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Secrets of the Hive – Smithsonian Channel

This Bee Works 50 Times Harder Than the Honey Bee

Using blue orchard bees to pollinate crops is an idea with a lot of promise. For one thing, they visit 50 times more flowers than honey bees (1:55)

Honeybees are in a crisis. Every year we lose about a third of these endangered creatures, which we rely on to pollinate most of the world’s daily food. But as farmers face devastating losses, scientists are finding hope in the huge and barely tapped world of the 20,000 species of wild bees. These are the innovative methods and unusual experiments biologists are working on in their race to end this global calamity and devastating losses.