Is the proliferation of backyard honeybee hives resulting in declines in native wild bees? Do honeybees compete with natives for nectar and pollen? Do they spread diseases?
Alert reader Nancy Partlow drew my attention to a recent article in The Guardian, a British newspaper, on this topic. (She, along with Janet Partlow and the late Glen Buschmann, published a delightful but now inactive blog called olypollinators.)
The Guardian reports that the evidence of honeybees’ threat to native bees is strong enough to convince even the London Beekeepers Association (LBKA) to reduce the number of urban hives. As The Guardian reports: “Alarmed at the number of beehives in London more than doubling over a 10-year period, with an estimated 7,400 hives in Greater London, the LBKA said earlier this year: “The prevailing ‘save the bees’ narrative is often based on poor, misleading or absent information about bees and their needs.” Their spokesman adds “People think getting honeybees is going to save bees. It isn’t.”
Others share that concern: A Kew Gardens report warned: “Campaigns encouraging people to save bees have resulted in an unsustainable proliferation in urban beekeeping. This approach only saves one species of bee, the honeybee, with no regard for how honeybees interact with other, native species.”
David Meuhleisen, a faculty member at The Evergreen State College who specializes in sustainable agriculture and entomology, doesn’t think competition for nectar and pollen is an issue; he believes pollen and nectar are so abundant that there’s plenty for all. He referenced another paper, by Becca Rodomsky-Bish, which contends that different habits of native bees and honeybees make them complementary rather than competitive:
“In the fields where increased pollination results from the presence of both native and honey bee populations it is likely that the honey bees effectively pollinate the mass flowering areas while native species specialize in out-of-the-way blooms and those blooming later or earlier than the primary bloom period.” But she concedes that “There is some evidence, however, that native bees will avoid the areas honey bees gravitate towards possibly because honey bees can be more aggressive and territorial than native bees.”
Matthew Shepherd, a spokesman from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, says research supports the conclusions that honeybees are so voracious that they deplete the food available to native bees.
He also agrees that disease and parasites spread from honeybee hives are a problem, especially for bumblebees, and that more research is needed to document this problem for other native bees. Meuhleisen and Rodomsky-Bish agree.
Shepherd emphatically recommends that those who want to help bees should concentrate on helping to improve native bee habitats by growing more pollinator-friendly flowering plants, including native plants. We can also help by leaving bare, undisturbed ground (no plowing!) for ground-nesting bees, and more dead trees and woody debris for the cavity nesters. And, of course, we should not use most pesticides.
Nearly all gardeners ought to know far more than we do about bees and other pollinators, and the coming end of this growing season will give us more time to read and study. But just this week, I spent 20 minutes on a sunny morning watching bees in a patch of asters in my front yard and was able to spot five different kinds of bees at work. Now I’m going to find some bee books for winter reading. There’s so much to learn, and training my eyes to identify and name all those bee species will be both challenging and fun.
Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at jill@theJOLTnews.com
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