Paige Embry’s multi-year immersion in the lives of America’s native bees began with a gardening epiphany—honey bees can’t pollinate tomatoes. This led to an obsession with bees that cascaded into taking classes, wading through the scientific literature, raising bees, participating in various kinds of bee science, modifying her garden, and trekking into fields and onto farms with bee experts to learn who America’s bees really are, and how they are faring. It also led to a book: Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them which was a finalist for the 2018 Washington State Book Award and a New York Times 2018 Holiday Gift Selection. She writes routinely for Entomology Today and has written for The American Gardener, Horticulture, Scientific American and others. She was on NPR’s Science Friday and has given talks at garden clubs, book festivals, flower shows, botanical gardens, and natural history museums. She divides her time between Seattle and Winthrop WA and is an Okanogan County Master Gardener intern.