[nemo]

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.

[Swizec]

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...

[nemo]

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.

[hatch_q]

> their colonization of their present ranges (beginning around 1 million years ago)

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

[palata]

> 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?

[nemo]

>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.

[palata]

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.

[nemo]

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.

[palata]

Sure. Again I'm not asking to debate, I just find it very interesting and was wondering if you had more to say about it.

In my country, I have heard beekeepers saying that we don't want too many hives because they compete with each other and with other pollinators. It is controlled to some extent, so there is the intention, but I don't know if it's based on something scientific or just intuition.

If there were studies about the impact of honeybees, I would be interested, that's all. Because it is true that I have always considered that the main problem is habitat loss and pesticides.

[nemo]

Sorry, been busy, still am busy, really. Besides habitat loss and pesticides, there's the impacts of domesticated animals and other human-originated animals. Those overlap with habitat loss to some degree, but feral cats, rats, dogs, grazing goats, sheep, cattle, starlings (in the US), and other non-native animals like fire ants (in the US), et al have have an impact past lost habitat and lots of species loss is driven by starlings, dogs, cats, and fire ants. Honeybees fit in there as another domesticated animal adding some environmental impact. I don't have a study handy, but those aren't too hard to find. Their impact includes spreading some diseases solitary bees are susceptible as well as reducing the resources for other pollinators.