There's a bee that makes polyester. Not metaphorically — an actual transparent, waterproof, antimicrobial film that she paints onto the walls of her underground brood cells with a forked tongue.

Chemists have identified the compounds. Industry wants the material for biodegradable packaging. Nobody has been able to reproduce it.

This week: the cellophane bees of the genus Colletes, the Dufour's gland secretions they polymerize into natural cling wrap, how to spot a nesting aggregation, and why the low cloud of bees hovering over a bare patch of lawn in early spring is one of the most misunderstood sights in North American nature.

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