European bees aren't native to the USA either and actually do take away food sources from native bees. Killing wild hives would be helping the native bees.
"Saving the bees" by caring for European honeybees is about as helpful as "saving the birds" by raising chickens
Yes, all honey bees (Apis mellifera) in the Americas can be considered invasive when they occur in natural areas. They are domesticated livestock: they didn't occur here at all until Europeans brought them & numerous studies have shown they can have significant negative impacts on native bees, including under agricultural settings. Removal of all feral colonies is likely for the best from an ecological perspective, but again, even managed hives can still have serious consequences for wild bees:
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2290590919?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2018.2901
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41271-5
AFAIK, in most of Arizona, something like 95+% of wild hives are Africanized. Given that honeybees ARE an invasive species that competes with native bees for pollen and resources, I don't think these folks are at all wrong.
honeybees are invasive in all of the american continents.
however its important to note that foreign is not automatically equal to invasive or harmful, not everything foreign automatically damages the local environment.
in the case of honeybees they absolutely are destroying the native environment though, mainly indirectly as the native fauna have zero immunity to the disease amd pests they carry. basically smallpox decimating the native american populations all over again-- just bug form.
>however its important to note that invasive is not automatically equal to bad, not everything foreign automatically damages the local environment
The term *invasive* specifically equates to bad. If it's not harmful, it's not invasive. Just an exotic/non native species
In the US, honeybees are an invasive species. I'm in graduate school right now looking to study native pollinators, and it sucks how little opportunity there is to research our native species because...nobody cares.
What research DOES exist suggests that honeybees are harming our native bee populations by spreading disease and outcompeting for resources, but there's not a lot of in depth research so far. Too much of the research that does exist is funded by very biased sources, so it's difficult to know what's backed by evidence and what's not.
I certainly would like to hope that further research would find they're not actually harmful, but I'm a bit cynical about that topic.
You know when they are killer bees. They real nasty. Like kill you nasty, so like yeah. Doesn't really matter how many they kill, tho, so don't worry about how many they kill. You can't eradicate them, they are the superior bee.
You know when they are killer bees. They real nasty. Like kill you nasty, so like yeah. Doesn't really matter how many they kill, tho, so don't worry about how many they kill. You can't eradicate them, they are the superior bee.
European bees aren't native to the USA either and actually do take away food sources from native bees. Killing wild hives would be helping the native bees. "Saving the bees" by caring for European honeybees is about as helpful as "saving the birds" by raising chickens
Yes, all honey bees (Apis mellifera) in the Americas can be considered invasive when they occur in natural areas. They are domesticated livestock: they didn't occur here at all until Europeans brought them & numerous studies have shown they can have significant negative impacts on native bees, including under agricultural settings. Removal of all feral colonies is likely for the best from an ecological perspective, but again, even managed hives can still have serious consequences for wild bees: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2290590919?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2018.2901 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41271-5
AFAIK, in most of Arizona, something like 95+% of wild hives are Africanized. Given that honeybees ARE an invasive species that competes with native bees for pollen and resources, I don't think these folks are at all wrong.
honeybees are invasive in all of the american continents. however its important to note that foreign is not automatically equal to invasive or harmful, not everything foreign automatically damages the local environment. in the case of honeybees they absolutely are destroying the native environment though, mainly indirectly as the native fauna have zero immunity to the disease amd pests they carry. basically smallpox decimating the native american populations all over again-- just bug form.
>however its important to note that invasive is not automatically equal to bad, not everything foreign automatically damages the local environment The term *invasive* specifically equates to bad. If it's not harmful, it's not invasive. Just an exotic/non native species
you are right. I should have worded it to say foreign doesn't automatically equate invasive or harmful. I will reword it :)
In the US, honeybees are an invasive species. I'm in graduate school right now looking to study native pollinators, and it sucks how little opportunity there is to research our native species because...nobody cares. What research DOES exist suggests that honeybees are harming our native bee populations by spreading disease and outcompeting for resources, but there's not a lot of in depth research so far. Too much of the research that does exist is funded by very biased sources, so it's difficult to know what's backed by evidence and what's not. I certainly would like to hope that further research would find they're not actually harmful, but I'm a bit cynical about that topic.
the only bees with visible hives and clusters like that in the Americas are honey bees which are non native, they aren’t killing native bees
You know when they are killer bees. They real nasty. Like kill you nasty, so like yeah. Doesn't really matter how many they kill, tho, so don't worry about how many they kill. You can't eradicate them, they are the superior bee.
You know when they are killer bees. They real nasty. Like kill you nasty, so like yeah. Doesn't really matter how many they kill, tho, so don't worry about how many they kill. You can't eradicate them, they are the superior bee.