Episodes
4,000 Native Wild Bee Species in America? Yes, It's True
Happy Pollinator Week! Tell someone you love native wild bees and they'll start talking about honey every time. But the honey bee is a European import — it's not even one of the four thousand native w...
Bonus: I Got My Governor to Declare Pollinator Week — Here's How You Can Too
A quick bonus update: how a five-minute email led to an official Montana Pollinator Week proclamation — and how you can get the same thing done in your own state before Pollinator Week wraps up. www.s...
How One Woman's Idea Turned 400 American Cities into Native Bee Habitat
It started with one woman's frustration and a unanimous city council vote in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2012. Fourteen years later, more than 400 American towns and college campuses have made forma...
Wild Bees Cut Their Flight Paths by 80% - Here's How They Do It
A bumblebee leaves her nest with no map, no GPS, and no instructions. By the end of the week, she'll have figured out the most efficient route between every flower patch in her territory — reducing he...
What One Irish Town Taught the World About Saving Bumblebees
A small seaside town north of Dublin set out to save a vanishing ginger-colored bumblebee — and the way they did it holds a lesson for every gardener, balcony grower, and small-space planter in Americ...
Where Do Wild Bees Sleep at Night?
Go out to a meadow at dusk and look closely at the flowers — some of them are occupied. Wild bees sleep out in the open, and once you know to look, you'll never stop seeing them. In this episode, Kell...
40 Million Years of Bee Theft: The Cuckoo Bumblebee Heist
For 40 million years, a small group of bees has been pulling off one of the most elegant heists in the insect world. They build no nests. They raise no workers. They never collect a single grain of po...
Do Native Bees Make Better American Olive Oil?
The US olive oil market is worth nearly three billion dollars — and 95 percent of it is imported. But across seven American states, a small, quality-focused domestic industry is growing. And native be...
Bumble Bees Have Their Own Air Conditioning? Scientists Just Found Out!
A brand-new study — published this week in the Journal of Animal Ecology — just revealed something remarkable about bumble bee colonies: they function as living thermostats, maintaining their brood at...