Fair point, but it depends if by our, you mean UK or global ecology.
The UK can hardly claim to have a honey industry: only about 12% of honey consumed is produced here and the environmental cost of the other 88% (4800 miles by air, 11800 by sea from China), and production methods of the cleansed product ought to persuade us to consider ecological damage wherever it occurs, not just the results on our doorstep.
Well, anything applicable here can be applied elsewhere, and there are growing movements in many countries to try to find ways of restoring free-living bees wherever they are struggling - and reducing their struggles wherever that can be done. If beekeepers lived in harmony with wild populations, that would be great for everybody. A win-win-win-win (I'll let you recall what the four winners are)
But we can only really influence and act here. The video that started this was about Irish and UK bees and beekeepers, and so that's the stance I've adopted in this thread - what we can do, and why it would be a good idea.
Such distant damage is beyond our influence yet the UK could affect it indirectly, by increasing home production and weaning the consumer away from the cheap. Trouble is that the UK track record - erratic weather, erratic habitat, erratic beekeepers - and a supermarket mentality is against such an ideal outcome.
And yet: There are small beekeepers marketing their produce locally and making a living. And some can do it with local self sustaining bees, and without harming their local free-living bees. That could be added as a selling point.
The whole supermarket/global supply thing is not the focus, but.... the first thing to focus on might be to get trades descriptions to act against phony imported honey.
Competent outfits store enough honey to see them through lean times, and perhaps adjust prices to conserve stock. That's just standard business practice.
Increasing production: fine, though the market will only bear so much at the cost we must charge. That's just a fact of life. Cutting corners by dumping our crap into the environment in order to lower price isn't justified. Our is a niche market, and will likely remain so. We sell on quality not price. Its a sharply competitive game. - the food industry just is.
We've just seen the signing of a new global treaty on biodiversity, and the EU has acted to apply ('border') tariffs on imports from countries that are not matching the sustainability progress. We can't go on allowing supplies that are cheap because made in the face of environmental priorities to undercut our own manufacturers - who are compliant. That recognition will hopefully be applied to foodstuffs in due course.
This conversation is sprawling off topic. I suggest we stick to the topic that spawned it: the phenomena of free-living bees and the conditions that allow them, and the benefits that flow from them.
