WHY WE THINK WE MUST CHOOSE THE FAVORITE?
In recent time, I am facing up with lot of topics and discussions about the importance of wild bees and non-importance of honeybees. It is like we have two sides, two perspectives and only one can be the right one. You have choice to pick wild bees and stand against honeybees and vice versa. This is more than ridiculous and causes mental confusion.
What is happening and why we shall/ must pick up the side? Who decided that those 2 kinds of pollinators are in any competition? I guess that behind this created and artificial ecological concerns are hiding non-educated public and consuming mass of social media, like always.
We can find some provocation articles that honeybees are bullying wild bees and chasing them away. It seems that scientists are more social media heaters than rational researchers that are documenting all. I am questioning this not as beekeeper myself but as a wildlife educator and observer myself. Instead of attacking honeybees that push away native bees, we shall ask the world how it is possible that wild bees lose their habitat? Is this habitat also taken away from honeybees or from humans themselves? So, let me tell you straight forward that there are no scientific proofed studies that honeybees are responsible for decline of wild bees. There are only individual assumptions and subjective ideas of the researchers.
This is a pure political topic that is exploited regularly in society. If you need to attack agriculture and farmers, you will include beekeepers too as responsible category. Responsible for what? For years of greed of society, abuse of natural surroundings and destruction of ecosystem. If you can’t put blame on government, companies or profit oriented individuals, you will put blame on innocent honeybees. They can’t complain, they just fly and work, you are just searching for little piece of comfort in your “don’t talk too much “zone.
Let me ask you something: Who is ruining, for years, the biodiversity on global level? Who is killing wildlife? Who is playing with climate? Maybe honeybees. Who knows, maybe they are capable of all. At least, they can’t defend themselves so you can spread hate with your primitive hashtags. The fact is nobody intelligent will believe in that theory. Only followers are those who even don’t think just like to be trolls everywhere they can. You can tell them tomorrow that they shall hate native bees, sunshine or even Earth, they will do it. Delusional bunch of lunatics that like to play keyboard warriors. Their education is big zero and so are the arguments they like to use. Beekeepers are forcing their poor honeybees to work hard, and those creatures must chase the minority of survived native bees, in big competition for sources. Nobody ever talked about habitat …. about people who turn their sterile gardens into deserts and stones, using chemicals to keep their sick world away from nature. They kill everything what is flying, crawling or just existing. That’s their territory and homo sapiens doesn’t let anyone live there. My precious syndrome, borrowed from Tolkien´s books alive in new age Matrix.
So, how can be that honeybees have more influence than greedy homo sapiens ? No way. Even in that direction, they have no time for greed since they work all the time. The mass concerned should analyze the following facts: loss of habitat, monocultures, pesticides and serious climate change. They focus on wrong indicators and risk the time they have for fixing it.
There are ongoing studies about so called competition. One of it has been presented at the 49th Apimondia Congress in Copenhagen, with case study on Italian national parks:” Researchers compared pollen collected by managed honeybees (Apis mellifera) and by several groups of wild bees, including Bombus, Lasioglossum, Andrena, Megachile and Colletes. Pollen samples were collected during summer and autumn from both honeybees and wild bees. They were analysed using palynological microscopy and DNA metabarcoding to identify plant species and assess the overlap in pollen use.
The results revealed a highly specialised trophic network and generally low overlap in pollen resources between honeybees and wild bees. This suggests that the different species often rely on distinct pollen sources. According to the researchers, sustainable beekeeping practices, low apiary density and habitat restoration can support coexistence with wild bees in protected areas.”
So, no way anyone can blame honeybees for declining number of wild bees, especially if we know that managed bees are also coping to survive. The honeybees have a big issue to survive winter. Let’s look at North America cases recently. Commercial beekeepers in USA lost more than 60% of bee colonies during winter 2024/2025. The next trouble is that almost 1/5 of pollinators are endangered and at big risk. There is no life without pollinators. Each of those animals, bees, wasps, hornets, butterflies, flies and moths are very significant pollinators, and everyone has its own task. Honeybees are massive pollinators that do their job so well and cover great range while the native bees are mostly solitary and have smaller areas of influence. They don’t impact each other’s negative way. They don’t have always the same and preferred plants so I would say that ecologically sufficient and heathy habitat can support both and be thankful for both.
Sometimes could be rational concern that honeybees can spread diseases, if not managed properly, to the wild bees. Yes, theoretically that would be some of the reasons to debate the relationship between both kinds of bees. That is like with humans, they meet somewhere and viruses can be spread easily. But then we go back to the educated beekeepers that shall handle and manage their beehives. First, because of own bees and their future. Second, because of wild bees and their health. Only if we all work together, instead against each other’s, can we develop ecosystem, a good and efficient habitat for all species.
So, next time you are angry about honeybees and those beekeepers, think about your selfish part of nature. Your poor garden with no life, your poor soul without real compassion but managed hashtag that is just viral trend. You do nothing for nature but complain from your basement and I challenge you to get up, go outside, turn your garden into messy paradise for pollinators. Suddenly, you will be less angry because only then will you know what a pleasure is to work for nature and not against it. Only then will you learn what a long road of reparation is ahead of us. You don’t need to choose between honeybees and wild bees; you can love both. They all follow their missions, just humans don’t.
