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by myshpa 992 days ago
That eternit/asbestos roof in the first picture ... no, thank you.

Another article about Slovenia's beekeepers: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/19/business/beekeeping-compa...

“If you overcrowd any space with honey bees, there is a competition for natural resources, and since bees have the largest numbers, they push out other pollinators, which actually harms biodiversity,” he said, after a recent visit to the B&B bees. “I would say that the best thing you could do for honey bees right now is not take up beekeeping.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41271-5

Honeybees disrupt the structure and functionality of plant-pollinator networks

... results show that beekeeping reduces the diversity of wild pollinators and interaction links in the pollination networks ... High-density beekeeping in natural areas appears to have lasting, more serious negative impacts on biodiversity than was previously assumed.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.76795...

The Diversity Decline in Wild and Managed Honey Bee Populations Urges for an Integrated Conservation Approach

Using honey bees as an example, we argue that several management practices in beekeeping threaten genetic diversity in both wild and managed populations, and drive population decline.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7708548/

Why bees are critical for achieving sustainable development

Bees comprise ~ 20 000 described species across seven recognised families ... Fifty bee species are managed by people, of which around 12 are managed for crop pollination ... Wild bees contribute an average of USD$3 251 ha−1 to the production of insect-pollinated crops, similar to that provided by managed honey bees

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5722319/

Do managed bees have negative effects on wild bees?

The majority of reviewed studies reported negative effects of managed bees

https://www.nwf.org/Home/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2021/Ju...

“Keeping honey bees to ‘save the bees’ is like raising chickens to save birds.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01847-3

Greater bee diversity is needed to maintain crop pollination over time

1 comments

Not challenging your overall point, but your nwf link specifically calls out the introduction of extra non-native pollinators as a problem, and explains that honeybees were brought over from Europe and thereforr aren't native to North America. The original article is describing honeybeekeepers specifically in Slovenia.
Honeybees aren't native to Europe or the Americas, they originated in Asia. In any habitat at all, keeping honeybees is actually adding some strain to local ecosystems. Honeybees are voracious nectar drinkers, once they're hit a habitat it can support fewer native bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, etc.
Were bees introduced into Europe from Asia? We have evidence of domesticated bees in Egypt circa 2600BC.

Not to mention rock art of honey collection from bees dating back to 7000BC in Spain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_honey_bee#Domesticat...

Yes, Humans have been keeping domesticate bees for a long time and spread them around the globe. The wild animal that was domesticate originally lived in Southeast Asia.
> their colonization of their present ranges (beginning around 1 million years ago)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3433997/

> keeping honeybees is actually adding some strain to local ecosystems

How does that compare to intensive agriculture and pesticides? Seems like the honeybees impact would be marginal then?

>How does that compare to intensive agriculture and pesticides?

In general pesticides and habitat loss have more serious impacts, but when you've got a stressed ecosystem adding honeybees that deplete resources from native pollinators is adding to the harm. The bees are pollinating even when they're taking nectar as well, so they're not all bad. But at the same time endangered native bees are put further at risk by honeybees.

Right. But then would you say that the way it is done in Slovenia is a problem? It doesn't really strike me as "intensive beekeeping".

However there are places where there is intensive beekeeping (like for almond production in California, I remember having seen a documentary) and that seems to be a completely different level.

And then there are places in China where they pollinate manually because all the insects die due to the pesticides, and that would be another extreme.

Not trying to make a point, just trying to understand if there is a point where "artisanal beekeeping" is fine or if it is always bad.

I was pointing out as a fact that honeybees deplete nectar from the habitats they're introduced and they're voracious. The honey they fill their hives with is collected nectar from flowers, nectar other wildlife don't have access to. You really don't see other pollinators hoarding nectar this way, and higher honey production has been bred into them. I brought this up since it's not well known among non-biologists, and even beekeepers often don't connect the dots there. Sometimes beekeepers run too many hives, fully deplete their local area and wind up with an impoverished local ecosystem of their on making and weak bees to boot.

Does this effect matter in comparison to other things? Maybe, it depends on the ecosystem and local context. I haven't made any normative statements, just pointed out a fact. If I were to offer a normative opinion, it's that beekeepers should be aware of the effects of their beekeeping and try to be responsible, not keeping hives in areas where they would have an undesirable effect on the pollinators of an ecosystems that's vulnerable.

True ... but whether they are native or not, their effect on wild pollinators is the same.
The effect could be dampened by cultivating bee-friendly crops. Yes, it is a somewhat artificial system and will divert resources away from the natural system but perhaps it would create a boundary between the honeybees and native pollinators