Native Bees are NOT like Honey Bees

I guess the first thing I should clarify is that Native Bees are NOT like Honey Bees! They don’t produce honey or build wax honeycomb; they don’t sting; they don’t live in colonies of up to 60,000, and they don’t survive over the winter.  Honey bees are social bees who all work together in a large hive to rear baby bees (brood). Native bees - like my personal fav, the Orchard Mason Bee – are solitary bees, which means that each female Mason Bee builds her own nest, lays her eggs, seals in the eggs and pollen, and then dies.

So what, you might be thinking, makes our wild, native bees so special??? They are amazingly efficient pollinators! It takes only 250-750 Orchard Mason Bees to pollinate one acre of apple trees. It would take 60,000 – 120,000 honey bees to accomplish the same pollination!! Pretty cool, eh?