On 3 May 2007 15:34:46 -0700, mleblanca wrote:

On May 2, 12:53 pm, John Bachman
wrote:

My beekeeping friend tells me that there are no "native" bees. The
only ones in the wild are those who have swarmed and escaped from the
beekeepers.
I'm sorry but your friend is mistaken.
There are not only native bees, but lots of them! Calif is estimated
to have
about 1500 species of native bees.There are from 3500-4000 species in
the
US. (Fremontia vol 30 July-Oct 2002)
These are not the domesticated "honey bee" which was imported several
hundred years ago from Europe; they are not "native" bees.

The mite problem a few years ago wiped out all wild bees.
Some places it wiped out honey bees, Apis mellifera, but there are
wild colonies of honey bees still to be found here in No Calif. There
was
an article in our newspaper this past week about a family with a swarm
of
honey bees in their front yard.

I suspect, but do not know for sure, that the escaped bees are also
subject to same problems as their sisters still in capitivity by the
beekeepers.
Escaped or Feral honey bees can have the same problem mainly
from the fact that they are colony forming. Most of the native bees
are
solitary, and do not form colonies.

Some of the common native bees are Bumblebees, Carpenter
bees, Sweat bees, Leafcutter bees, Mason, and Orchard bees.
Many people have heard of these. One other that I see here is
a Burrowing bee.

The sources given by Travis are really good ones, Check them out
Emilie
I should have been more concise. I am in NH and the "wild" bees here
were certainly wiped out by the mite problem. That may not have been
true in other parts of the country and it appears that California has
a thriving wild population.

John