When you mention bees, most people envision the Western Domesticated Honey Bee, Apis millifera. Our common cultural understanding of bees usually center on this one type of bee. Few people realize the traits and behaviors of honey bees are rare among bees. Their specific type of hive living and the production of large stores of honey are especially prominent images circulating in our culture. These features are not found in native bees, most of whom are solitary animals that nest in the ground or hollow stems. As highly managed, cultivated agricultural animals, domesticated honey bees resemble insect versions of a dairy cow, more than they resemble most other bees. Honey bees were introduced to the Americas, and many other places in the world, from the Middle East and Asia.
Bees, in their great diversity and numbers, are vital to the production of our food, pollinating 75% of the fruits, nuts and vegetables we eat. Our distorted emphasis on the honey bee hides a core reality: Much of this pollination is done by native bees, who are up to four times more efficient at pollination than honeybees. Bees pollinate 80% of all flowering plants, making them our most important pollinators and a keystone species vital to the health of all terrestrial ecosystems.
Bee stings dominate our culture’s perception of human-bee interactions. Most native bees are non-aggressive. More than half don’t even have stingers. The vast majority are furry vegetarians who tend not to sting humans – and if they do, it’s only when they are physically harassed. Many are solitary, nesting in the ground, hollow stems, old logs, and stone piles all around us. Some visit us to gently lick the salt they need from our sweat. We encounter a great diversity of bees every day in warm weather, yet we notice few of these interactions. Sometimes we don’t even recognize bees as bees.
These ubiquitous, important animals are essentially strangers to us. Current research shows that about one-quarter of native bees are at risk of extinction globally, with one-third of North American species at risk. They need our help.
This interdisciplinary art and ecology project was created to expand visibility and shift misleading cultural perceptions of wild native bees. Increased public awareness lays the groundwork for motivating people to reduce or reverse harmful activities associated with declining bee numbers. Through artworks, narratives, habitat creation, and science-based information, this project will bring new perspectives about these vital and remarkable animals. The project also provides tools for creating habitats to improve conditions for wild native bees.