h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is very a propos of your suiggestion, Hoo

http://bunewsservice.com/urban-beekeeping-boston/

I see honeybees in my flowers regularly now. I think I may even know who the local beekeeper is: he (or she) has trained apple trees to hug the fence around his yard. The apples are always impeccable in quality every Fall. Whoever it is knows how to help his trees thrive. Pollinators would be a pretty good complement to that.

My yard is small, but I have dozens of bee-friendly flowers, most of them native. I saw some Monarch butterflies last Summer. I planted more than a dozen milkweed plants this year. Four different species of them. I have Swamp Milkweeds growing under my eaves, where they get watered from rainwater falling off my roof. And, yes, the local bees love the blossoms.

Today I took a close look at my flowering loquat tree, specifically I was looking for bees. I saw several honeybees but I also noticed some smaller insects. A closer look led me to believe they were some variation of sweat bees. They were quite cute with a complicated yellow/black pattern on their abdomens.

Good call!

There are swarms of very small bees around many of our flowering shrubs in the late Spring.

One thing I admire about bees is that they have good manners. If another bee is on a particular blossom, the other bees visit other blossoms or wait their turn.