Bees
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It is not widely known that honey bees are not native to North America.*  One legend has it that, when the Europeans arrived, there was one natural resource that they could not find anywhere in NA.  If you don't know, you'd never guess: wax.  History records that in 1622, a ship arrived laden with seeds, fruit trees, birds, animals, etc. also included honey bees.  Stories vary if you look them up on the web. After the bees arrived, they brought honey, mead, and wax with them.  It apparently took 231 years for the bees to get to the west coast. Nevertheless, before they arrived, there were bees already providing the essential pollination.  After all, insects and angiosperms (flowering plants) evolved together in the Triassic and have existed co-dependently since.

There are less than a dozen species of honey bee worldwide, but around 4,000 species of bees in NA.  One of the most productive pollinator genus comprises the Mason Bees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_bee).  They are solitary and non-aggressive.  All females are fertile; they mate and nest and lay their eggs in pre-made holes.  The life cycle is such that only a single bee hibernates during the winter, all males die off.  There is thus no need for a hive, with honey production, and the aggressive protection of it.  So I have just acquired two bee houses (not hives) to begin the nurturing of them.  One of my naturalist friends collects them in the fall and stores them safely in a refrigerator during the winter.  They have just begun to emerge for the spring.  We'll see how this project goes.

Gareth Hunt, 04 April 2020

* Honey bees were, however, native in Meso America.  Honey was an important commodity being traded by the pre-Columbian Maya.