My wife and I had wanted honey bees for a long time, but when we finally moved to a place that we could have had them, we noticed that we regularly saw at least 5 native bee species. We decided not to get a hive since they compete for resources and can spread disease. Given that there are neighbors that have them within about a mile, and that either those or feral colonies are close enough that we also see honey bees around, I'm not sure how much difference it makes, but we don't regret the decision.
There's not as much crossover as you might think. In North America the native pollinators are adapted to the native plants and can't even pollinate the introduced eurasian ones. And it goes the other way: honeybees can't pollinate the native plants, only the introduced eurasian ones.
If course, if you're in Europe, honeybees are the native pollinators. At least around the Mediterranean.
While I haven't done an intense study of it, I very frequently see multiple bee species, natives and honey bees, on the same flowers. This includes things like raspberries, mint, dandelions, various fruit blossoms, as well as vegetables. I'm sure there is specialization in at least some of the natives, but some of them, the bumblebees especially (or maybe that's just because they are bigger and easier to see), seem to be pretty generalist foragers much like the honey bees
See also earthworms facilitating spread of invasives:
Invasive species of earthworms from the suborder Lumbricina have been
expanding their range in North America. . . . Their introduction to North
America has had marked effects on the nutrient cycles and soil profiles in
temperate forests. . . . Some species of trees and other plants may be
incapable of surviving such changes in available nutrients. This change in
the plant diversity in turn affects other organisms and often leads to
increased invasions of other exotic species as well as overall forest
decline. They are considered one of the most invasive animals in the
Midwestern United States along with feral swine.
The mite has already hit most wild populations hard, and tending hives requires quite a bit of time to learn. Planting local wild flowers is often helpful, and requires just a few minutes. =3
Yes, though you need to know what sort of nesting sites they like, and what sources of food they need. Many native bees need certain plants to get the nutritional profile they are adapted for, and don’t do so well on nothing but dandelions and typical ornamental flowers. They also need food sources throughout their active time.
For mason and leaf cutter bees, a box sheltered from rain and filled with Japanese knotweed tubes (don’t grow it yourself, it’s highly invasive) works well for “I like seeing solitary bees around, but want minimum efforts”. There are tons of videos you can find on the subject.
Drilling various sized holes in wood blocks also often works. The nice thing about “solitary” bees (which are often quite communal), is they don’t have much of a drive to defend a nest, and would much rather fly away than bite/poke you. I’ve walked alfalfa fields full of them, and while the loud buzzing was a bit disconcerting, they couldn’t care less about me. Leafcutter bees are used for alfalfa because they don’t mind how alfalfa flowers work mechanically. European Honeybees will just chew through the base of the flower to get the nectar, avoiding pollination.
For other bees, there is highly likely to be a native bee enthusiast group in your local area that can give guidance on native flower mixes and possible setups for habitat.
They like the semi-compacted neutral to slightly alkaline sandy soil that’s clear of weeds, hence a long term orchard is perfect, especially as we’ve moved to softer insecticide chemistries that generally preserve beneficial insects. Offhand I think I start seeing them filling the ground with little holes in may when I start monitoring for Filbertworm moths.
And don’t forget bumblebees. While it’s a hated introduced weed for growers, it turns out that Sharppoint Fluvellen in the fescue grass fields is loved by bumblebees because it happily continues to flower in the late summer/fall when everything else has dried up or run it’s course.
You just need to supply the native plants they prefer to pollinate, they’ll do the rest. If you’re wondering about whether you can harvest honey from them, I don’t think so. Most native pollinator species don’t produce honey.
Bumblebees do produce a kind of honey, but it’s much thinner and less concentrated than proper honey (which has had most of the water evaporated off by the wing beats of the bees).
A thousand years of effort might be able to "domesticate" the bumblebee and make it produce something akin to usable amounts of honey - but unlikely to be worth it.
Bumblebee make nests for breeding, you can sometimes find nests in birdhouses or in gaps of buildings, but they apparently usually go for old mouse burrows. I've seen guides similar to the following, but covering a nest of dried grass with a clay pot, with a buried hose connecting the inside of the nest to the outside.
There are several severe threats to honey bees which without human intervention would cause a significant number of hives to be lost.
There's the varroa mite and the things it carries like deformed wing virus, then there is the increasingly prevalent Asian hornet which European honey bees are unable to deal with, and colony collapse disorder where the bees literally disappear for reasons we current don't understand, and climate change is causing colonies to starve over the winter.
Honey bees are not going extinct tomorrow but they are not doing well.
Humans also face severe treats and are not doing well but are not going extinct tomorrow. Honeybees seems to only decline in North America, especially the USA, but as you said it’s human intervention that keeps their population booming years after years. Perhaps a decline wouldn’t be so problematic it doesn’t go to extinction? A decline in chickens population wouldn’t lead to extinction, to elaborate on the funny authors take:
> Promoting honeybee hives to save pollinators is roughly the equivalent to building more chicken farms to save bird biodiversity
The other problems you raise are important but are also a treat to others bee species and insects.
Fascinating fact. Begs the question what pollinated agriculture (squash, tomatoes, peppers, berries etc) prior to the introduction of the honeybee and the equally fascinating answer is that there were many species but all of them were SOLITARY and NON-HIVE DWELLING!
I wonder if it would be possible to experiment a bit - ban honeybee hives in a 10 mile square radius, or perhaps in that area that bans all radio transmitters. See what happens.
That depends on how you draw the line. Most would consider buffalo[0] to be native to North America, but they arrived less than 200000 years ago. If you go far enough back, no life is native to anywhere except wherever abiogenesis occurred.
Honeybees are livestock. They're no more endangered than chickens or cows. If we need more, we just breed more.
In most places honeybees are raised they couldn't even survive in the wild. Just like cows and chickens and pigs. As with most livestock, without human intervention they would probably be wiped out.
If humans didn't manage risks to livestock on an industry scale they would be at risk. It requires a constant investment from both commercial industry and government. Activities like the dept of agriculture and university ag depts have been really so good at what they do. Its like the rest of civilization has forgotten what it takes and the costs involved if we neglect the investment. Agriculture and livestock is just one foundational civilization technology where we have forgotten the significance of
What is considered livestock varies over time - chickens range from "free range and can survive in the wild" to "so fat they can't live". One guess as to which is the most common by numbers - one reason that if you do decide to have a backyard flock, go with something "more natural".
More dangerous in all these is the monoculture - a hundred years ago we would have a wide range of crops and livestock; now 90% of meat chickens are probably the same genetically; similar with cows and bananas and corn and rice and pigs, etc. That sets us up for a "wipe out 90% of chickens" risk.
Monoculture is definitely a risk, one exacerbated by megacorps and overly corporatized industry - but if you look at the history of ag departments they have introduced multiple variants and variations across crops and animals time and time again. They also work with smaller growers in communities in many ways - natural pest controls consultations for example
“Breeding more” bees is not as trivial as raising other animals, because bee reproduction depends on hive stability. Other animals are kept fully enclosed in captivity and can be artificially inseminated in some cases. Bees are semi-wild and have to be free to leave the hive to forage, and if they don’t return or if the hive collapses, you can’t “breed more.”
Fun fact: queen bees can be artificially inseminated, and most commercial queens are. Beekeepers prefer naturally-inseminated queens, because they're stronger, but "nature" can't keep up with commercial demand.
You're correct about "breeding more" not being trivial, but they do it on an industrial scale. In really broad strokes: in late winter, in preparation for pollination season, they feed their hives intensively (with sugar syrup) and add extra brood boxes for the queens to fill with eggs. Then they split the hives, leaving the old queen in one box, and adding new queens to the box(es) they take off. Voila! Double (or more) the hives.
Pollination is where commercial beekeepers earn their living, by renting out hives of bees to farmers. Honey production is not necessarily an afterthought, even though it doesn't really turn a profit - it's worth doing because you'll be putting the bees on nectar flows for the summer, anyway, so you won't have to feed them, and extracting (some of) the honey covers transportation costs - but all the money's in pollination.
I could keep going and going - queen production and hive splitting are fascinating topics on their own - but I'll stop before I risk boring people with an over-long comment. I have commercial beekeepers in my family, and I've worked (summer / vacation jobs, when I was a kid) every part of the process.
(This is all in a USA-ag context. Beekeeping is - very! - different in other parts of the world.)
Wild honeybees adapt to deal with mites. What they struggle with are insecticides and monoculture deserts. Domesticated varieties that have been selected for productivity and placidity are the ones that haven't quickly adapted to the introduction of parasites, diseases, and predators, because they don't have to, as the humans worry about those problems.
There's also the massive problem of fake honey (i.e. manufactured sugar syrup illegally sold as honey), which is much cheaper than real honey and pushing actual beekeepers out of the market.
Just last weekend my kids were climbing the magnolia tree on the side of my house and I noticed dozens of little bees flying along the ground underneath it. My kids were a little freaked out even though I reassured them that the bees almost definitely wouldn't sting them.
I also noticed dozens of tiny half centimeter diameter holes in the ground under that magnolia tree which I guessed were little bee burrows. This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to identify what type of bee these were. Long story short, there are way too many types of bees (30,000+ according to my research) for a non specialist like me to be able to pinpoint a species. But whatever type of bee (miner/sweat) they are going to go absolutely nuts when that magnolia tree blooms in the next couple weeks.
I have a couple of hives of the local native tetragonula stingless bee in my yard. It does feel quite special to see them foraging and returning laden with various brightly coloured balls of pollen on their legs. I’ve managed to propagate two hives, one I split and gave to my children’s kindy, the other started from a swarm which attacked one of my hives. I read that if you move the hive and put an empty one in its place the swarm might colonise it and that is exactly what happened and a friend now has that one. We also get a lot of blue banded bee and teddy bear bees in our garden. It’s comparatively uncommon to see a honey bee.
As with all things commercial, my neighbour keeps 40 hives and extracts too much honey in the autumn, resulting in desperate hungry bees in the spring that get very aggressive. If he left them more honey (less profits), they wouldnt be as hungry or aggressive. The entire neighbourhood suffers due to the antics of a single owner. Legally, he’s within the council regulations so there is nothing we can do … Its impossible to sit outside from 9am-6pm in April and May. Once there is enough food, they calm down.
In Brazil we have tiny native bees that don't sting. They make wax tunnels and the colonies grow very very slowly. I've been watching one for 20 years and it doesn't even seem to have doubled in size. They have suffered a lot with deforestation.
My wife has planted an over abundance of native plants on our property, eliminating 60-70% of the turf grass. The resulting bee population increase has been phenomenal to watch. Also, using leafs dropped in the fall as mulch provides the habitat for lightning bugs and the population boom experienced in the years after we started doing this has exploded. Summer nights are magical again
Appreciate the write up! I’ve always wanted a hive on my property. I’ve seen some carpenter bees and bumblebees at work around the garden and this is giving me second thoughts about introducing more competition for them via honeybees.
I think I’ll let nature take its course here and enjoy the natural wild life.
Some carpenter bees moved into my roof overhang. Last year it was two, this year it’s closer to 10. I like them, the only problem is they burrow into my house and leave little piles of sawdust behind.
There is plenty of old fencing, a stack of logs, but they like my house.
Give them another option after they vacate the nest in the fall. You likely have the materials that they would use but they are not in prime locations for carpenter bee nests so they choose your home with a nice morning sun exposure and pre-existing nests. [0]
I have carpenter bees, mason bees, bumblebees, honeybees, wasps, etc including bees of every size. I also have planted my property in native plants and wildflowers to make sure these native insects have a place to hang out. I provide water for insects and wandering animals using washtubs with stacked rocks and solar powered fountains to discourage algae. I think that you could improve your chances of keeping the bees without them destroying your siding or trim if you follow the guidance about bee house placement.
You can make a bee house block or buy one that will attract multiple native bees and they will use it for years. Here is one option with additional info about carpenter bees.[1]
The holes in the bee house need to be about 1/2" (12-13mm) if you are attracting carpenter bees. For mason or orchard bees they should be smaller, 3/16" to 5/16" (5-7mm).
In my neighbourhood it has become popular to build "bee hotels" to have in the garden. They are commonly built by cutting logs into lengths, stacking them up and drilling multiple holes in one end of each log, each hole sized just enough for a wild bee to enter.
However, the holes need to be deep enough for the bees to be safe from bee-eating birds. Otherwise, the log will instead function as a bee trap, allowing a bird to pick off one helpless bee after the other.
I actually just put some wood in the backyard for them so they can chill out there and they stopped burrowing in my house and porch etc. I'm still not sure why they stopped rather than just do both, but I kept patching up their holes so maybe we have an understanding somehow.
Such issues is what brought us to keep native honeybee species where I live, and not the domestic Western bees.
The productivity may not be as high as the domestic bee, but we still get honey and it's very good!
You would also notice the difference in taste. Apis mellifera honey is usually sweeter than the Asian honeybee, and not as prone to fermentation. A slightly fermented honey is also super good!
Planting a variety of local wild flowers that bloom at different times over summer is the best assistance people can offer the little creatures. Best regards, =3
(Wildlife film-maker Martin Dohrn is bee obsessed. He has found over 60 species in his Bristol garden and sets out to film them, with mind-blowing results.)
Highly recommend the writing of Dave Goulson[0] about bees and meadow ecosystems more broadly. I’ve read A Buzz in the Meadow and A Sting in the Tale and enjoyed them both.
The author lost me at the end when they said to stop pulling up dandelions. Dandelions are not a native species (at least in North America) and are not a good food source for native pollinators.
I think someone else has already pointed out that the author is writing from a non US perspective.
But at the risk of being patronising, I wanted to say that we should all try to resist the "the author lost me when" reaction. I catch myself doing this too, but I don't think it's useful.
Reading an article isn't a competition where you win if you don't get your mind changed. Someone might have valid thoughts and opinions even if there are details of the article you disagree with.
Especially in the current climate, I feel like we could benefit from being a little more charitable.
Thank you for saying this. It’s hard, but I’ve learned it’s a lot better to approach new information (and thus, articles) with curiosity, rather than skepticism.
Hey, I'm the author. I'm indeed writing from Hungary, Europe, and here dandelions are native, and they are one of the main sources of early food, especially for the bumblebee queens and the mining bees. My lawn is littered with dandelions and there is so much activity on them. The other main food source at this moment is plum blossoms, but those are a favorite of the honey bees and they often aggressively chase away the native bees. So most of the native bees are therefore forced to keep lower to the ground and make use of the dandelions, daisies and violets. I see all my neighbors pulling out the dandelions, and thereby removing the only really abundant food source the native bees have left. That's why I said to stop pulling up dandelions.
does this apply in the UK as well? I'm a fan of dandelions but everyone is determined to pull them out of our lawn but me!
but then I've also been told by a local bee keeper that the whole plant flowers for the bees policy isn't a good idea since that's how mites and other nasties can be transferred between hives?
Yes, there are about 250 native species of dandelions in the UK.
That is how the mites are transferred. They hitch a ride when a bee leaves the hive, drop off at a flower and wait for another bee to be taken to that hive. But the thing is, there are about a 1000 different kinds of mites (that we know off) and most of them are beneficial to the bees, not harmful. There are 3 big groups. The ones like the Varroa who will feed on the bees, there is a group that will neither harm nor help the bees, and is only after stealing the food the bees bring in, and there is a group who will clean the hives, eating the waste and harmful organisms. A healthy nest of bees isn't really at risk of the harmful mites. It's only when they get stressed or sick that there is the risk of the Varroa mites to wipe out the colony.
So it comes down to human intervention for the most part. When a bee-keeper sees a Varroa mite, he will treat the hive, and by doing so, also kills off the mites that keep the hive healthy and disturbing the balance. As a result, the bees, who are already living in an unnatural population density, get even more weak, since there is nothing left to keep the nest clean. The Varroa mites, if they find their way into the hive again, have now an easy prey and can easily wipe out an entire hive.
TL; DR Honeybees aren’t native to the Americas. Bumblebees are. And bumblebees get outcompeted by honeybees. That’s terrible, because bumblebees promote plant biodiversity in a way generalist honeybees do not. Putting a honeybee hive in your yard or on your balcony is fine. But it’s agriculture, not conservation.
There are lots of native bees getting wiped out by Varroa destructor carried viral infections. The imported hybrids used in agriculture are more productive, and are currently being bred to have the desirable trait of cleaning/nibbling the legs off mites.
Bumblebees do just fine in most places, as they go after my geraniums like a fool with a hole-punch every year. We have several local variety, and they are an important part of the ecosystem.
The mite & foulbrood damage means most agriculture businesses euthanize hives when a problem becomes obvious. Hence why they also over-produce queens, as people know most colonies will not make it right now. The beekeeper community are some of the kindest folk you will ever meet, and people are doing their best given the situation. Have a wonderful day. =3
Oh, to be clear, I have nothing against beekeepers. As I said, it’s fine to have a backyard apiary. But it’s also important to know that it’s having an impact on the local bumblebee population. Depending on where you are, that could be fine or it could be stressing an endangered species. (I’m in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We’re advised to avoid honeybees.)
They smell like carrots when you break the fading blooms off, they tolerate high heat and full sun, and they are pretty. Flowers for gardens, not arrangements.
Geraniums do well controlling invasive beetles, and local humming birds also seem pleased. Some of the smaller flower variety are pleasantly scented, and easy to clone. However, it is not a good plant choice for people with pets.
Mustard (Sinapis alba) is nice if you like pleasant smelling little yellow flowers, low-effort resilient plants, and spicy food. =3
My wife and I had wanted honey bees for a long time, but when we finally moved to a place that we could have had them, we noticed that we regularly saw at least 5 native bee species. We decided not to get a hive since they compete for resources and can spread disease. Given that there are neighbors that have them within about a mile, and that either those or feral colonies are close enough that we also see honey bees around, I'm not sure how much difference it makes, but we don't regret the decision.
There's not as much crossover as you might think. In North America the native pollinators are adapted to the native plants and can't even pollinate the introduced eurasian ones. And it goes the other way: honeybees can't pollinate the native plants, only the introduced eurasian ones.
If course, if you're in Europe, honeybees are the native pollinators. At least around the Mediterranean.
While I haven't done an intense study of it, I very frequently see multiple bee species, natives and honey bees, on the same flowers. This includes things like raspberries, mint, dandelions, various fruit blossoms, as well as vegetables. I'm sure there is specialization in at least some of the natives, but some of them, the bumblebees especially (or maybe that's just because they are bigger and easier to see), seem to be pretty generalist foragers much like the honey bees
So, what you're saying is that honeybees are facilitating the spread of invasive plants in North America? Seems like a definite negative.
Those ships have literally sailed, centuries ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange
Invasives are an ongoing and escalating problem.
Which is solid evidence that honey bees have little to do with the problem.
See also earthworms facilitating spread of invasives:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_A...We also have many wild bees in Europe.
The mite has already hit most wild populations hard, and tending hives requires quite a bit of time to learn. Planting local wild flowers is often helpful, and requires just a few minutes. =3
For North America, you can read much about native bees (and more) at Xerces.org.
They have many regional habitat-planting guides. Two books covering native bees:
C'mon, you know you want to join a 'Society for Invertebrate Preservation'.Can you “build colonies” for native species?
Yes, though you need to know what sort of nesting sites they like, and what sources of food they need. Many native bees need certain plants to get the nutritional profile they are adapted for, and don’t do so well on nothing but dandelions and typical ornamental flowers. They also need food sources throughout their active time.
For mason and leaf cutter bees, a box sheltered from rain and filled with Japanese knotweed tubes (don’t grow it yourself, it’s highly invasive) works well for “I like seeing solitary bees around, but want minimum efforts”. There are tons of videos you can find on the subject.
Drilling various sized holes in wood blocks also often works. The nice thing about “solitary” bees (which are often quite communal), is they don’t have much of a drive to defend a nest, and would much rather fly away than bite/poke you. I’ve walked alfalfa fields full of them, and while the loud buzzing was a bit disconcerting, they couldn’t care less about me. Leafcutter bees are used for alfalfa because they don’t mind how alfalfa flowers work mechanically. European Honeybees will just chew through the base of the flower to get the nectar, avoiding pollination.
For other bees, there is highly likely to be a native bee enthusiast group in your local area that can give guidance on native flower mixes and possible setups for habitat.
Here in western Oregon, the hazelnut orchards on the sandy soil near rivers have actually become a great nesting place for multiple species of beautiful green metallic “sweat” bees: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2017/11/13/po...
They like the semi-compacted neutral to slightly alkaline sandy soil that’s clear of weeds, hence a long term orchard is perfect, especially as we’ve moved to softer insecticide chemistries that generally preserve beneficial insects. Offhand I think I start seeing them filling the ground with little holes in may when I start monitoring for Filbertworm moths.
And don’t forget bumblebees. While it’s a hated introduced weed for growers, it turns out that Sharppoint Fluvellen in the fescue grass fields is loved by bumblebees because it happily continues to flower in the late summer/fall when everything else has dried up or run it’s course.
You just need to supply the native plants they prefer to pollinate, they’ll do the rest. If you’re wondering about whether you can harvest honey from them, I don’t think so. Most native pollinator species don’t produce honey.
Bumblebees do produce a kind of honey, but it’s much thinner and less concentrated than proper honey (which has had most of the water evaporated off by the wing beats of the bees).
A thousand years of effort might be able to "domesticate" the bumblebee and make it produce something akin to usable amounts of honey - but unlikely to be worth it.
Someone domesticated foxes in 20 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox , so perhaps it's possible to domesticate bumblebee in a few decades - but unlikely to be worth it.
Bumblebees are being "domesticated" to some extent, for pollinating greenhouses, but they're used as labor animals rather than food.
Most of the native bees/wasps/flies that are important for pollination are solitary, but you can still help them with nesting areas.
Mason bees can be relatively easy: drill some small holes in a post and let it be. You can also get way more complicated with it.
https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/guide-to-diy-mason-bee-h...
Bumblebee make nests for breeding, you can sometimes find nests in birdhouses or in gaps of buildings, but they apparently usually go for old mouse burrows. I've seen guides similar to the following, but covering a nest of dried grass with a clay pot, with a buried hose connecting the inside of the nest to the outside.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/20800500/BumbleBeeRear...
Planting native flowers and shrubs can also provide habitat for many insects.
> The honeybee is not endangered. It never was.
There are several severe threats to honey bees which without human intervention would cause a significant number of hives to be lost.
There's the varroa mite and the things it carries like deformed wing virus, then there is the increasingly prevalent Asian hornet which European honey bees are unable to deal with, and colony collapse disorder where the bees literally disappear for reasons we current don't understand, and climate change is causing colonies to starve over the winter.
Honey bees are not going extinct tomorrow but they are not doing well.
Humans also face severe treats and are not doing well but are not going extinct tomorrow. Honeybees seems to only decline in North America, especially the USA, but as you said it’s human intervention that keeps their population booming years after years. Perhaps a decline wouldn’t be so problematic it doesn’t go to extinction? A decline in chickens population wouldn’t lead to extinction, to elaborate on the funny authors take:
> Promoting honeybee hives to save pollinators is roughly the equivalent to building more chicken farms to save bird biodiversity
The other problems you raise are important but are also a treat to others bee species and insects.
https://earth.org/data_visualization/bees-are-not-declining-...
Honeybees aren’t native to North America
Fascinating fact. Begs the question what pollinated agriculture (squash, tomatoes, peppers, berries etc) prior to the introduction of the honeybee and the equally fascinating answer is that there were many species but all of them were SOLITARY and NON-HIVE DWELLING!
Neither are humans, apparently.
I wonder if it would be possible to experiment a bit - ban honeybee hives in a 10 mile square radius, or perhaps in that area that bans all radio transmitters. See what happens.
> Neither are humans, apparently.
That depends on how you draw the line. Most would consider buffalo[0] to be native to North America, but they arrived less than 200000 years ago. If you go far enough back, no life is native to anywhere except wherever abiogenesis occurred.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison
Camels originated in North America, interesting enough. Yeah, we could go on for hours
Neither are earthworms.
Honeybees are livestock. They're no more endangered than chickens or cows. If we need more, we just breed more.
In most places honeybees are raised they couldn't even survive in the wild. Just like cows and chickens and pigs. As with most livestock, without human intervention they would probably be wiped out.
If humans didn't manage risks to livestock on an industry scale they would be at risk. It requires a constant investment from both commercial industry and government. Activities like the dept of agriculture and university ag depts have been really so good at what they do. Its like the rest of civilization has forgotten what it takes and the costs involved if we neglect the investment. Agriculture and livestock is just one foundational civilization technology where we have forgotten the significance of
What is considered livestock varies over time - chickens range from "free range and can survive in the wild" to "so fat they can't live". One guess as to which is the most common by numbers - one reason that if you do decide to have a backyard flock, go with something "more natural".
More dangerous in all these is the monoculture - a hundred years ago we would have a wide range of crops and livestock; now 90% of meat chickens are probably the same genetically; similar with cows and bananas and corn and rice and pigs, etc. That sets us up for a "wipe out 90% of chickens" risk.
Monoculture is definitely a risk, one exacerbated by megacorps and overly corporatized industry - but if you look at the history of ag departments they have introduced multiple variants and variations across crops and animals time and time again. They also work with smaller growers in communities in many ways - natural pest controls consultations for example
Just a fun fact. We're pretty close to the anniversary of the dust bowl. . . Which was driven by farming practices to raise monoculture crops.
No purpose to this other than this is a very long term problem that, I believe, will bite us in the ass at some point.
“Breeding more” bees is not as trivial as raising other animals, because bee reproduction depends on hive stability. Other animals are kept fully enclosed in captivity and can be artificially inseminated in some cases. Bees are semi-wild and have to be free to leave the hive to forage, and if they don’t return or if the hive collapses, you can’t “breed more.”
Fun fact: queen bees can be artificially inseminated, and most commercial queens are. Beekeepers prefer naturally-inseminated queens, because they're stronger, but "nature" can't keep up with commercial demand.
You're correct about "breeding more" not being trivial, but they do it on an industrial scale. In really broad strokes: in late winter, in preparation for pollination season, they feed their hives intensively (with sugar syrup) and add extra brood boxes for the queens to fill with eggs. Then they split the hives, leaving the old queen in one box, and adding new queens to the box(es) they take off. Voila! Double (or more) the hives.
Pollination is where commercial beekeepers earn their living, by renting out hives of bees to farmers. Honey production is not necessarily an afterthought, even though it doesn't really turn a profit - it's worth doing because you'll be putting the bees on nectar flows for the summer, anyway, so you won't have to feed them, and extracting (some of) the honey covers transportation costs - but all the money's in pollination.
I could keep going and going - queen production and hive splitting are fascinating topics on their own - but I'll stop before I risk boring people with an over-long comment. I have commercial beekeepers in my family, and I've worked (summer / vacation jobs, when I was a kid) every part of the process.
(This is all in a USA-ag context. Beekeeping is - very! - different in other parts of the world.)
Wild honeybees adapt to deal with mites. What they struggle with are insecticides and monoculture deserts. Domesticated varieties that have been selected for productivity and placidity are the ones that haven't quickly adapted to the introduction of parasites, diseases, and predators, because they don't have to, as the humans worry about those problems.
There's also the massive problem of fake honey (i.e. manufactured sugar syrup illegally sold as honey), which is much cheaper than real honey and pushing actual beekeepers out of the market.
Now think of bumble and other wild bees who catch the mites from the blossoms but get no treatment with formic or oxalic acid.
To add, most farming relies precisely on honeybee for pollination, and losing 2/3 of them would be quite devastating.
Of course nobody cars about wild bees, our lives don't depend on them nearly as much.
It may be that agricultural mechanization requires honeybees simply because they're the ones we can farm themselves.
Just last weekend my kids were climbing the magnolia tree on the side of my house and I noticed dozens of little bees flying along the ground underneath it. My kids were a little freaked out even though I reassured them that the bees almost definitely wouldn't sting them.
I also noticed dozens of tiny half centimeter diameter holes in the ground under that magnolia tree which I guessed were little bee burrows. This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to identify what type of bee these were. Long story short, there are way too many types of bees (30,000+ according to my research) for a non specialist like me to be able to pinpoint a species. But whatever type of bee (miner/sweat) they are going to go absolutely nuts when that magnolia tree blooms in the next couple weeks.
Very well said, also many other non bees are also pollinators, such as butterflies, some beetles.. even ants. Any flower is a hotspot of life.
Tangential, have a look at a Gaussian splat of a honeybee I recently captured: https://superspl.at/scene/3ae6a716
That is spectacular. Can you keep the camera still and let the bee fly?
That’s amazing! How did you capture it at that resolution?
I have a couple of hives of the local native tetragonula stingless bee in my yard. It does feel quite special to see them foraging and returning laden with various brightly coloured balls of pollen on their legs. I’ve managed to propagate two hives, one I split and gave to my children’s kindy, the other started from a swarm which attacked one of my hives. I read that if you move the hive and put an empty one in its place the swarm might colonise it and that is exactly what happened and a friend now has that one. We also get a lot of blue banded bee and teddy bear bees in our garden. It’s comparatively uncommon to see a honey bee.
As with all things commercial, my neighbour keeps 40 hives and extracts too much honey in the autumn, resulting in desperate hungry bees in the spring that get very aggressive. If he left them more honey (less profits), they wouldnt be as hungry or aggressive. The entire neighbourhood suffers due to the antics of a single owner. Legally, he’s within the council regulations so there is nothing we can do … Its impossible to sit outside from 9am-6pm in April and May. Once there is enough food, they calm down.
Have you ever talked to him about this?
"I'm going to start spraying imidacloprid if I keep getting stung"
Generally, it's considered pretty unacceptable to destroy someone's livestock.
And aggressive honeybees still rarely sting. They typically just charge at you (which is annoying/disruptive)
For livestock other than bees, it is considered unacceptable to starve them or have them attack your neighbors.
In Brazil we have tiny native bees that don't sting. They make wax tunnels and the colonies grow very very slowly. I've been watching one for 20 years and it doesn't even seem to have doubled in size. They have suffered a lot with deforestation.
My wife has planted an over abundance of native plants on our property, eliminating 60-70% of the turf grass. The resulting bee population increase has been phenomenal to watch. Also, using leafs dropped in the fall as mulch provides the habitat for lightning bugs and the population boom experienced in the years after we started doing this has exploded. Summer nights are magical again
Appreciate the write up! I’ve always wanted a hive on my property. I’ve seen some carpenter bees and bumblebees at work around the garden and this is giving me second thoughts about introducing more competition for them via honeybees.
I think I’ll let nature take its course here and enjoy the natural wild life.
Some carpenter bees moved into my roof overhang. Last year it was two, this year it’s closer to 10. I like them, the only problem is they burrow into my house and leave little piles of sawdust behind.
There is plenty of old fencing, a stack of logs, but they like my house.
Give them another option after they vacate the nest in the fall. You likely have the materials that they would use but they are not in prime locations for carpenter bee nests so they choose your home with a nice morning sun exposure and pre-existing nests. [0]
[0]https://gardenbetty.com/carpenter-bees/
I have carpenter bees, mason bees, bumblebees, honeybees, wasps, etc including bees of every size. I also have planted my property in native plants and wildflowers to make sure these native insects have a place to hang out. I provide water for insects and wandering animals using washtubs with stacked rocks and solar powered fountains to discourage algae. I think that you could improve your chances of keeping the bees without them destroying your siding or trim if you follow the guidance about bee house placement.
You can make a bee house block or buy one that will attract multiple native bees and they will use it for years. Here is one option with additional info about carpenter bees.[1]
[1]https://www.thewallednursery.com/do-carpenter-bee-houses-wor...
The holes in the bee house need to be about 1/2" (12-13mm) if you are attracting carpenter bees. For mason or orchard bees they should be smaller, 3/16" to 5/16" (5-7mm).
In my neighbourhood it has become popular to build "bee hotels" to have in the garden. They are commonly built by cutting logs into lengths, stacking them up and drilling multiple holes in one end of each log, each hole sized just enough for a wild bee to enter.
However, the holes need to be deep enough for the bees to be safe from bee-eating birds. Otherwise, the log will instead function as a bee trap, allowing a bird to pick off one helpless bee after the other.
I actually just put some wood in the backyard for them so they can chill out there and they stopped burrowing in my house and porch etc. I'm still not sure why they stopped rather than just do both, but I kept patching up their holes so maybe we have an understanding somehow.
Such issues is what brought us to keep native honeybee species where I live, and not the domestic Western bees. The productivity may not be as high as the domestic bee, but we still get honey and it's very good! You would also notice the difference in taste. Apis mellifera honey is usually sweeter than the Asian honeybee, and not as prone to fermentation. A slightly fermented honey is also super good!
Every few years there is one species that captures public attention and gets all the conservation energy. Rarely the ones that need it most.
My garden is full of fleabane flowers in heaping piles. I wonder if that helps native pollinators or if I am providing flowers for honey bees instead.
Planting a variety of local wild flowers that bloom at different times over summer is the best assistance people can offer the little creatures. Best regards, =3
Humble recommendation;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002t686/my-garden-of...
(Wildlife film-maker Martin Dohrn is bee obsessed. He has found over 60 species in his Bristol garden and sets out to film them, with mind-blowing results.)
In case any one else runs into a "this video is not available outside the UK" message, I'm able to see it here: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/my-garden-thousand-bees-abou...
This was genuinely one of the best bits of TV i've ever seen
Highly recommend the writing of Dave Goulson[0] about bees and meadow ecosystems more broadly. I’ve read A Buzz in the Meadow and A Sting in the Tale and enjoyed them both.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/323591.Dave_Goulson
The author lost me at the end when they said to stop pulling up dandelions. Dandelions are not a native species (at least in North America) and are not a good food source for native pollinators.
I think someone else has already pointed out that the author is writing from a non US perspective.
But at the risk of being patronising, I wanted to say that we should all try to resist the "the author lost me when" reaction. I catch myself doing this too, but I don't think it's useful.
Reading an article isn't a competition where you win if you don't get your mind changed. Someone might have valid thoughts and opinions even if there are details of the article you disagree with.
Especially in the current climate, I feel like we could benefit from being a little more charitable.
Thank you for saying this. It’s hard, but I’ve learned it’s a lot better to approach new information (and thus, articles) with curiosity, rather than skepticism.
Hey, I'm the author. I'm indeed writing from Hungary, Europe, and here dandelions are native, and they are one of the main sources of early food, especially for the bumblebee queens and the mining bees. My lawn is littered with dandelions and there is so much activity on them. The other main food source at this moment is plum blossoms, but those are a favorite of the honey bees and they often aggressively chase away the native bees. So most of the native bees are therefore forced to keep lower to the ground and make use of the dandelions, daisies and violets. I see all my neighbors pulling out the dandelions, and thereby removing the only really abundant food source the native bees have left. That's why I said to stop pulling up dandelions.
does this apply in the UK as well? I'm a fan of dandelions but everyone is determined to pull them out of our lawn but me!
but then I've also been told by a local bee keeper that the whole plant flowers for the bees policy isn't a good idea since that's how mites and other nasties can be transferred between hives?
Yes, there are about 250 native species of dandelions in the UK. That is how the mites are transferred. They hitch a ride when a bee leaves the hive, drop off at a flower and wait for another bee to be taken to that hive. But the thing is, there are about a 1000 different kinds of mites (that we know off) and most of them are beneficial to the bees, not harmful. There are 3 big groups. The ones like the Varroa who will feed on the bees, there is a group that will neither harm nor help the bees, and is only after stealing the food the bees bring in, and there is a group who will clean the hives, eating the waste and harmful organisms. A healthy nest of bees isn't really at risk of the harmful mites. It's only when they get stressed or sick that there is the risk of the Varroa mites to wipe out the colony. So it comes down to human intervention for the most part. When a bee-keeper sees a Varroa mite, he will treat the hive, and by doing so, also kills off the mites that keep the hive healthy and disturbing the balance. As a result, the bees, who are already living in an unnatural population density, get even more weak, since there is nothing left to keep the nest clean. The Varroa mites, if they find their way into the hive again, have now an easy prey and can easily wipe out an entire hive.
Dandelions are a native species in Europe, the author is blogging from the southwest of Hungary.
Hopefully you are now less lost.
does anyone else detect llm tone in this post?
TL; DR Honeybees aren’t native to the Americas. Bumblebees are. And bumblebees get outcompeted by honeybees. That’s terrible, because bumblebees promote plant biodiversity in a way generalist honeybees do not. Putting a honeybee hive in your yard or on your balcony is fine. But it’s agriculture, not conservation.
There are lots of native bees getting wiped out by Varroa destructor carried viral infections. The imported hybrids used in agriculture are more productive, and are currently being bred to have the desirable trait of cleaning/nibbling the legs off mites.
Bumblebees do just fine in most places, as they go after my geraniums like a fool with a hole-punch every year. We have several local variety, and they are an important part of the ecosystem.
The mite & foulbrood damage means most agriculture businesses euthanize hives when a problem becomes obvious. Hence why they also over-produce queens, as people know most colonies will not make it right now. The beekeeper community are some of the kindest folk you will ever meet, and people are doing their best given the situation. Have a wonderful day. =3
Oh, to be clear, I have nothing against beekeepers. As I said, it’s fine to have a backyard apiary. But it’s also important to know that it’s having an impact on the local bumblebee population. Depending on where you are, that could be fine or it could be stressing an endangered species. (I’m in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We’re advised to avoid honeybees.)
What's with geraniums? I remember they look nice but don’t smell.
They smell like carrots when you break the fading blooms off, they tolerate high heat and full sun, and they are pretty. Flowers for gardens, not arrangements.
Geraniums do well controlling invasive beetles, and local humming birds also seem pleased. Some of the smaller flower variety are pleasantly scented, and easy to clone. However, it is not a good plant choice for people with pets.
Mustard (Sinapis alba) is nice if you like pleasant smelling little yellow flowers, low-effort resilient plants, and spicy food. =3
The author is Hungarian, he isn't talking especially about the Americas, but he has a more general stance.