Honeybees are well known for being psychic computer engineers; everyone knows honeybees can compute and predict the future. Everyone is ALSO always being like "oh support beekeepers, without them nothing would ever get pollinated! They'll save the environment!" Listen up. Don't disrespect native bees like that ever again.
Carpenter bees. Their bewitching myriad drone in early spring is enough to strike unease into the strongest heart. When chewing through your shit they sound like miniature handheld drills, and they can be seen aggressively wrestling during nesting season. A truly awful creature who nonetheless does her part pollinating open-faced and shallow flowers with her shorter mouthparts.
Sweat bees. Sweat bee doesn't discriminate between flowers. Wildflowers and crops, she pollinates them all. And often she has a coat of iridiscent blue or green! Truly, is there any more upstanding citizen?
Masked bees. Because they are not hairy they must carry pollen gently inside themselves, like a human baby in a pelican's mouth! No, safer than that. I think their little faces are very charming.
Leafcutter bees. Solitary bees who line their nests with cut sections of leaves to keep baby's food moist and tasty, like a good chocolate cake. They carry pollen on their abdomens rather than their legs and are cultivated specifically for agricultural pollination! I salute you, ladies.
Wool-carder bees scrape the wool off of leaves like lamb's ear and foxglove to build a soft nest. They are territorial and will wrestle bees much larger than themselves to maintain a hold on their floral turf. Have you ever seen bees wrestling? It's really the only word that accurately describes what they do.
Squash bees. Along with blueberry bees, a group who have designed themselves to pollinate a specific type of flower: in this case Cucurbita! VERY important for squash pollination, and they like to nest in squash blossoms... There are a lot of them right now at the local high school where squash is growing, perhaps accidentally, on the former location of the compost pile. Bees who prefer a single very specific type of flower are known as oligolects! I think this is extremely cute because it means "reads a special few" flowers. They read them...
Once at the botanical garden I saw a colony of very small bees nesting somewhere on a river... I cherish this moment but I cannot find out who they were. I hope they are doing well this year.
In conclusion, native bees do so much, so much for this planet--and you've done what? I'm sorry, who are you? Planting native wildflowers and putting up bee hotels? Well, that's all right then.