Great video, and such an important topic. It’s not just bees, insects in general are sadly seeing a huge decline in numbers and diversity. Thankfully, if we make the right changes, the insect populations will likely bounce back almost immediately, since they reproduce so rapidly and are such well adapted organisms.

Couldn't agree more and I'm a beekeeper. Keeping honey bees is like keeping chickens to save wild birds.

I'm really glad you guys made this. I've been studying bees and wasps independently for some time and I think it's important that people know that honeybees are invasive. In October, when I heard the American Bumblebee disappeared from 8+ states, that's what I cared about most. Bumblebee keeping is actually becoming a valid form of beekeeping, despite not being profitable and I really like that.

This is such important information. It saddens me that the majority of people don’t know about this, and are only focused on the honey bees. As a person who loves zoology, biology and animals in general, the extinction/endangerment of these species and many more breaks my heart. I hope we’ll take the necessary steps in saving these precious animals.

Planting “bee friendly” plants in my yard has given myriad species of pollinators a new place to forage. The variety of bees and wasps now visiting is astounding.

Remove the "mandatory" lawns from ALL home-owner associations as one way to support the wild bees.

I used to be afraid of bees and wasps. Now I consider myself luck to have so many bee and wasp visitors to my little green oasis in the city. My mind boggles and my heart warms that I have gotten to meet the littlest of the bees, the biggest bumbles and a mutlitude of surprisingly reasonable wasps.

my parents started a pollinator garden at their old house. almost the entire side yard was taken up by it, and the people they sold it to loved it, so hopefully they will continue it.

In a local wild park, an amateur entomologist called my attention to "blue bees" that were pollinating some blooming wildflowers that were...blue of course. I think we don't notice wild bees since most of them don't live as colonies. I'm also a fan of leaf-cutter bees for the perfectly round patterns they cut in young tree leaves to make their nests! (commenting from Japan)

I always thought: What difference does my tiny garden make? Then I put up one of those bee hotels, and wild bees started to come to our garden. We added more bee hotels, left "wild corners" in the garden, put in a tiny pond and started planting insect friendly plants (native to our region) and now we have loads of different species. There is a noticeable difference. This year we had a small hornets nest. I'm terribly scared of wasps and was scared when I saw the hornets but they totally left us in peace. But we didn't have a wasp problem this year because the hornets scare them off. :-D Also, I learned a bit about wasps and saw we had a lot of solitary ones that are not as aggressive as the standard variety that forms hives. I left out small dishes with water for insects to drink from in hot summers and they were visited by a large number of solitary wasps. Scared the hell out of me at first but now I got to know them better and they are not aggressive and will leave you alone. It's basically only two varieties of wasps here in the region that will pester you. And they are indiscriminate when it comes to food sources. They will eat human food and become aggressive and annoying. I'm no expert but I have the feeling that those varieties will thrive because they are more versatile and the wild ones will decline. A bit like birds in big cities where only sparrows and pidgeons stand a chance up to the point where they become pests. It is absolutely worthwhile to make your garden a wildlife habitat. There is so much to see in our garden now. We have a wide variety of birds coming to bathe in our pond, we have lots of different butterflies, bees, bumble bees, hover flies, even dragonflies. We have small bats, beetles, etc. And the ground is full of earthworms here, which is a good sign as far as I know. I absolutely love my wild garden and the wild bee population increases with every year. We had to put up a new bee hotel this year. :-D

I’m glad I found this video! I took a biology class back in college taught by an extremely knowledgeable archaeologist. He was the first to tell me people are worried about the wrong bees. This was around 8-ish years ago, and I’ve been trying to warn people since, but I’m not very good at communicating the problem. Now I have something I can link them to so they can better understand what I’m talking about. Thank you for all your hard work and research!

I have spent the last few years trying to convince anybody who will listen. I noticed the wild bees were out pollinating our home orchard long before we ever saw honey bees. I planted food crops for the wild bees and severely limited pesticide use. As a result, we now have a healthy ecosystem of bees, wasps, flies, and beetles. Bees are not the only pollinators. My fav 3 are: Megachile perihirta, Sphex ichneumoneus, and Agapostemon virescens. I live in PNW. 0:48 Those are calendula flowers, and wild bees love them. They love most members of the family Asteraceae. It includes calendula, aster, cosmos, daisy, marigold, sunflower, and many others. They also love crocus, willow, pussywillow, cane berries, sedum succulents, open-faced dahlias, lavender, mint, lemon balm, catnip, sage, rosemary, foxglove, mint, thyme, basil, weigela, laurel, privet, bee balm, cactus, and dandelion. For most wild bees, the pollen is more important than the nectar because they do not produce honey or comb. The trick is to plant a variety, so that there is always a useful plant in bloom.

I am so glad I'm seeing this, many people don't realise that honeybees aren't the only bees and aren't the only pollinators

I was at an agricultural conference a few years ago where a guy was talking about how we didn't need to worry about saving the bees since honey bees are doing better than ever. During the Q&A I asked him about native and wild bees and he admitted to not knowing about them. I think more farmers need resources outside of the pesticide companies that have basically taken over. It was pretty clear no one there had realized that the problem went beyond cultivated species.

I have an isolated field of spontaneous wild flowers up at 1200m. Several years ago I filmed the flowers from ground level. I was stunned by the variety and wealth of insects. Not a single industrial bee to be seen. Then a couple of years ago a neighbour brought in half a dozen industrial hives a mile or so away. For the last two years you can only now see industrial honey bees, hundreds of them. I started looking for information about this and this is sadly one of the very few videos on this topic to be found. A very informative and important video.

Extremely important information. My neighbour just picked up beekeeping (without adding any flowering plants to feed them to his garden) and I already thought that this may be very bad news for the (sadly, few) surviving wild pollinators in the area. But now I know for sure. Thanks for the film. I hope many people will see it, understand the danger and ACT!

I love the bumblebees. They’re so cute and fuzzy. I once was able to pet one because it fell asleep in a flower.

as a bee keeper Ive said this to anyone who would listen to me, its scary how much we are loosing and everyone is trying to fix the wrong problem

Would love an episode to learn more about wild bees on how we can help them thrive.

This video educated me so much. It just further emphasizes how critical native plant species are for our environment. I can’t wait to learn more from you guys!

Thank you! People were making a big deal about honey bees, but don't care at all for native pollinators. I am most concerned with endemic species surviving.

It's almost like nature's telling us that monoculture isn't the way to go

I think diversity of wild flowers also lowered, because of more technologically advanced farming. I remember often playing in meadows as a child and it was full of migrated crops, like lucernes and clovers, etc. As the farming style has changed, the amount of the flowers seem to be much lower too and there's much more tall, invasive species, as the land is not mowed or grazed as regularly, as it should be.

I was prepping a garden bed last week for my outdoors tomatoes and was sooo happy to find that there's a colony of bumble bees moved in to the end of the bed. It's worth dropping a couple of plants and leaving the weeds there just for the bees. Saves me having to use a toothbrush on the tomato flowers.

I’ve been co existing with a bumble bee hive under my porch. I even save the ones that get stuck inside my porch. They’ve NEVER EVER stung me once. It’s insane. Theyll be buzzing around my front door, and if I just walk in they don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. Crazy how docile they can be if you are too!

This is information that needs desperately needs traction..........

I always thought about this. Everyone talks about honeybees and saving them but I always wondered about how we're using them, of course usually for profit in some way, but I wondered a lot more about other pollinators, specifically other species of bees and wild bees. I didn't even know that certain bees were suited better to certain plants, though it definitely makes sense.

I have a 12 acre farm, of which I planted 2 acres of clover. I do keep honeybees but I have seen a huge increase in the number of bumblebees since the clover grew in. They can live in harmony.

I was so grossly misinformed regarding the bee problem; thank you so much for this!

Simply put, biodiversity and bee hotels. After moving towns, I'm finally in a spot where I see wild bees visiting mine. I'm glad there's growing awareness!

You can notice in the quality of fruits and vegetables. As a kid I remember fruits and vegetables being bigger ,tastier and more colorful.

Sobering. It is so easy to focus on what we want and not what is best for our planet. Thank you for changing my perspective.

I used to have wood-boring bees at an old house. They didn’t ever bore into the house, but they did bore into the pieces of driftwood my dad would bring home and use to carve or support plants. I loved those bees.

I have a relatively small garden, a good portion of it is patio. The part that is patio has all kinds of flowers in planters on it and the rest is covered in salad and veg. I've noticed that I get about 10 different types of bees in the garden, rarely see a honey bee, they all seem to have their own favorite flower. This video has explained why.

Thanks so much. Used this in my class, inspired us so we're building wildbee "resources" now in our environment.

This has motivated me even more to finish my garden project! I’m hoping to have a variety of plants throughout my back yard I know it’ll take time but I’m glad I was educated on this topic today.

When I lived in a house I had solitary Mason Bees set up nests in old drill holes where the sun warmed the bricks. Everyone told me to spray, I just left them, even planted some bee friendly native plants. It was fascinating to watch them, never bothered anyone.

Super glad that I didn't intrude on a couple of solitary leafcutter bees that were nesting in old screw holes in the wall at my home. I realised they have a really docile nature after I researched them and got to know them. They sealed the nests over now with chewed leaves ready for next years offspring to emerge.

This was an extremely informative video for me. Makes me wonder what the orchardists around here use to pollinate, considering I live near the apple capital of the world. This also makes me reconsider what I'm planting to be a help to native pollinators in the area. Thank you so much for sharing this!

I have always had a fascination with bees but had no idea of this problem with wild bees disappearing. Amazing insights. Thank you.

The apple tree bee is also way fluffier than the honeybee. Save our fluffy bees from extinction. Also save non fluffy bees too. You might attract some butterflies and pretty moths in the process if you're planting flowers for them to sip on.

YES. My family’s business is bee keeping and we have been saying this for years! Save native pollinators- not just honey bees!

I myself have noticed a variety of different species here in Georgia USA. There’s one bee that looks a lot like a honey bee but isn’t. It’s called a mason bee. They’re great pollinators, but you’ll see them a lot in mud pits. They almost never sting people. Pretty much harmless.

I can't believe I got the wrong idea of what save the bees meant for so much time. Now if there's anything more that we can do apart from what was mentioned I'd love to know

Thanks for sharing this valuable information. Here in Japan we are observing the same problem: every year we’re observing less pollinators and the use of pesticides is excessive. It would be great to add captions in many languages to reach more people around the globe.

This should be everywhere! We should be learning about what bees, wasps and hornets are native to our areas of the world and how we can protect them. Happy planting everyone! 🌱

Pollinators play a crucial role in the ecosystem by facilitating the process of pollination, which is essential for the reproduction of plants. Pollinators are animals that transfer pollen from the male to the female part of a flower, allowing the fertilization process to take place. Some common pollinators include bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats. While pollinators are a diverse group of animals, they all share the common task of helping to ensure that plants can produce fruits, seeds, and new generations of plants. The importance of pollinators can be seen in the impact that they have on agriculture. Many of the crops that are grown for human consumption, such as fruits, vegetables, and nuts, rely on pollinators to produce their yields. Without pollinators, the yields of some crops could be severely diminished, leading to food shortages and increased food prices. In fact, it has been estimated that the value of pollinators to global food production is around $235 billion per year. However, the populations of many pollinators are currently under threat. Climate change, habitat loss, pesticide use, and disease are all factors that are contributing to declining populations of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. This is a cause for concern, as the loss of pollinators could have serious consequences for both the environment and human wellbeing. There are several steps that can be taken to support and protect pollinators. One such step is to increase the availability of suitable habitats, such as wildflower meadows, hedgerows, and other natural areas. Planting native flowering plants in gardens and green spaces can also be beneficial. Additionally, minimizing pesticide use and promoting sustainable agriculture practices can help to protect pollinators from harm. In conclusion, pollinators are important animals that play a critical role in maintaining the health and diversity of ecosystems. Despite their importance, many pollinator populations are in decline, highlighting the need for action to protect and support these animals. By taking steps to promote habitat restoration and reduce pesticide use, we can help to ensure that pollinators continue to thrive and that the essential process of pollination can continue.

How about a quick follow-up video detailing more things people can do to help 🐝🌺 This was only briefly covered at 7:32 Great video and glad to see there have been so many views!!

Interesting fact that people often overlook is how great Flies are for pollination, even in this video some of the footage was infact of Bee mimicking Hoverflies. Many species of Fly will be active at lower temperatures than Bees, extending pollination time throughout the day/into cold seasons. In fact, within the colder regions on Earth where Bees have a hard time surviving, Flies are the dominant pollinators.

Wow this was very informative. I had the complete wrong picture in my head. Thank you for this, I am planning on starting my own little garden in my yard so I will now be sure to use native species of plants and logs with holes in them. Again, incredible video ❤️

How scary is this... I just thought for the first time in my life TODAY "are we being lied to? Are we saving the wrong bees, by design?" .... Then this video pops up in my feed!!!! I thought it!!! Never told anyone!

THANK YOU for making this!!! This is a hugggge issue that SO many aren't aware of! Share the hell outta this, everyone.♡🙌🌻🐝

If it wasn't for the honey bee, farmers wouldn't have realized that their pesticides were killing insects they desire.

Wild bees and other pollinating insects deserve conservation on a global scale, they help us make our food for crying out loud!

Thank you for addressing this misunderstanding. We need more protection of insects and one of the best ways you can do this is incorporate native plants to replace grass or turf

the part about bees having different specialisations was interesting to find out! i've noticed that raspberries and cucumbers in my family's garden are frequented by two different types of bees - never knew there's a reason!

Nice, I'm proud of having a black Mayan honeycomb in my backyard all we did was to put flowers from this region and they proliferate like crazy

Thank you for spreading this word! I can't tell you how many times I've been attacked when I've posted actual data about the number of honeybee hives, trying to answer people who in all innocence have believed that they were catastrophically decreasing. With over 2 million views, this video has done infinitely more to educate people than any of us could ever do ourselves!

I'm commenting because I want this video to help correct the misinformation out there! Thanks for sharing this. I didn't know there were so many species of wild bees. It makes sense that they are specialized to all the different plants.

I had no idea of such an immense diversity of bees. And I hope we can do something about this problem before it continues its devastating destructive path.

My neighbors give me a hard time about my yard because its not all trimmed and neat but i get so many bugs and birds in my yard. An old unused shed in the back is home to many large bumble bees and the number of fireflys is amazing

Thank you! Most people don't know about bachelor bees, they made up something like 98% of North American bees. They typically live underground so any time we till the soil, they all lose their homes. When we cut our grass, we suck them up. I've never understood the fascination with the honey bees while ignoring the bachelor bees. Bachelors are native, the honey bees aren't. Bachelors also tend to sting less because they aren't defending a queen and colony.

Thank you for informing the public about the wild bees. I didn’t know that there were over 20k species of bees including the honey bees.

Thank you so much for this documentation! This is such an important information! I hope that it finally spreads to all people.

By leaving some short tree snags, some stacks of old firewood, down trees, some straw bales on our properties one creates habitat for the myriad of pollinators. Does not take much effort. The pursuit of "tidiness" can eliminate habitat.

This summer I decided to use my empty backyard for good and start planting some flowers, and it's been amazing to see how many bumble bees show up :)

For my fellow Brits: Hawthorns are amazing for a wide variety of native life in the UK. Insects, birds and bats all love it. Highly recommend you plant two or three in your garden if you have the room!!

Good video and very informative: In Brazil we do have many kind of native bees like Melipona scutellaris, Melipona quadrifasciata, Melipona fasciculata, Melipona rufiventris, Nannotrigona testaceicornis , Tetragonisca angustula and many more, very important in the fruit pollination and honey producing.

For about five years we let most of the lawn in our garden grow wild instead of mowing it. By now there are so many different wildflowers in addition to our veggies and fruits and they all attract different types of bees. This year we had two couples of black carpenter bees. I didn't even know those excited.

We have bee plant and there are sooo many bees in my backyard, I like bumblebees the most. Since there just so fluffy and they are very friendly you can even touch one if you're careful enough. normally around this time of year there are a lot of yellow jackets in our garden, but now it's just these beautiful bees.

this is absolutely correct and I am a bee keeper. I have no idea how many different pollinators are on my small 48 acres but is a vast amount. multiple bumble bee types. many sweat bee types. corn flies. tiny bees. tiny flies. many types of butterflies and moths. I am blessed to be 3 miles from the closest commercial agriculture. I garden as organically as possible and try to be 100 percent pests control free meaning we don't use anything for insects nor remove by hand unless being devastated in crop damage which doesn't really happen after a few years. by providing buffer zones of wild flowers around each plot we provide areas for insects where predator insects and herbivore insects can maintain balance. we also monitor the wild pollinators to assure we aren't putting too many honey bees into circulation. only bushhog very early Spring and late fall before and after wildflowers bloom. one thing I don't have is monarch butterflies even though we have rescued many caterpillars from developments that were being bulldozed and put them on our milkweed. Don't understand why but is fact. we must as a society end our infatuation with golf course type lawns and allow diversity of native plants. we must each allow a small wild place in our lawns. we must educate ourselves because when the wild pollinators dissappear honey bees will not save us. my honeybees are for me to have honey and therapy as I love them. I don't have delusions that somehow honeybees are required for pollination.

I have lots of bumbles, carpenters, sweat, and a just handful of honey bees in my yard. Every year I grow lots of veg plants with the flowers they love, and perennials thru the growing season. They love the huge patch of coneflowers and mint. I'm slowly making the entire yard into a garden both annual and perennial. I'd like to make it where there's little to no grass to cut.

So I started to cut the grass today and the clover flowers were loaded with honey bees so I left it.

I'm from Chile. I remember being a child, playing hide and seek in my grandma's farm and found orange bumblebees (Bombus dahlbomii, one of the biggest bumblebee in the world), at first I was scared AF, that thing is huge. But then I realized they were harmless, even friendly (at least that's what 10y/o me thought). Few months after, a colony of yellow jacket settled in, I never saw the orange bees again. It's been ten years I guess, and I have not seen a Bombus dahlbomii since, I've been through multiple national parks in my country, multiple farms, different places. Not a single one. My friend which is a few years older than me saw ONE last year, she was so happy. The Bombus dahlbomii is in extinction risk due to the introduction of the European bumblebee, which is sad, different organizations had asked the government to stop the importation of honey bees and they don't listen.

This is great but wish the government would stop trying to stop us from growing gardens for those wild bees.

I keep a small piece of yard with wild flowers native to my state and the wild bees were out yesterday and I have seen the squash bee in my garden. I have been growing wild flowers for years and I’m so glad because allowing milk weeds growup is good for your garden when the wild flowers are on side of the yard and the milk weeds on the other side. The garden is content because everything loves the wild bees the wild flowers and the garden foods.

One point I wish you would make at the end of the video is about cleaning the bee houses. A lot of people don't know that the little bumble bee or carpenter bee houses with the drilled wood or bamboo needs to be cleaned once a year to avoid pests and diseases from flourishing thus harming the bees you want to save. Also a lot of bees nest in the ground and as a result mass grading development, insensitive lawn care, and pesticides harm those bees alongside cicadas and lightning bugs.

....I never actually considered wild bees, and didn't know honeybees were such a threat. I will definitely pass this along, and see what I can do to support them more. Thank you!

As always, the people talking the loudest about a topic on social media are dead wrong about the topic. Thanks for the REAL science here!

We can thank the newspaper corporations for a big part of the problem. It's good that they report about the problem. But EVERY single article comes with a stock photo of a honey bee or a honey bee hive. Can we really bee surprised that so many humans have the wrong idea buzzing through their heads?

I spotted a blue carpenter bee last year in a dead tree in my garden. This year I have two of the same species nesting in the tree. They look like huge black and blue bumblebees and are pretty cute. I also once spotted 4 sleeping bees in a flower and googled and could find out that sometimes very young bees sleep together in one flower, how fascinating!

I just bought bee food and a bee feeder today for the bees that live under my garage concrete for the last 3 years. I call it the "Oh Bee-have Diner". Haha

Native bees should be the focus of preservation efforts. Though it's true that how honeybees are faring will give an indicator how well other, native, wild bees are doing in their respective habitats. But we're not most dependent upon the honeybees, but on native, wild bees. They are the key to our survival. They deserve our protection for preservation. 🐝

The close up images of the bees did make them look so cute. They were so fluffy looking.

People helping out bees is really good, but it sounds like we need more systemic solutions. Maybe regulation and programs to fight these problems on an industrial level.

At my grandparents house in Idaho, they have some bumble bees that are absolutely humongous, almost a full inch and a half long. So far they’ve held strong for the past 10 years, and hopefully it stays that way.

I had completely forgotten about the other species, thank you for this informative reawakening

This is a great educational article about a most important wildlife that is quite hidden in plain sight.

Tell people coffee beans won't grow, see how fast we change 😏

2 weeks ago when I was looking for the plants in my garden I saw a huge black bumblebee-kind of Bee. I didn't knew what it was but in this video their was a brief shot of it so I Googled it. Turned out it was a blue wood bee. I didn't knew about the Different wild bees and now I am fascinated ☺️ (greetings from Germany)

Farmers: Use a fuck ton of pesticides Also farmers: WHY ARENT OUR CROPS GROWING

Thanks for this important video... AND the reminder to ask local wildlife conservation how to best do our garden when we finally get it :)

Under my brutal totalitarian regime, bees of all species will be conserved.

Thankfully my landlady let's her whole backyard go wild. So its full of hundreds if not thousands of pollinators every day. Many ppl wish to do this, but often city's have arbitrary by-laws about not cutting grass or letting a yard go.

Great topic, thanks! I live in England, and we're cultivating a plot on an allotment, we are growing herbs and other plants such as corn and squash which they love. Even at home, we grow nasturtiums and budliea ( although they're invasive) Bees like them,too.

I’m still keeping my honey bees. They may not be the best pollinators but it’s better than the bee-less field it used to be. Now I have all sorts of wild flowers growing here

I'm doing my Bachelor thesis on a related topic, and this is exactly what most people get wrong. With the rise of commercial reared bumblebees, the problem is only expected to expand. Especially in South America, bombus terrestris ( the European bumblebee) is driving the native bumblebees to extinctions.

I've always loved bumblebees. I take care of all the ones I can, at least. Making sure there are plats with flowers in colors that are easy for them to see and feeding them when they're sluggish or dying, and stuff. They're my little friends.

I remember as a kids I was thinking that we didn't have a Honey Bee situation as I saw plenty of bees. Problem was, the bees I saw were Bumble Bees but back then, I didn't know they were completely different to Honey Bees.

Finally, finally someone brings up an idea I had decades ago. And why I will NOT have honeybees.