There are over 20,000 species of bees on the  planet, and each one is full of surprises.

These bees prove there’s more to  bees than just honey and stingers.

Like, did you know that honeybees turn the pollen  they collect into a special food called bee bread?

Check it out!

Okay, time to head to work.

But before this honeybee starts her  commute, she’s prepping her tools.

Because honeybees collect pollen.

You knew that.

But it’s not as simple as you might think.

Plants want the bees to carry the pollen away and spread it to other flowers.

That’s pollination, how plants reproduce.

But bees also need to carry lots of it home.

Pollen is a protein-packed food for the hive.

Luckily, they have the right gear.

They’re hairy, like tiny flying teddy bears.

She’s covered in 3 million hairs for trapping pollen.

They’re even on her eyes.

Here on her legs, they’re shaped  into spiky brushes ... and flat combs.

When she lands on a bloom,  she really gets in there.

Nibbling on the flower’s  anthers detaches the pollen.

Time to pack up her haul.

She cleans it off her eyes and antennae  with those brushes on her front legs,   like windshield wipers.

Here it is up close.

That leg wipes the pollen right off her eye.

Then she moves the pollen from leg to leg,  like a conveyor belt ... ...front to middle to back.

The bee does this super fast, while she flies from bloom to bloom moving the pollen into special baskets on her back legs called corbiculae.

She bends her leg, using it to squish the pollen into a ball, packing it together  with a little saliva and nectar.

She can get as many as 160,000 pollen grains into each ball.

She’s hauling as much as one-third of her weight.

Back at the hive, meal prep is about to start.

But the pollen isn’t for making honey.

The honey, under this wax, is made from nectar.

They eat it for its sugar.

Bees turn pollen into something  completely different: bee bread.

That’s their source of protein.

Step one: Find an open spot.

Step two: Deposit your  goods and pack them neatly.

Step three: Let the pollen  “marinate” with a hint of honey.

And voilà!

It’s ready.

The pantry is stocked ... both for adult bees and the babies that  are growing in the cells next door.

The adults pop in to drop off a special bee bread snack ... a little home cooking for  the hive’s future hardworking flyers.

Next time you enjoy an ice cream cone,  thank an alfalfa leafcutting bee.

These bees are so tough, they get  punched in the face by flowers.

Okay, this bee seems confused.

That leaf she’s gnawing on is no flower.

But this is an alfalfa leafcutting bee.

She needs hunks of leaves to build her nest.

A lot of them.

All this is her lacy handiwork.

She hauls the pieces back home.

Leafcutters use them to line  the inside of their nest.

In nature, she might use a  nook and cranny in a log.

But here, her nest is in what’s  basically a bee apartment building.

A high-rise made of Styrofoam.

These markings help the bee find  her way back to her personal condo.

You know, like, 7B.

And furnishing it takes a  while, because ... see that pile?

These are the pieces they dropped.

The bees are here to work in this  alfalfa field in California.

They’re from Europe originally, but farmers  here use them because they have a real knack   for pollinating alfalfa flowers ... ... which grow tiny seeds inside these curly pods.

Farmers use the seeds to  plant new fields of alfalfa ... … which is grown to make hay ... … to feed these gals.

So, really, your glass of milk  comes courtesy of these bees.

But pollinating alfalfa flowers  is a lot trickier than it looks.

Even honeybees can’t really hack it.

Here’s why.

Alfalfa keeps its pollen  locked away inside its flowers.

To get it, the bees have to  step on a spring-loaded petal called a keel petal.

Here’s how it works.

Pop!

It releases this column  that has the pollen at the end.

It’s called “tripping” the flower.

Here it is again.

The column has some force.

The bee might get a good thwack in the face.

Leafcutting bees just don’t  care; they can take a punch.

Pop.

Pop.

Honeybees don’t really like to tangle with that.

They’ll usually step around  gingerly, trying to sip nectar   from the side without setting it off.

Leafcutting bees get coated in pollen   and bring it back home to their nest so they can  pack it in there to feed their growing babies.

Each one is bundled in a  little leaf-wrapped bassinet.

Aw, there they are.

The siblings all lined up together.

A new generation of the  toughest little bees around.

Why would these bees be digging into the dirt?

Well, building your nest underground is  a great way to protect it from invaders.

Unless, of course, freeloading  flies torpedo the nest.

Life for bindweed turret  bees is violent and unfair.

It’s spring in California, and these  male bees are in an all-out brawl,   desperate to mate with the female  trapped at the bottom of this pile.

Sometimes the fight is so intense that the  female they’re going after gets crushed to death.

But if she survives ... … she and the winner steal away and mate.

… until another male wants in.

Buzz kill!

Now she starts an epic dig ... prepping a place to lay her eggs underground.

She tirelessly scoops earth with her mandibles,   dousing it with nectar she  collected earlier to soften it.

The majority of the world’s bee species  – 70 percent – nest in the ground.

These ones chose a dirt parking lot.

Some nice folks cordoned  it off to protect the bees.

Females work side by side.

Each is “queen” of her own funky little castle.

They build turrets, but only  some of them are vertical.

Many are tunnel-like, with a sideways entrance.

Others curve down.

You’ll see why that’s important in a bit.

Once the bees are done digging,  they head off on another mission.

They gather pollen from one plant only:  morning glories, also known as bindweeds.

She rubs her shaggy legs all over that pollen.

And down she goes with her haul.

Pollen pants!

Inside her nest, she packs the  pollen into neat balls ... each one in its own chamber ... and lays an egg on top.

When the egg hatches into a larva,  it will live off the pollen.

As she toils ... ... freeloaders show up.

They look like a bee, but  their huge eyes give them away.

They’re called … wait for it … bee flies.

The fly doesn’t dig or  gather pollen for her young.

She just hovers over a bee’s nest and … yup, she’s dropping her own eggs in there.

She’ll drop 200 eggs over her lifetime.

This is where those tunnels  and curved turrets are useful.

They make it harder for the flies  to drop their eggs in from the air.

But when the fly does succeed,   the fly’s egg hatches into a larva that  digs tiny hooks into the bee larva.

As the bee eats the pollen and  grows, the fly larva sucks it dry.

Sometimes the flies are so successful, they  can nearly wipe out a population of bees.

But these bees don’t give up.

Two or three months of mating,   foraging and warding off parasites come to an  end when they seal up their nests with dirt.

Below ground, babies will grow.

The following spring, if the bees are  lucky, a new tiny city will burst to life,   full of bees persevering just as  their mothers did before them.

Bees may be famous for their  sting, but these stingless bees   defend their delicious honey with  barricades, bouncers and bites.

Take a look!

At the break of dawn, in Oaxaca, Mexico,   bees are tearing down the barrier they built  last night to cover their nest entrance.

Another successful night protecting their  honey and babies from thieving ants.

They make this lattice out of a blend  of wax and a potent ant repellent.

More on that later.

They’re not eating the waxy material –  they’re stashing it to reuse tonight.

Just like the honeybees that sweeten your  tea, these honeymakers live in a colony.

But they’re smaller and don’t have  stingers to protect the sweet stuff.

That’s why they’re known as stingless bees.

There are more than 600 species of them in the  tropics around the world, mostly in the Americas.

And they’ve been around  twice as long as honeybees.

No bee stingers?

No bee suits needed!

Emilio Pérez is a stingless beekeeper in the highlands of Oaxaca, land inhabited by the Chinantec people.

This is Melipona beecheii, one  of the four bee species he keeps.

He only raises native bees.

Scientists say moving species around  can spread diseases that harm them.

So, how do these teensy bees without  stingers protect their honey?

By annoying you.

Some tangle in your hair … ... or eyebrow … and give you a bite.

It only feels like a pinprick.

But they could summon a whole swarm of  their sisters by releasing pheromones.

In any case, for these bees, the  best offense is a good defense.

Guard bees stand watch at the nest entrance.

Melipona beecheii has just one imposing guard,  stationed on this ledge shaped like a flower.

Other species employ as many as 15 guards.

They cover the perimeter of  trumpet-shaped entrances.

If an outsider tries to come in – like this bee from another colony – the guards sniff it out and kill it.

These peculiar structures also make great  runways, as bees go off to work in the flowers.

They’re not picky.

They collect nectar and pollen from dozens of plants … which they pollinate in the process.

Stingless bees also collect resin.

It’s the sticky stuff that plants like this  cedar make to keep out burrowing insects.

See how she stows the drops on her back legs?

Different plants have different  hues of resin: yellow … white … red.

They mix the resin with wax to make a  pliable building material called cerumen.

Your average honeybee just uses wax.

Stingless bees shape cerumen into  little capsules for their offspring,   and stack them like a tiered cake.

They also use the material to make  their honey pots … these orbs.

Yum!

It’s a freewheeling architectural style,  compared to honeybees’ hexagonal cells.

Now, remember this protective barrier?

It’s made of cerumen.

The resin mixed in with the wax  is what keeps the ants away.

They hate the resin’s smell and stickiness.

Once a year, Emilio and his daughter  Salustia collect honey from their nests.

Stingless bee colonies are smaller and  usually make less honey than honeybees.

Each of their Melipona beecheii  colonies makes about nine pounds a year,   just one seventh of what a honeybee hive produces.

Salustia: Ahora está como catadores de miel.

The Deep Look team got to sample it.

Gabriela: A strong fermented flavor.

Josh: It tastes like SweeTarts.

Yeah.

Really good.

Stingless bee honey is sold as a health  product to treat things like sore throats.

All honeys contain hydrogen  peroxide, which is antimicrobial.

Stingless bees visit a variety of  plants, many in the rainforest.

So, scientists are studying  their honey and resins   for chemicals that might have medicinal properties.

As the sun goes down, bees head in for the  night and cover their nest entrance once again.

No effort is too great to protect  the riches everyone is after.

These bees build nests out of mud that they  pack with purple pollen for their young.

And in the process, they  help us grow fruits and nuts.

What’s this bee up to digging around in the mud?

This blue orchard bee is a mason, a builder.

Her material is – you guessed it – mud.

And she works alone.

In fact, unlike those honeybee  hives you might think of,   most of the 4,000 types of bees  in North America are solitary.

See how she scrapes the wet earth?

She collects it with two huge pincerlike  tools on her face called mandibles.

She’s gathering mud to make her nest.

The nest is long and thin.

In nature, she goes into  places like hollow twigs.

At the University of California, Davis, she uses a  six-inch-long paper straw provided by researchers.

In this nest without a straw you can  see how she builds a wall of mud.

Then she gathers food from spring  flowers, but not only to feed herself.

See the pretty purple pollen  on the anther of this flower?

She grabs the anthers with her legs and rubs the  pollen onto hairs on her abdomen called scopa.

And while she’s at it, she sips  a little nectar from the blooms.

When she climbs back into her nest,  she turns the pollen and nectar   into a sweet morsel next to the mud wall.

On this purple ball she lays a single egg.

She repeats this several times in her  narrow nest.

Egg.

Wall.

Egg.

Wall.

When she’s done, she seals  it all up with more mud.

A cross section of the nest shows her incredible  craftsmanship: It looks like a piece of jewelry.

Soon, the eggs hatch.

The hungry larvae feed on their pollen provision,  the purple lunchbox their mom packed for them.

Still in the safety of the nest,  the well-fed larva spins a cocoon.

The following spring, the  adult bee chews its way out.

Just like their name says, blue orchard bees love  orchards: fields of almonds and sweet cherries.

And they’re really good at pollinating them.

A few hundred females can pollinate as  many almonds as thousands of honeybees.

And their tube nest means they’re portable.

That makes it easy to distribute them to farmers.

So why haven’t they taken over the fields?

Well, they reproduce slowly.

They only have 15 babies a year.

A queen honeybee has 500 … a day.

So there just aren’t that  many blue orchard bees around.

But some farmers are enlisting them anyway,   hoping they can provide some relief  to their struggling honeybee cousins.

If you look carefully, you might just spot  a blue orchard bee foraging out in a field,   helping keep fruits and nuts on our plates.