Transcript:

Native Bees ambience: beesIn recent years, the world's population of honeybees has been imperiled by disease and pesticides. But in the world of bees, there are unsung heroes that are responsible for more cross-pollination than the famous honey bee. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet Mizejewski:Most of what we think we know about bees is wrong, because it only applies to the honey bee, which is really a domesticated species brought over from Europe. (It's) really important for our agricultural systems. Lots of backyard beekkeepers keep them. But they're not really wildlife. In the meantime, there are twenty thousand species of bees found on this planet, four thousand here in North America, that are not honeybees. Most of them don't form hives; most of them don't make honey; most of them - even though they can - are very unlikely to sting you. David Mizejewski is a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation. Mizejewski: What native bees really need are nesting spots. Most of them are solitary, meaning they don't form hives. It's one individual female bee. She finds a tunnel, either in the ground - just bare soil in the ground - or in an old plant stem or in a dead tree, where's a little tunnel that beetle larvae or termites have drilled out. And so she needs those nesting places. So if you can keep them in your landscape, that's a good thing. Also, don't spray pesticides. Insects will die if you spray insecticides and bees are insects. So if you're going to do those two things, you're really going to support the native bee population as well as all those domesticated honeybees that many people have. For more information on attracting and supporting native bees, check out David Mizejewski's book, "Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife." I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.