this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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We need more native pollinators, and honey bees are very good at outcompeting them once they're introduced, threatening biodiversity and thus ecosystems.
Ah I'm in the UK where they are native pollinators
That doesn't mean that introducing them in unnatural numbers isn't harmful to biodiversity and other native pollinators
That's not what we're talking about though, we have a declining bee population problem that needs intervention to save
That was exactly what I was talking about. Honey bees are just one very specific type of bees, and they're replacing the other ones.
Yes and no. Yes, they compete with the other ones and due to domestication have very high population, but also the same factors endangering honey bees (insecticides, monocultures) also endanger other bee species. So while "give the honey bees more sugar water so they survive" would be horrible foe ecological diversity, actually adressing the underlying factors would largely also benefit other species.
I wouldn't even be surprised if to some degree that still applied to places where they're invasive tbh
Yes. Every type of bee except honeybees is declining. In part because humans are constantly favouring honeybees.
still not healthy for them to be 85% of what's pollinating crops, though
Prime wherever you are that's not the UK defaultism to assume that honeybees are not native pollinators.
You can narrow it down to just the Americas. The European honey bee (and subspecies) are native all across Europe, Asia, and Africa I believe.
Breeding a native species in unnatural numbers is also a way of that species outcompeting other native species and harming biodiversity
Here in Europe, the European Honeybee is, not surprisingly, completely native.
That doesn't mean that introducing them in unnaturally large numbers isn't harmful to biodiversity
Oh yeah, them artificially displacing solitary bees is still bad
Agreed! But I don't really get what point you were trying to make in the first comment then?
That the problem isn't "native vs invasive". It's "biodiversity vs monoculture".