| | {{infobox |
| | | title = Honey bee competition with native pollinators |
| | | mechanism = Scramble competition for nectar and pollen |
| | | scale = One colony fields tens of thousands of foragers |
| | | evidence = Mixed overall, but consistent negative effects at high hive density |
| | | key_studies = Henry & Rodet 2018 · Mallinger et al. 2017 · Valido et al. 2019 |
| | | most_affected = Specialist and ground-nesting solitary bees; bumblebees |
| | }} |
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| - | **Competition between managed honey bees and wild native bees** is the oldest and best-studied of the ecological objections to keeping ''[[Apis mellifera]]'' near wildlands. The mechanism is simple **scramble competition**: a honey bee colony is an industrial foraging operation — tens of thousands of workers, communication dances, and pollen stores measured in kilograms per year — foraging the same flowers as [[native bees of North America|native bees]] that are mostly solitary, mostly small, and often specialized on exactly those plants.[[cite: Cane & Tepedino 2017; foraging-biology literature]] |
| + | **Competition between managed honey bees and wild native bees** is the oldest and best-studied of the ecological objections to keeping ** near wildlands. The mechanism is simple **scramble competition**: a honey bee colony is an industrial foraging operation — tens of thousands of workers, communication dances, and pollen stores measured in kilograms per year — foraging the same flowers as [[native bees of North America|native bees]] that are mostly solitary, mostly small, and often specialized on exactly those plants.[[cite: Cane & Tepedino 2017; foraging-biology literature]] |
| | |
| | ## The scale problem |
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| - | The arithmetic is the part that surprises most readers. A single colony consumes on the order of tens of kilograms of nectar and several kilograms of pollen per year; apiaries rarely come in singles. When Henry and Rodet experimentally added an apiary to a protected area in France and tracked visitation, wild-bee foraging on the preferred flowers dropped measurably — direct evidence that added hives deplete the shared resource rather than merely coexist with it.[[cite: Henry & Rodet 2018]] |
| + | The arithmetic is the part that surprises most readers. A single colony consumes tens of kilograms of nectar and on the order of 10–25 kg of pollen per year; apiaries rarely come in singles. When Henry and Rodet experimentally added an apiary to a protected area in France and tracked visitation, wild-bee foraging on the preferred flowers dropped measurably — direct evidence that added hives deplete the shared resource rather than merely coexist with it.[[cite: Henry & Rodet 2018]] |
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| | The effect compounds over distance too: honey bees forage kilometers from the hive, so an apiary's footprint is not the fence around it but the landscape around it — which is why the debate concentrates on apiaries placed in or beside protected habitat.[[cite: foraging-range studies; protected-area apiary policy literature]] |
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| | ## What the reviews actually say |
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| | The scientific literature is careful, and the honest summary is: **effects are real, context-dependent, and worst at high density**. Mallinger, Gaines-Day and Gratton's 2017 review of the evidence found documented negative effects on wild bees in a substantial share of studies — resource depletion and altered foraging chief among them — while noting gaps and counter-findings. Work since has tilted the same direction: island studies in the Canaries found honey bees suppressed wild-pollinator visitation; urban analyses find floral resources already limiting, so added urban hives compete for what little bloom a city offers.[[cite: Mallinger et al. 2017; Valido et al. 2019; Ropars et al. urban-forage analyses]] |
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| | The consistent pattern across the better-controlled studies: |
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| | * **Abundance**: wild-bee visits per flower fall where apiary density rises |
| | * **Behavior**: remaining wild bees shift to less-preferred flowers or shorter visits |
| | * **Condition**: heavy competition correlates with reduced reproductive output in some solitary and bumblebee studies |
| | * **Asymmetry**: the losers are not the honey bees — managed colonies are fed when forage fails |
| | |
| | ## Not the only axis |
| | |
| | Resource competition interlocks with the other documented harms rather than standing alone: shared flowers are also the transmission route for [[pathogen spillover in bees|pathogen spillover]], the weeds that benefit are covered under [[honey bees and invasive plants|invasive-plant pollination]], and the nest-cavity dimension belongs to the [[feral honey bee]] story.[[cite: Geldmann & González-Varo 2018; Graystock flower-pathogen work]] |
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| | ## The policy edge |
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| | Precisely because the evidence is density-dependent, the practical conclusion is narrower than "no hives anywhere": apiary stocking limits near sensitive habitat, registration and density caps in protected areas, and — the recurring theme — the recognition that a honey bee hive is a unit of livestock, not a conservation device. European regulators have begun formalizing this; North American park and refuge policy is further behind.[[cite: Geldmann & González-Varo 2018; protected-area apiary policy discussions]] |
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| | ## References |
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| | - Henry & Rodet — apiary-addition field experiment (2018) |
| - | - Mallinger, Gaines-Day & Gratton — evidence review, *Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am.* (2017) |
| + | - Mallinger, Gaines-Day & Gratton — evidence review, *PLOS ONE* (2017) |
| | - Valido et al. — Canary Islands exclusion experiments (2019) |
| | - Geldmann & González-Varo — "Conserving honey bees does not help wildlife," *Science* (2018) |
| | - Cane & Tepedino — pollination context for native bees (2017) |
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| | ## See also |
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| | * [[Native bees of North America]] · [[Honey bees in North America]] |
| | * [[Pathogen spillover in bees]] · [[Honey bees and invasive plants]] |
| | * [[Feral honey bee]] · [[Save the bees]] |
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| | [[Category:Nature]] |
| | [[Category:Science]] |
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