George makes the case that the general public, legislators, and even the
President do not consider bees to be important.

Unfortunately, many professional people, who should know better, don't.  In
George's part of the world, about two years ago, I had a meeting with a
group of ecologists and wildlife biologists who serve as an advisory board
to EPA.  I anticipated that I'd have a hard time providing good
quantitative information about the value of bees (all species of bees) to
natural habitats.

Qualitatively, its easy -- bees maintain species diversity, increase yield
and quality of seeds, nuts; help sustain plants that are being heavily
foraged by deer, etc.

What I did not expect was that the "experts" didn't have a clue about the
role that bees play as pollinators.  They recognized the value of bees as
pollinators of crops (but thought that was a special case).

Their exact words were:  "I guess they keep a few weeds around!"

That meeting caused us to spend two month digging out literature about the
value of insects and bees, in particular, as pollinators of natural systems.

Cheers