Over 4,000 native bee species exist in North America; most are solitary, declining and overlooked in favour of honey bees, yet their welfare and ecological roles are equally important.
Solitary bees provisioning nests with pesticide-contaminated pollen produce larvae that develop abnormally or die before emergence. Ground-nesting species cannot nest in compacted or treated soil. Female solitary bees working alone to provision multiple nests across their short adult lives face exhaustion if foraging areas are distant from nest sites. The welfare of individual solitary bees, while less dramatic than colony-level impacts on social species, is significant given their ecological importance and sentience.