In addition to being a reliable source of honey, not to mention personal satisfaction, backyard beekeeping can be a rich learning experience for the whole family. And yet at the same time, honey bees are causing grave – and in some cases irreversible – harm to the environment. It’s imperative that beekeepers learn about the threats to native pollinators posed by honey bees and actively work to mitigate the damage as much as possible.
Just to be clear, honey bees are an invasive species whose population is burgeoning. They certainly don’t need our help to survive. It’s true they’re vital to industrial-scale agriculture like California’s almond farms, which are the largest in the world, and Florida’s citrus groves. Although honey bees are relatively poor pollinators, they’re the only one that can be transported in great numbers.
Outside of the vast, sterile plantations of Big Ag, honey bees don’t measurably boost pollination rates, according to a multi-year Cornell University study. Led by Dr. Scott McArt, a bee specialist at Cornell’s Dyce Lab for Honey Bee Studies, the team concluded honey bees had an insignificant effect on pollination in nearly all of New York State’s apple orchards studied. The 110 species of wild bees the researchers cataloged on apple blossoms did the real work.
The problem with honey bees is that they displace, and sometimes extirpate, native bees. A long-running Concordia University study noted that honey bee hives on the island of Montreal, Quebec skyrocketed from less than 250 in 2013 to nearly 3,000 by 2020. During that time, the overall number of wild native bees across 15 sites dropped by an average of 1,200 per sample. Far more concerning was the loss of diversity: In 2013, 163 species of wild bees were documented. In 2020, that number was 120. Forty-three species of native bees disappeared from the record in seven years because of honey bees. That’s huge.
For years, professional beekeepers in the UK have been asking the public to moderate the recent “outbreak” of hives, which is putting native bees at risk. The London Beekeepers’ Association expressed concern that “The prevailing ‘save the bees’ narrative is often based on poor, misleading or absent information about bees and their needs. It can imply that keeping honeybees will help bees.” In fact, there is now a global push, led by current and former beekeepers, to limit honey bee populations in order to save wild bees, which do practically all the pollinating in the world.
One could dismiss such pleas from professional beekeepers as self-serving, but Andrew Whitehouse of the insect conservation group Buglife agrees that the public’s unfettered embrace of honey bees is having dire consequences. He told The Guardian, “We know the main reason native pollinators are in decline is a lack of wildflowers in our countryside and urban areas. To increase competition for limited resources puts a huge pressure on the wild pollinators.”
Honey bees also spread disease to wild bees and other kinds of pollinators. Wild bumblebees (there are domesticated ones) are succumbing to a fungal parasite called Nosema ceranae, as well as a virus that causes wing deformities, both of which were passed from honey bees through shared flowers.
Even the loudest critics of backyard beekeeping don’t want to see it banned. But anyone who likes the notion of a hive on their rooftop or back lot needs to remember the wildflowers in any locale are already spoken for by native pollinators. A meadow in bloom is not virgin territory that honeybees are free to exploit without impact. When a non-native species arrives in large numbers, there will always be repercussions.
It is a moral imperative that beekeepers big and small compensate for the nectar and pollen their honey bees consume in a season. Wild bees were there first, and relied on the existing forage to survive. If you keep bees, provide about one acre of flowering plants per hive. This is essential to keeping native pollinators healthy.
Flowers that bloom at different times, grow to various heights, and have a multitude of floral structures and colors will serve the greatest diversity of native pollinators. Very often, this can be achieved by simply letting things go wild. Maybe cut back (so to speak) on mowing. Choose some areas to mow once a year in late fall, and others to cut every second or third year.
Bumblebees, which are four times more effective at pollinating than honey bees, often nest in rock piles and old foundations, things that tend to get “tidied up” as rural areas get more populated. Mason bees make use of all types of unkemptness for their nests. Since both kinds of bees are super-pollinators, a small decrease in their population is worrisome. A change in mindset regarding aesthetics will go a long way toward saving bees of all stripes.
Lastly, if you don’t have land on which to grow wildflowers, please curb your enthusiasm. Seriously. Divesting is best, but cutting back is good, too. Perhaps one hive can suit your needs, rather than two or three.
For more information on making your property more hospitable to native pollinators, visit the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation website.
Paul Hetzler was a longtime Horticulture and Natural Resources Educator for Cornell Extension.
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Comments
Wrong, just WRONG. so much of what is said is based on supposition and not true facts: ie, honey bees do NOT exterminate, kill, fight against, push out, crowd out, or otherwise impede these so-called ‘native pollinators’. There is plenty of pollen, nectar ect, to reach around for everybody. HOWEVER, these docile native pollinators do actually attack, kill, eat, rob the honeybees out, whenever they can.
I believe this article and the comments help add a wider perspective on the matter. I believe the article has a bit of a bias not presenting information from both sides of the argument and would benefit from a more comprehensive study. True, honey bees may not pollinate much of an apple orchard but did the study show the pollination rate before and after the bees were introduced? I keep bees and I noticed an increase in apples produced from my trees and my tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers seem to have all had visitors from my hives. The introduction of a new pollinator offsets the native ones I believe, so they are more likely to thoroughly pollinate where honey bees don’t. I plant extra wild flowers native to my region near and far from my bees to help provide extra flowers for both my bees and the native pollinators. I think comparing trends of other insects is also imperative as this seems to be based on studies seeking a specific answer which tends to give unsound results.
Hello Paul, i hope you are reading many of the responses here and perhaps write a redaction or apology for your FOXnews propaganda piece here… why? well… ON THE ISLAND a short term myopic “study” made a correlation … however on the continent of North America … or every continent except Antarctica, the honey bee populations could be considered key to SAVING the native pollinators… who’s populations are crashing (not because of too many honeybees) but because of human made perils, including the fabrication of this misinformation you post here. think for a moment, it took millions of years for pollinators to create the abundance and diversity of the planet we humans began extensively terrascaping only a couple hundred years ago. today our toxic footprint has reached every corner of this planet with microplastics, airborne toxins and radiations. whether urbanized regions, massive agribusiness operations, resource extraction on a global scale, toxic trash mountains or mountains we evisorate for minerals while carelessly dumping the tailings downstream. So don’t you dare try to hang native species loss on honey bees… they might be the only thing that can quickly replenish nature’s abundance and diversity fast enough to keep natives from extinction! and yes… there will be island nations like the UK and tiny islands like this myopic study found, that suffer a stress because of honeybee density… but longitudinal observation will find a resurgence of natives as the flowers they partner with become more abundant.
This article is wrong on so many accounts and should be retracted i have been studying honey bees for more then 40 years and I am looking to take legal action over the lies and the scare tactics being used in this article
I m a bee keeper and I agree with the bumblebee metion about pollination. But the fact that you mention them..the Canadians have been importing European bubbles to use in greenhouses..(instead of catching native queens and helping them make nests) which is wiping out the natives because after pollination they’re supposed to kill the imports. But haven’t been. As far as apis mellifera there might not be native..but have been in the U S. Long enough to considered native..I know of several German black bee hives that were last imported in the 1600’s to 1800’s..and it’s 2034 and there still pure black! That means theve been here a long time. White man is it native either..but we call ourselves Americans. And why write this story?? Cornell University teaches beekeeping as well as queen insemination and rearing .has been since the 1800’s so your school is just as much Responsible.
This is a very interesting article written to beekeepers asking them to consider keeping the number of hives/honeybees they manage in check so they don’t knock the areas around them out of balance. He’s not discussing what the average gardener can do to help or hurt the environment for native insects.
I became a Master Gardener more than 20 years ago and manage my landscape to feed humans and wildlife including insects. Because I don’t pull a volunteer plant until I identify it, I have found some valuable native wildflowers. Being a regular reader of garden articles, I assumed I would see honeybees as my major pollinator (I know I have wild honeybees as they are regular visitors to my henbit patches in Spring). But I have been surprised to see a wide array of visitors to the flowers and they are rarely honeybees. May vegetable garden is pollinated regularly, so I know my wildflowers are attracting pollinators that are helpful to me.
This article helped me understand the goal of attracting pollinators is not to attract honeybees, it is to attract all pollinators.
This article is like reading an essay about a woman’s body that was written by a man who has never taken biology.
I mean for the author (and by extension the edtors of Saturday Morning Post who allowed this factually false trash) to take this in the most disrespectful way possible. I could write six pages on why the “information” spouted by the author is not only misinformed but intentional falsehood. I cannot even imagine what motive could be behind this. If I could send you a bill for wasting my time- I would.
Very misguided. Lost habitat is many orders of magnitude the greater threat to native bees than honeybees. Bumblebees are but one of hundreds of species of native bees, many of which are specific to one species of flowering plant. Destroy the habitat and the native bees go with it. Bumblebees out compete honeybees because their much longer tongue can reach the nectar in many flowers that the honeybees cannot. Farming practices (no more fence lines and effective herbicides) and well maintained lawns impact native far more than honeybee competition ever could. Then there is the red herring of honeybees “spreading diseases” to native bees. The life cycle of the varoa mite is intimately coordinated with development of the honeybee pupa sealed in its cell. They simply cannot develop on other non-honeybee insects and therefore cannot be a disease vector. Also, there is evidence that the fungal disease affecting bumblebees in the Americas came from captive bumblebees used in European tomato production in greenhouses and spread back here with breeding stock exchanges.
In the past there were far more honeybee colonies, not even counting “escaped” swarms living in bee trees, in North America with no apparent negative impact on native bees. What has changed?
Bottom line, if you are concerned about native bee decline (and you should be) the solution is to stop the loss of native habitat. HABITAT, HABITAT, HABITAT.
This is a load of unfounded ridiculous diatribe with literally zero scientific backing that actually argued against every ounce of scientific research that has ACTUALLY been done. First of all I want to comment on JA’s comment about varroa being passed bee to bee…yes varroa does get passed bee to bee but varroa is a species specific parasite and will ONLY attach itself to a honey bee therefore your point about semantics is moot. The scientific studies have been done. Now let’s talk about the article written by this uneducated fool. Honeybees are not an invasive species, they are a non native species. The fact that you don’t know the difference is proof enough you shouldn’t be writing for any public sources, secondly honey bees technically are native to North America they just disappeared millions of years ago and were brought back by colonists hundreds of years ago, the oldest honeybee fossils we have on record were found in North America, so they were here before us they just vanished. Third, honey bees do not compete with native bees for forage, these studies have been done over and over and shown that the native pollinators aren’t going after the same plants as the honey bee enough for it to have an impact of any kind on them. But sure nice fluff piece with zero research and no references given for your outlandish statements.
You never go into the disastrous effect that pesticides are reeking in our environment,both in domesticated bees and wild pollinators! It is even a fact that the very pollen a plant, such as corn( tassels) , which is not a high demand food source incidentally, can morf due to prsisides used during plant growth and become lethal to bees. I am sure it has same effect on wild pollinators. That is only one example, I learned from experience what nearby cottonfeilds ca decimate hives not only immediately, but long term decline as a result of taintedpollen!You are failing to see the forest because of the trees in this article!
Encourage solitary Bees who are higher , non aggressive, independent, no maintenance. BEE HAVENS, tree branches cut 7″ thick drilled 6″ holes, BUILD IT THEY WILL COME.
There’s so much misinformation in this article I can’t even believe it. This is a classic example of just lazy simple writing.
Horrible article full of opinion. I’ll raise bees till I die. We are breeding bees that kill verroa. Oral foul brood vaccine is here, expensive but available. See the positive or believe this negative author. We are doing a lot of good. I’d rather have honeybees over carpenter bees that eat structures up. Long live the beekeepers.
I appreciate that this article mentions, albeit briefly, the impact of habitat loss and loss of forage on wild pollinator population. It could also have discussed use of chemicals in landscape maintenance as a cause of wild pollinator decline. I feel this has more to do with the decline in wild bee population than does the keeping of honeybees, though I agree that competition for food resources is a stress. I appreciate that the author encourages beekeepers to garden for nectar. I hope there is a follow up to this article that speaks to the need for all homeowners and landowners to take the fate of the planet more seriously be stopping the use of pesticides, and to plant more and mow less for the benefit of insects and all other wild creatures. If we all plant a feast and don’t garnish that feast with poisons, we may be able to worry less about pollinator health.
Oh they’re learning how to provide for themselves and not wholly consume our processed poison?
Better write some bs articles about how terrible their practices are for humanity. Gotta keep them complacent!
As a beekeeper of 50 plus years, I find your article to be rather appalling, you are so far from the facts, typical college graduates to think they know what they’re talking about.
Honeybees do not compete with native North American pollinators. They co-evolved with plants in Europe and seek out and feed on food sources in North America that native pollinators do not rely upon.
If your theories are correct, why are beekeeping educators still teaching such notions as “Without the Honey bee pollinators we would lose 1/3 of the items in our diet.
Please reference some valid research to back up your report.
Seems to be pointing a finger in the wrong direction. Insect populations are reduced across the board by huge amounts of insecticide use. Look at your windshield after driving on a long trip. Mostly clean.
Commercial beekeepers have a federal fund to collect on bee losses from agricultural pollinating. Their losses average 25% per season due to heavy insecticide use. Most orchards can’t sustain their own bees, due to their insecticide use. There is no way that this is not a huge factor in declining native pollinators, as well.
Working the same plants as the native bees are* sorry should have proofread.
Shelly, you have no idea what constitutes a species. And you seemingly don’t know what is meant by the term “native bee.” That doesn’t mean a captured swarm, which is what I think you’re thinking it is (but honestly I don’t really know what you mean by “find in sharm”.
That said, I have some reservations about this article. Author notes that honey bee colonies explode at the same time 40ish native bee species are not counted in the register. Sure, that’s a correlation. But final sentence of the paragraph says the honeybee boom /caused/ the decline. That’s bad statistical reasoning. Correlation =/= causation. Also it doesn’t quite make sense to me how if honeybees are such a poor pollinator that they outcompete other species so easily. In my experience my bees (I have four and a half hives) are very rarely working the same plants. This is because of bees flower fidelity; each bee will pollinate the same kind of flower all day. This is why they are a poor pollinator; lack of cross pollen, makes the pollen a given honeybee brings in less useful for the plant. But this also means that those bees are passing over every other flower, which makes them inefficient. So I fundamentally don’t understand how they can behave like this and still outcompetes native bees so handily.
This is an honest point of confusion, not a rhetorical question.
The apple thing doesn’t make sense to me; apple orchards are one of the monocultures that honeybees are regularly brought in specifically to pollinate because there’s not enough biodiversity in the orchards to sustain native bees. So, is everything we know (or I think I know, at least) about apple orchard biodiversity and pollination needs wrong and those orchards actually don’t rely on honeybees? That’s really good news if so, but…
And don’t get me wrong, 100% agree that the save the honey bees narrative is misleading the public for what species of bees are actually threatened and actually more important for capital n Nature; keeping honey bees to save nature is about the same as keeping backyard chickens to help the declining bird population. Yes, technically you’re adding four more birds, but kind of missing the bigger picture. But this article gives me some reservations. and also I don’t think it’s accurate to say that bees, which are a managed non-native species that tends to succumb to starvation and disease if left to their own devices, are an invasive species. Non-native species are not the same as invasive species, those two terms shouldn’t be used interchangeably. I don’t think bees fit the criteria for invasive, and I would like to see an argument for that rather than just the statement made.
Thanks for trying to check the “save the bees” narrative, though. It does need to be reigned in.
@AP a quick Google will give you quite a bit of good information on the impact of honey bees on parasite populations in bumblebees. It is a real problem. Varroa can be spread bee to bee through flowers, so saying the fact that the pathogens come from varroa not bee to bee is semantics.
I think the point here, assuming you’re a beekeeper, is not to get rid of honey bees, but to do some research into how you can improve your garden space and manage your bees to help them live better side by side with native bees, which are, bee for bee, better pollinators, and important to keep around.
Either you purposely mislead people or you’re the most ignorant horticulturist to ever write an article. The virus that causes wing deformities is from the Varroa destructor mite and it is NOT spread from bee to bee but from blood born pathogens of the varoa mite. I would also like to see your information on nosema in bumblebees. As far as the study on the pollination of New Yorks apple trees, I suspect there was something else the bees preferred at the time as they are opportunistic. That finding is nonsense.
Ask any farmer or gardener within a 2 mile radius of someone keeping hives how their crops have flourished.
This is crazy some people are you going to believe this. Did you know that the queen bee from a different hive will leave her hive and find drones from a different hive to mate with them to keep interbreed from happening. So there a new species of bee. As for bee keepers. Did you know a lot of bee keepers get native bee that they find in sharm.
Fantastic article, Paul. I’d never heard of something seemingly as harmless as honey bees causing environmental harm. It’s almost always something caused by mankind; who else?! I hope though, this message gets to the right people that will fix this.