Conserving honeybees does not help wildlife.

[pargyle]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...-harming-wild-bees-says-cambridge-university/

https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/jonas-geldmann

Worth it's own thread .. I can't find the actual paper but I just hope that the Telegraph Science Editor has got the wrong end of the stick ...

 

[Hivemaker.]

Having too many colonies of honey bees is not good for populations of wild pollinators.

 

[Finman]

.
And what is the optimum amount of natural pollinators we should have every year? Where it has been counted?

Scientists in Finland say that bumble bees are declining in our country. When we look world map, the nature from Norway to Korea is mere wild forest. Who is killing there natural pollinators. There is no roads, that you can go there and count the bumblebees.

2 summers ago we had so much bumblebees, that they cleaned all flowers before bees woke in the morning. Last summer we had almost zero, and no wasps.

And the end of the world is coming. Did you know that?

.

 

[Beefriendly]

I can't find the actual paper .

This is the one you are looking for.
Geldmann, J. and González-Varo, JP. (2018) Conserving honeybees does not help wildlife. Science: 359: 392-393.
Link to full paper is here.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/392.full
Note this is an article though (read as topical review) not a research paper so no grants or public money were expended as they refer to other research papers.....

Makes perfect sense, too many hives in one location will result in competition for available nectar and pollen resources. The research suggests that it is detrimental to the natural wild pollinators. However this is probably not the sole cause of their decline, just another part of the equation.

 

[Fritillary]

Many thanks Beefriendly.

 

[DanBee]

Having too many colonies of honey bees is not good for populations of wild pollinators.

True, however it's the conclusion that honey bees should not be allowed in "conservation areas" that worries me - are we to see huge tracts of the countryside become off limits to beehives?

The review makes no mention of the varying physical adaptations and capabilities of different pollinators, an obvious example being tongue length. We know there are abundant flowering crops that honeybees cannot work - e.g. red clover - due to the bees' tongue being too short to reach. Many other pollinators have longer tongues and can work them: selective pollinator inclusion & exclusion by virtue of flower structure.

Then there are the behavioural tricks where one pollinator devises short cuts: bumble bees cannot penetrate broad bean flowers, so instead nibble through the petals at the base of the flower to reach the nectaries. Beans can be particularly abundant with nectar after the spring flow and before the main flow. Honey bees can penetrate the flowers with some effort, but soon cotton on to the bumbles' short-cut. What the bumbles do bypasses pollination completely and - worse - encourages other species who could pollinate to do the same. In the absence of significant bumble numbers, honeybees would continue to pollinate whilst getting nectar "the hard way".

Time of day and temperature? We've probably all seen that bumbles, with their larger flight muscles and overall body mass, fly in cooler weather than honey bees can - usually they are foraging for an hour or two before the honey bees start. Conversely, honey bees perform almost no foraging after sunset, when moths are active.

There is the argment of "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" - if honey bees are increasing the pollination success - and therefore the seed production - of pollinator-friendly plants, it is logical to expect that those pollinator-friendly plants spread and/or become more numerous over time. This then provides a greater food resource for all pollinators in the vicinity over successive seasons.

There are many plausible scenarios wherein, having helped increase the abundance of such pollinator-friendly plants, the local honey bee population drops markedly for reasons that may not affect other pollinators - e.g. swarm failure, queen failure, honey bee-specific disease. When a bumble bee queen fails, a nest does not reach its potential of 200 or so individual pollinators; when a honey bee queen fails, a potential of 50,000 individual pollinators is lost.

Finally, the collaboration and coordination of honey bee colonies (through dance communication) actually throws up big gaps in their foraging. Put pollen traps on adjacent colonies on the same day, and whilst you will find much commonality of pollen collection, there will be surprising differences from colony to colony. One colony will find and forage on particular species of plant that an adjacent colony is ignoring, despite each colony being very coordinated in itself. To put it bluntly, colonies get fixated on particular plants in particular areas due to the chance findings, forage memory, and nectar preferences of a relatively small population of scout bees.

I think there's more to this than that short review article suggests...

 

[pargyle]

This is the one you are looking for.
Geldmann, J. and González-Varo, JP. (2018) Conserving honeybees does not help wildlife. Science: 359: 392-393.
Link to full paper is here.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/392.full
Note this is an article though (read as topical review) not a research paper so no grants or public money were expended as they refer to other research papers.....

Makes perfect sense, too many hives in one location will result in competition for available nectar and pollen resources. The research suggests that it is detrimental to the natural wild pollinators. However this is probably not the sole cause of their decline, just another part of the equation.

Having now read the article above - I can see that the journalistic piece by the so call Science Editor of the Telegraph bears little resemblance to the review ...

Typical rubbish, selective journalism ....

I'm still of the opinion that the paper appears flawed on so many levels .. and Danbee covers a few of them above ... perhaps the author needs to spend some time with beekeepers ... The Spring Convention would be good ... I'd like to hear the floor questions !

 

[mbc]

Having now read the article above - I can see that the journalistic piece by the so call Science Editor of the Telegraph bears little resemblance to the review ...

Typical rubbish, selective journalism ....

I'm still of the opinion that the paper appears flawed on so many levels .. and Danbee covers a few of them above ... perhaps the author needs to spend some time with beekeepers ... The Spring Convention would be good ... I'd like to hear the floor questions !

Danbee's nailed it with that post, send it as a letter to the papers as a counter argument.
Also, in a natural situation we wouldn't have imported varroa and the wild population of honey bees would have been significant.

 

[Beefriendly]

Take London, for example, where it's estimated there is approx 1 hive per sq/km vs the countryside where it 1 hive per 10 square kms....approx.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that with competition for nectar and pollen in London already quite severe that there will be effects between wild pollinators and domesticated ones....and of course there will be circumstances where plants are only accessible by wild pollinators with special adaptions (long tongues), but when there isn't...which is the majority of cases????
Overall a high density of honey bees is not good news for other wild pollinator's....note emphasis on high density!
Think of the high density of honey bees in the Californian Almond pollination season....wild pollinators don't stand a chance!
In the vicinity of apiaries you create an artificial high density of bees in a small localized area, whereas in the wild colonies are spread at much greater distances. Not that this will stop me keeping me bees in apiaries etc but it will have an effect on wild pollinators in the immediate area. To suggest otherwise is to be in denial IMHO.

 

[MartinL]

Also, in a natural situation we wouldn't have imported varroa and the wild population of honey bees would have been significant.

Isn't it just the townies saturating their local area with something trendy resulting in deterioration of environmental diversity?

You overpopulate an area with something & you reap the consequences.


Just take a look at Urban Woodburners & Air quality, it's a very similar theme really.

However, does the Doc mention, (or even know about) the influx of Hypnorum, (scurge of urban swarm collectors)?

 

[madasafish]

However, does the Doc mention, (or even know about) the influx of Hypnorum, (scurge of urban swarm collectors)?

I doubt it.

IF we measured the local population of hypnorum, then local pollinators would be seen to be on the rise.

 

[oliver90owner]

Let’s face it, everything humans do has repercussions on the planet, so beekeeping is no different than any other activity in that respect.

Burning fossil fuels is the really important activity that is likely affecting our survival.

Cutting down rainforests is another. Building houses for ever more humans, roads for humans to use, herds of cattle to feed humans, weedkillers, fungicides and insecticides... I could go on. But I won’t.

 

[SDM]

Danbee's reply ties in with what I've seen over the last 7 or 8 yrs at my home apiary. 2-400m around has been totally transformed. After decades of sheep farming nothing flowered in the fields, but year on year ever larger patches of red/white clover have spread, the fields look now like osr fields because of the birds foot trefoil and several other species that appeared in a corner of a field now cover the fields or at least the fringes.i expect to see similar changes at one of my heather sites that's also now excluded sheep. The recovery of the condition of the heather there will be in no small part down to my bees.
The least scientific part of my observations is that pollinator numbers have radically increased despite the 15-30 hives that are there( I say least scientific as there's no question I pay more attention these days and couldn't have ID'd the handful of bee/butterfly species I now can in days past)
The "study" takes no account of the fact that hive numbers have historically been higher and in those days were in competition with the 70% of wild pollinators no longer in the equation. We have an accepted pollinator shortfall that will only accentuate the loss of habitat/forage if honeybees are excluded from areas.
We've probably all found life/apiary sites easier since public awareness of pollinator issues was raised on the back of inaccurate reporting. I suppose a rebound from the same source was inevitable.
Pinning the blame on one pollinator or other is ignoring the real truth that is HABITAT LOSS

 

[For want of a better word]

Having now read the article above - I can see that the journalistic piece by the so call Science Editor of the Telegraph bears little resemblance to the review ...

Typical rubbish, selective journalism ....

I'm still of the opinion that the paper appears flawed on so many levels .. and Danbee covers a few of them above ... perhaps the author needs to spend some time with beekeepers ... The Spring Convention would be good ... I'd like to hear the floor questions !

Simple solution... Ban imports of non native bees and eradicate the other exotics that are already here?
As with Coypu... ( add signal crayfish, grey squirrels, bunny rabbits, Chinese mitten crab, Tree bumbles ( Hypnorum) and anything else not on this island when God created it!!!


[retires to bunker puts on tin hat and waits for Beef. et al to spit their teeth out!!)


Wassail... Drink Hail!!

 

[SDM]

Not sure what you think it would be a solution to.
Other than perhaps stopping you ever getting to 10,000 posts.

 

[pargyle]

Danbee's nailed it with that post, send it as a letter to the papers as a counter argument.
Also, in a natural situation we wouldn't have imported varroa and the wild population of honey bees would have been significant.

Totally agree ... great post from someone in the front line ...

 

[Finman]

.
A great job to control everythig in nature. Good luck to all!

 

[For want of a better word]

Not sure what you think it would be a solution to.
Other than perhaps stopping you ever getting to 10,000 posts.

SIMPLE SOLUTION... It just aint gonna happen!!!

But to calm your nerves......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oleVny7jz7Q

Yeghes da

 

[Hivemaker.]

It doesn't take a genius to work out that with competition for nectar and pollen in London already quite severe that there will be effects between wild pollinators and domesticated ones....and of course there will be circumstances where plants are only accessible by wild pollinators with special adaptions (long tongues), but when there isn't...which is the majority of cases????
Overall a high density of honey bees is not good news for other wild pollinator's....note emphasis on high density!

High density not good anywhere, keep 100+ colonies in apiaries only half a mile apart and they certainly don't all fill their supers (if at all) as well as when thinned out to about 12 colonies to an apiary 4 miles apart, and if there are no beans being grown for the long tongued pollinators and clover only secretes nectar during high temperatures it does not leave much for them, nothing for much of the time.

And as noted by the variety of pollen colours the bees in high density apiaries can collect from just about everything in the area, if that leads to an increase in the flowers growing it would be okay to up the hive numbers even more, does not appear to be the case though.

 

[SDM]

if there are no beans being grown for the long tongued pollinators and clover only secretes nectar during high temperatures it does not leave much for them, nothing for much of the time.
.

10 minute crops like osr and beans are hardly muh use to wild pollinators anyway since they leave nothing but empty hectares after they've flowered, that's assuming of course those bees without someone to shut them in survive the crop sprayers.
It's amazing those of us in areas with no commercially grown nectar rich crops manage to keep bees at all.