The US olive oil market is worth nearly three billion dollars — and 95 percent of it is imported. But across seven American states, a small, quality-focused domestic industry is growing. And native bees, without invitation or management, are showing up in those groves every spring and doing something that a landmark 2013 study in Science confirmed: improving crop fruit set in ways that honey bees alone cannot match.

Episode 41 follows olive trees from California's Central Valley to Georgia's coastal plain, and the native bee communities — mining bees, sweat bees, carpenter bees — that found them.

Secret Pollinators is a solo narration science podcast about native and wild bees and the lesser-known pollinators shaping the world around us.

www.secretpollinators.com

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