us picture when we hear the word “bee.” That yellow-and-black-striped, hive-living, honey-making critter—formally Apis mellifera—hails from Europe. Farmers rely on these tiny imports as, essentially, livestock animals that pollinate food crops and produce honey. But their wild, native counterparts are something completely different.

To celebrate spring, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN spoke with Shumar about North American native bee species’ variety, differences from honeybees and importance in their ecosystem.

An edited transcript of the interview follows.

Do I have it right that there are more than 4,000 native bee species in the U.S.? How is that number so big?

The reason there are so many native bees is that you have all these different little things evolving to pollinate particular groups or species of plants. So they all have very different characteristics. When you look at pictures of our native bees, they look totally different than a honeybee, and you have huge ranges of color, size, how they collect pollen and how they nest.

What are they like, and how do they live?

There are no native bees in North America that live in a hive or produce honey. Most of them live in very small family units; you could think of it more like an apartment where you might have families aggregating together.