Secret Pollinators

Did Bumblebees Buzz Around Woolly Mammoths?

Did bumblebees really live alongside woolly mammoths? During the Ice Age, wild bumblebees buzzed across the same frozen mammoth steppe where woolly mammoths grazed — and

The 14-Million-Year-Old Honeybee Fossil Found in Nevada

Everyone knows the honeybee isn't native to North America, and it arrived on colonial ships around the 1620s. Except a single fossil, pulled from paper shale in west-cent

I Think I'm Being Invaded by Hover Flies in my Garden!

Hover flies hang in the air at eye level, hold perfectly still, and dart off the second you move — then come right back. If your garden's been "invaded" by little hoverin

Why Do Most Wild Bees Live Alone?

Why living alone beats living together for most of the native, wild bee world. This episode is about those bees — the quiet majority. How a hundred solitary females can n

Where Do Native Bees Go During a Heat Wave?

You step outside on the hottest day of the year and the flowers are still there, but the bees have vanished. So where did they go? The good news: they didn't die, and the

What Happens to Wild Bees When Data Centers Cover the Ground?

Most native bees don't live in hives — they live alone, underground, in tunnels a single female digs herself. This episode is about what those ground-nesting bees need fr

Do Native Bees Fight Like Tiny MMA Fighters?

Do bees actually fight? Yes, and it's more brutal than most people imagine. In this episode: a desert bee whose large-headed males duel underground in fights that always

What Do Bug Zappers Actually Kill? It's Not Mosquitoes

That snap from the bug zapper on the patio? It's usually killing a night pollinator and almost never a mosquito. When researchers counted every insect six zappers killed

Bees Make Natural Polyester That Chemists Can't Replicate

There's a bee that makes polyester. Not metaphorically — an actual transparent, waterproof, antimicrobial film that she paints onto the walls of her underground brood cel

A Wild Bee That Shears Wool from Plants - The Wool Carder Bee

Say "wool" and you picture a sheep — so what do you do with a bee that shears wool off a living plant? Meet the wool carder bee: a thumbnail-sized native that scrapes the

A Wild Bee Vanished for 144 Years... Or Did It?

Can a wild bee really disappear for 144 years? A volunteer with a net just proved the answer is stranger than you'd think. We follow the rediscovery of a wool-carder bee

4,000 Native Wild Bee Species in America? Yes, It's True

Happy Pollinator Week! Tell someone you love native wild bees and they'll start talking about honey every time. But the honey bee is a European import — it's not even one

Bonus: I Got My Governor to Declare Pollinator Week — Here's How You Can Too

A quick bonus update: how a five-minute email led to an official Montana Pollinator Week proclamation — and how you can get the same thing done in your own state before P

How One Woman's Idea Turned 400 American Cities into Native Bee Habitat

It started with one woman's frustration and a unanimous city council vote in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2012. Fourteen years later, more than 400 American towns and co

Wild Bees Cut Their Flight Paths by 80% - Here's How They Do It

A bumblebee leaves her nest with no map, no GPS, and no instructions. By the end of the week, she'll have figured out the most efficient route between every flower patch

What One Irish Town Taught the World About Saving Bumblebees

A small seaside town north of Dublin set out to save a vanishing ginger-colored bumblebee — and the way they did it holds a lesson for every gardener, balcony grower, and

Where Do Wild Bees Sleep at Night?

Go out to a meadow at dusk and look closely at the flowers — some of them are occupied. Wild bees sleep out in the open, and once you know to look, you'll never stop seei

40 Million Years of Bee Theft: The Cuckoo Bumblebee Heist

For 40 million years, a small group of bees has been pulling off one of the most elegant heists in the insect world. They build no nests. They raise no workers. They neve

Do Native Bees Make Better American Olive Oil?

The US olive oil market is worth nearly three billion dollars — and 95 percent of it is imported. But across seven American states, a small, quality-focused domestic indu

Bumble Bees Have Their Own Air Conditioning? Scientists Just Found Out!

A brand-new study — published this week in the Journal of Animal Ecology — just revealed something remarkable about bumble bee colonies: they function as living thermosta