A blue orchard bee’s nest, built inside a straw, looks like a piece of jewelry. (Josh Cassidy/KQED) When the eggs hatch inside the nest, a white larva in each chamber spends three weeks fattening up ...

A female blue orchard bee is a multitasking master. Her beautiful nests help food grow. Pollinator. Mason. Jeweler. A female blue orchard bee is a multitasking master. She fashions exquisite nests ...

Perhaps the best known and most useful of these is the blue orchard bee, which is adorably referred to by the USDA and others as BOB. Haha. Hello, BOB! Blue orchard bees are very, very different from ...

The blue orchard bee, also known as the orchard mason bee, is one of 3,000 bee species native to the U.S. and is currently the subject of intensive study by the USDA's Pollinating Insect Biology, ...

Carrie Underwood has revealed a recent frightening encounter on her Nashville -area farm that forced her to temporarily flee ...

Farmers are turning to other types of bees — like the blue orchard bee, the bumblebee and alfalfa leafcutter — that have proved to be effective pollinators of some crops in certain settings.

The honey bee population decreased 40% in the winter of 2018 to 2019 alone, ... An orchard worker unloads a bag of pears in Hood River, Ore., on Aug. 13, 2021. Michael Hanson/AFP via Getty Images.

Hunter says there is also an "only one bee mentality, and this is helping create the pollination mess we find ourselves in today." Mason bees are among the 4,000 types of bees native to the U.S.

ORCHARD IN FORT CALHOUN. QUANECIA: WHATEVER YOUR TASTE IN APPLES IS, YOU’LL PROBABLY FIND IT IN ONE OF THE 10 CHOICES AT SUPER BEE ORCHARD -- AT SUPER BEE ORCHARD. >> WE’VE GOT JONATHAN, WE ...

Enter the blue orchard bee. "This is, I think, the moment for these bees to shine," says entomologist Natalie Boyle, who studies blue orchard bees at the USDA in Logan, Utah.. Boyle works with ...

Research shows that 400 female blue orchard bees are as effective at pollinating almonds as the more than 10,000 bees in a honeybee hive. But they reproduce slowly and are prone to wandering.