Yes, let's import an alien species in a closed ecosystem. What could go wrong?

Granted, I guess I should have asked in the past tense? Why didn’t they? And why don’t local bees work in pollinating the vanilla vines?

It’s suprisigly complicated. The first link seems not to have had success (but it’s a surprisingly interesting read) and the second suggests that a specific, nearly extinct bee is needed.

http://www.aos.org/orchids/additional-resources/pollinating-...

https://seeds.ca/pollination/tales/vanilla-without-the-bee

It is quite surprising this hasn’t happened yet, what with all the other bad ecological decisions that get made in the furtherance of industrial farming. Not that I don’t like vanilla or food or anything. I’m just surprised, it seems kind of an obvious business move. Maybe the bees wouldn’t survive?

Or seems that a specific variety of bee is required.

https://agrieducate.com.au/farming-fact-sheets/vanilla/

Too large to get in the flowers (is what I've heard).

Even Mexico relies on hand pollination. The bees are not reliable enough for mass crops.

When I first moved here 20+ years ago. Doing a summer trip on the highway and windshield and front grill of the car would be covered with insects. Now ... hardly anything. Whatever is killing off the bees, is a big problem. But we may have also irreversibly killed off many other insects. It's actually shocking to me, no one actually noticed the change.

An interesting challenge: build a small tree/pole-climbing robot that would methodically pollinate all flowers (manipulators, image recognition).

See my reply to a comment with the same great grand parent. It’s suprisingly complicated and seems tricky for even skilled humans.

Maybe training monkeys would be an easier solution.