Bees and the rest of the pollinator crew put food on our tables, keep wild places wild, and ask for almost nothing in return. Here is why they matter, what is happening to them, and the simple things your family can do to help. No hive required.
of the food we eat is pollinated by bees and other pollinators
species of native bees live in the U.S. Honey bees are only one of them
of those species call California home. More than any other state
of native bees nest in the ground, not in a hive
Sources: USDA, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab.
Take the bees away and breakfast gets boring fast.
Every time a bee lands on a flower, it carries a little pollen to the next one. That tiny errand is how apples, almonds, blueberries, avocados, cherries, pumpkins and about a hundred other crops turn into food. Nearly one in three bites we eat depends on a pollinator, and bees do most of that work.
It is not just the produce aisle. Bees pollinate the alfalfa and clover that feed dairy cows, the cotton in your shirt, and the wildflowers and shrubs that hold hillsides together and feed birds through the winter. In California alone, every February, most of the honey bee hives in the country are trucked in just to pollinate the almond bloom. No bees, no almonds. No bees, no guacamole.
Bees are also a quiet report card on the world around us. When bees are healthy, the soil, water and plants near them usually are too. When bees struggle, it is a sign that something bigger is off. That is why we named a wireless company after one.
The honey bee gets the headlines. Thousands of quieter, wilder bees do a huge share of the work, and they have plenty of help.
California poppies, a favorite of native bees
Honey bees are not actually from here. Settlers brought them from Europe in the 1600s. The bees that were already in North America, more than 4,000 species, mostly live alone. A single mom digs a tunnel in bare soil or a hollow stem, stocks it with pollen, lays her eggs and moves on. No hive to defend means almost no reason to sting.
These native bees are often better at their jobs, too. A few hundred mason bees can pollinate an orchard that would take thousands of honey bees. Bumble bees can buzz at just the right pitch to shake pollen out of tomatoes and blueberries, something honey bees cannot do at all.
The rest of the crew. Bees are the stars, but anything that visits a flower and leaves with a dusting of pollen is a pollinator. All of them need the same three things: flowers, no poison, and a safe place to raise their young.
The keepers, the hives, and the crew that keeps the whole thing humming. Tap any photo to see it up close.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons, used under their Creative Commons licenses. Photographers: 1. Skander zarrad, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain · 3. Skander zarrad, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 4. COD Newsroom, CC BY 2.0 · 5. Myrabella, CC BY-SA 3.0 · 6. Gzen92, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 7. Reinhold Möller Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 8. Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 9. Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 10. Andy Morffew from Itchen Abbas, Hampshire, UK, CC BY 2.0 · 11. Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0 · 12. Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 3.0.
There is no single villain. It is four pressures stacking up at once, and most of them trace back to us. That is the good news, because what we put on, we can take back off.
Lawns, parking lots and single crop farms replaced the meadows and hedgerows bees used to feed and nest in. A perfect green lawn is a food desert for a bee.
Some of the most common garden and farm insecticides, like neonicotinoids, soak into the whole plant and show up in the pollen and nectar. Small doses confuse bees. Larger ones kill them.
A mite called Varroa has spread through honey bee hives worldwide, carrying viruses with it. Those viruses now spill over onto wild bumble bees sharing the same flowers.
Flowers are blooming earlier, heat waves are longer, and droughts dry up nectar. Bees wake up hungry and the buffet has already closed. Bumble bees, built for cool weather, are hit hardest.
U.S. beekeepers now lose four in ten of their honey bee colonies in a typical year. Wild bees have no keeper counting them, and the ones scientists do track are faring worse. In 2017 the rusty patched bumble bee became the first bee in the lower 48 states listed as endangered, gone from nearly 90% of the places it used to live.
The people who protect pollinators for a living ask towns and cities to do four things. They all fit in a backyard, a balcony, or a Saturday morning with the kids.
Flowers are food. Aim for a little something in bloom from early spring through fall, and plant in clumps so bees can find them. Native plants win every time. Nursery flowers bred for looks often have no pollen at all.
Most yard pests take care of themselves if you give the ladybugs and lacewings a week. If you must treat something, spot treat it in the evening after bees have gone home, and never spray anything in bloom.
Bees need somewhere to raise the next generation. That means a patch of bare dirt, a few dead stems left standing over winter, a pile of leaves in the corner. Tidy is the enemy here, and that is a relief.
One yard is a snack. A street is a meal. Bees travel a few hundred yards to a couple of miles to forage, so a neighborhood of small bee gardens adds up to real habitat. Ask your kids' school about a pollinator bed. Ask your city if it is a Bee City USA affiliate. Share this page. That last one counts too.
If you are in Southern California, these grow easily, drink very little water, and native bees love them. The full guide has 24, with photos and where to buy.
Our seasons run a little different from the rest of the country. Here is what to plant, and who shows up for it.
Peak bloom, peak bees. California poppy and lupine for the native bees, ceanothus for bumble bees and mason bees, Cleveland sage and penstemon for the hummingbirds.
Keep the buffet open through the heat. California buckwheat feeds tiny native bees and butterflies, narrowleaf milkweed feeds monarchs, sunflowers and lavender keep the bumble bees and honey bees busy.
Best planting season we have. Put natives in before the rains. California fuchsia for hummingbirds, goldenrod and coyote brush for the last bees and butterflies of the year.
Quiet, not empty. Manzanita feeds bumble bee queens and hummingbirds, rosemary carries the honey bees, and golden currant is the first meal of the year for both.
Every plant above, with photos, water needs and a ZIP code nursery finder
We built Ombee around one idea: helping families thrive and bees survive. The families part is scholarships, education and Ombee Deals. The bees part is this. Ombee Mobile contributes 2.5% of our profits to initiatives that protect bees and promote pollinator conservation.
We will be honest about what that means. We are a young company, so today it is a modest number. But it is baked into how we run, not bolted on for a campaign, and it grows every time a family joins. Your monthly payment keeps you connected and helps fund the work you just read about, from habitat to research to pages like this one.
Sign the pledge and we will keep you posted on what to plant, and on where the bee fund goes. A short note now and then, no spam, and you can leave anytime.
You do not need to be an Ombee customer. Bees do not check phone bills.
It is real, but it is two different stories. Honey bees are farmed, so beekeepers replace the colonies they lose, and there are more hives in the world today than there were 20 years ago. Wild bees have no one restocking them, and that is where the losses are: several bumble bee species have vanished from most of their range, and one is federally endangered. So no, bees are not going extinct next year, but the wild ones that do most of the pollinating are in genuine trouble, and the fixes are simple ones.
There is no single cause. Habitat loss took away the flowers and bare ground they need, pesticides poison the ones that are left, parasites and viruses spread through crowded honey bee hives and spill over onto wild bees, and a warming climate throws bloom time and bee time out of sync. Most of those trace back to us, which is the good news, because it means we can undo a lot of it in our own yards.
Bees are fuzzy and eat pollen and nectar. Wasps are smooth and shiny and hunt other insects, which is why yellowjackets show up at your barbecue and bees do not. The stripey thing circling your soda can is almost always a wasp. Bees on flowers are working and could not care less about you.
Almost certainly not. Most native bees are solitary, have no hive to defend, and either cannot sting or almost never do. A bee busy on a flower has no interest in you or your kids or your dog. Watch and let them work, and everyone gets along fine.
Simple, open flowers in clumps, blooming from spring through fall, and native plants whenever you can. In Southern California that means California poppy, ceanothus, sages, buckwheat, penstemon and milkweed, plus easy herbs like lavender and rosemary. Skip the double bloom hybrids, which often have no pollen at all, and ask your nursery for plants that have not been treated with neonicotinoids. See the full plant guide.
Honestly, the safest one is none. If you must treat something, spot treat in the evening after bees have gone home, never spray anything that is flowering, and read the label. Anything ending in "thrin" or containing imidacloprid, clothianidin or thiamethoxam is hard on bees. Soap and water, hand picking, or a hard blast from the hose fix most yard problems if you give the ladybugs a week to help.
That is a swarm, and it is honey bees house hunting. They are full of honey and about as calm as bees get. Keep pets and kids back, do not spray, and search for a local beekeeper or "swarm removal" in your area. Most will come collect them for free and give them a new home. They usually move on within a day or two on their own anyway.
Only if you want a rewarding hobby. Honey bees are farmed animals, and there are plenty of them. The bees in real trouble are the wild ones, and a new hive can actually compete with them for food. If your goal is helping bees, flowers and pesticide free habitat do far more good than a hive. If you want to keep bees anyway, wonderful, just plant more flowers than your hive will eat.
No. Buying honey from a local beekeeper supports someone who keeps flowers and hives in your area, and local honey is usually the good stuff. Just remember that honey does not help wild bees, so it is not a substitute for planting.
Ombee Mobile contributes 2.5% of our profits to initiatives that protect bee populations and promote pollinator conservation, and to raising awareness of the job bees do for all of us. It comes out of profits, so it scales with the company. As the Hive grows, so does what we can give, and we will keep telling you about it plainly, the same way we talk about everything else.
Please. A pollinator bed at a school, a bee corner at a club field, a planter box outside a shop, all of it counts, and kids remember the day they planted it. We are a small team, but we love this stuff and we already work with schools, youth clubs and local partners. Send us a note and let us figure out something together.
Short, practical guides for people who want to actually do something this weekend.
We are a phone company that loves bees, not bee scientists. These folks are the real thing.
Honest wireless on nationwide 5G, no contracts, and 2.5% of our profits working for the bees and pollinators you just read about.
Facts on this page come from the USDA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Xerces Society, the Bee Informed Partnership and UC Berkeley's Urban Bee Lab. Bee populations and colony loss figures change year to year; we round rather than overstate. Planting advice is written for Southern California; check the Calscape link above for your own ZIP code. Last reviewed August 2026.
