The Buzz on Wild Bees – Lisa Connors

I’m in love with the tiny wild bees I’ve encountered over the years here at Halcyon. I even illustrated a set of notecards so that people would come to appreciate them as much or even more than the introduced honey bee. So, I was delighted to find The Buzz on Wild Bees: The Little-Known Pollinators that Keep Our Planet Humming by Kira Vermond and illustrated by June Steube (Owlkids Books, 2025) at my local library this week. Did you know that there are 20,000 species of bees on Earth? Of those:

 Seven species are honeybees,  250 species are bumblebees and 550 are stingless bee species. These are the social bees.

All the rest – 90 % of all bees on the planet are wild solitary bees! They are the bees featured in this book. It’s a fun read with small snarky bees commenting on the narrator’s facts, lots of good scientific information, and engaging illustrations.

The Buzz on Wild Bees is a book for older young readers or to be shared slowly with a younger young reader. This is doable because it is broken down into 12 sections with each section being one to two full spreads. Readers will learn about bee anatomy, where wild bees live, kinds of wild bees, why they are important, the dangers they face, and how to help them. The end pages are illustrated with 21 different wild bees with the beginning end pages unlabeled and the ending pages labeled. For US readers, please note that not all the bees on the end pages or described in the book are found here. I think that could be a fun exercise for a budding entomologist to research and find out which species are found in the US, or North America.

The Buzz on Wild Bees is a wonderful book that I hope you will check out. Maybe you’ll even be inspired to BEE a part of the solution with some of the ideas suggested at the end of the book.