Exploring 4,000 Bee Species Beyond Honey Bees

While honey bees are not native to North America, local wild bee species can enhance the pollination of your garden plants, such as tomatoes. Peggy, a resident of Brunswick, recently noticed a bee visiting her balcony flowers, prompting her to observe and encourage more bee activity. If you've enjoyed blueberries, tomatoes, squash, or apples recently, it's likely that a wild bee, rather than a honey bee, played a role in their pollination. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) were introduced by colonists in the 1620s, while North America is home to around 4,000 native bee species, most of which are solitary and nest in the ground or hollow stems, making them often more effective pollinators for native plants.