Native bees do not typically share the desire of the honeybee to live in a small space with 10,000 members of the family. They do not produce honey to keep their colony fed through the winter. These bees have different habits, some of them so singular that they make scientists laugh out loud with puzzlement.

And they pollinate plants, often better than European honeybees. The natives’ pollinating abilities are attracting more attention because the honeybee on which most American agriculture depends has run into a series of problems: It started mating with aggressive Africanized bees

Wild bees don’t mate with Africanized bees, nor do they suffer from the same diseases and mites that afflict honeybees. There has never been a better time to develop wild bee pollination talent for use in American agriculture.