May 13, 2026 · 28 min · 11 segments
Jackie Canterbury recently explored honey bees and became familiar with their remarkable social behavior and complex colonies. Today, she turns to Washington's native bees with photographer and bee…
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How many native bee species do we have here in Washington State? Is it about 500, 600?
But across, uh, North America, there's 3,600 native bees and about 20,000 worldwide.
So there's, uh, only about 10% of the native bees worldwide are social, like, are, like honey bee- honey bees and bumble bees.
They are building nests and provisioning their offspring all on their own, and they live really quiet, unassuming lives, which is why I find them so fascinating to photograph.
So what you're saying then, are honey bees are very different than native bees.
And so there, there are bumble bees that are native that are also used in agriculture, and there's also managed species of, uh, native bees like leaf cutter bees that are also-
Well, I, I know that they use bumble bees for greenhouses, for pollination in greenhouses, but that does, I'm not sure if they use any of the native bumble bees here in Washington for that.
There is a concern when they introduce non-native species from a different region, like-
How many native bee species do we have here in Washington State? Is it about 500, 600?
But across, uh, North America, there's 3,600 native bees and about 20,000 worldwide.
So there's, uh, only about 10% of the native bees worldwide are social, like, are, like honey bee- honey bees and bumble bees.
They are building nests and provisioning their offspring all on their own, and they live really quiet, unassuming lives, which is why I find them so fascinating to photograph.
So what you're saying then, are honey bees are very different than native bees.
And so there, there are bumble bees that are native that are also used in agriculture, and there's also managed species of, uh, native bees like leaf cutter bees that are also-
Well, I, I know that they use bumble bees for greenhouses, for pollination in greenhouses, but that does, I'm not sure if they use any of the native bumble bees here in Washington for that.
There is a concern when they introduce non-native species from a different region, like-
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