[brownbat]

Not all bees are honey bees. GP was talking about Apis mellifera. You probably encountered Bombus impatiens.

Bumble bees aren't honey bees just like buffalo aren't wild milk cows.

Some have recommended farmers replace pollination with hardier indigenous mason bees or bumble bees, rather than use domesticated honey bees, in response to CCD.

[quesera]

Of course there are wild honeybees. Non-native (to the US), yes, but definitely wild.

It's highly unlikely that GP cannot tell the difference between a bumble bee and a honey bee.

[brownbat]

> Of course there are wild honeybees.

Huh.

For me, the word "honey" in front of the word "bee" indicates a function it is performing for humans. If that's the case, then well, you can't have a "wild honey bee;" it'd be self-contradictory. It'd be like talking about a "wild milk cow" or a "wild show dog" or a "wild support animal."

It just sounds... off.

So, no, I didn't think you could have wild honey bees. You seem pretty certain I'm wrong though, so I'm thinking it over.

Also, n.b., maybe the confusion is partly about "wild" vs. "feral?"

http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-feral-an...

Maybe you and I just use a few of these words in radically incompatible ways.

> It's highly unlikely that GP cannot tell the difference between a bumble bee and a honey bee.

It honestly wasn't very clear.

CCD is one of those topics where lay people and especially journalists get really confused or possibly just lazy about what bees are relevant to the conversation. So I took tp's comment way back as noting that we're mainly talking about domestic bees here, as a shot at focusing the discussion. He got a response about random bees found in parks, which, what with the comparison to chickens especially, seemed either sarcastic and missing the point or just deeply confused.

So I started at the lowest possible level of confusion and decided we could work up from there if necessary. Maybe I should have been more charitable to start, but I didn't want to risk another detour because we skipped too many steps ahead, which seemed to be the exact problem the first time.

Maybe the comment was literally just expressing excitement at the possibility that the apis seen in parks are related to backyard cultivation, and I read it completely the wrong way.

[quesera]

Unkept honey bees can be either wild or feral. And the distinction is not always clear -- how many generations does it take for a bloodline to revert to "wild"?

And of course, a honey bee is any apis that produces honey. While not species-specific, it is genus-constraining, instead of function-labeling. More like "sugar maple" (most of which are untapped, but they still produce), and not "milk cow".

Fair points on the confusion and ambiguity. My comment wasn't really worthwhile (and you obviously know all of these rejoinders) but the floated implication seemed absurd and a little pointed. Future self will endeavour to be more valorous.

[nsxwolf]

The bees I've seen swarming my garbage all my life are definitely not bumble bees.

[steanne]

might not be bees at all. yellowjackets like trash.

[reitanqild]

Had to look up yellowjackets. Here's what Wikipedia says:

Yellowjacket or yellow jacket is the common name in North America for predatory social wasps of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula. Members of these genera are known simply as "wasps" in other English-speaking countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjacket

[bluejekyll]

Hornets are also members of this sub-family. These are really nasty. There are many wasps that are not very aggressive, they'll sting you if you literally hit their nest, or accidentally sit on one, but hornets and yellowjackets are very aggressive near their nests, really nasty bugs to accidentally encounter when mowing the grass or sitting on a bench when they have built homes.

I would say most people would easily be able to distinguish between a honeybee and any wasp (once shown what each looks like obviously).

[lostlogin]

An interesting thing that allows the killing of these wasps without harming bees - they go for protein in a big way, while bees usually don't.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/waspcontrol