Bees are a familiar presence in both wild and agricultural landscapes.  For many of us, they also serve as emissaries, bringing remembrance of the natural world into the urban and suburban spaces where we spend our time.  I have spent more than a decade looking for bees in the liminal spaces and transitional places that grow around the edges of our world, and I think that those ill-defined landscapes play an important but underappreciated role in the persistence of pollinator communities.  In this talk, I will place those spaces in context and tell some stories about the bees that live there.

NOTE: an earlier version of this talk was presented to a live audience at Science On Tap. While I regret that the spirit of the original venue cannot be recreated for an online event, I am assured that consumption of alcohol should not be necessary to understand or even…