Massachusetts’ native pollinators include 400 species of bees, 3000 species of moths, and 120 species of butterflies as well as hover flies, beetles, and hummingbirds. For millennia, these native species performed all the pollination on this continent. The National Park Service explains how pollinators function:

“A pollinator is anything that helps carry pollen from the male part of the flower (stamen) to the female part of the same or another flower (stigma). The movement of pollen must occur for the plant to become fertilized and produce fruits, seeds, and young plants. Some plants are self-pollinating, while others may be fertilized by pollen carried by wind or water. Still other flowers are pollinated by insects and animals – such as bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, birds, flies and small mammals, including bats.

Insects and other animals such as bats, beetles, and flies visit flowers in search of food, shelter, nest-building materials, and sometimes even mates. Some pollinators, including many bee species, intentionally collect pollen. Others, such as butterflies, birds and bats move pollen accidentally. Pollen sticks on their bodies while they are drinking or feeding on nectar in the flower blooms and is transported unknowingly from flower to flower resulting in pollination.” (From National Park Service Page “What is a Pollinator?”, 3/12/25)

Although the non-native honeybee is widely known and often assumed to be the primary means of pollinating all fruit and vegetable plants, native pollinators are essential for much of the food we eat and for supporting all of our native ecosystems. Honeybees only arrived in the 1600s when European settlers brought them, and have not evolved to become part of the ecosystem. 

Our native pollinators are superstars. Without them, our ecosystems cannot function.