[beardicus]

The article refers to wild bees, not managed.

Regardless, a better metric to consider re: managed hives might be annual colony losses, not total quantity of active hives. Of course beekeepers can make new hives. Thus far they are thankfully able to keep up with higher and higher losses each year (and honey and pollination prices are continuing to rise as more energy and money is put into raising bees instead of bee products).

This spike in losses is more recent than the varroa introduction. Graphing out one positive metric and pretending things haven't gone weird with honeybees in the past decade or so seems misguided.

[tptacek]

I don't know about the UK, but there are (essentially) no feral honeybees in the US, and there haven't been in something like 30 years, not because of pesticides, but because of the varroa mite.

[DanBC]

There are unlikely to be large colonies of wild honey bees in England and Wales.

There are some feral honey bees colonies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28290890

[beardicus]

Sure.

Now how about the 'total hives' vs 'annual losses' issue? I think the metric you've chosen to indicate overall honeybee health is lacking.