Personally, I care because I love honey, farm grown food, and they are a poster child for all bees. Without them, there is certainly a lot less care for native bees. While yes they are primarily important for large monocropped farms, that’s your food. Like, so much of your food. Natuu is very bee populations aren’t sufficient or interested in pollinating our food crops, so yes we should really care.
Honeybees compete for resources with native bees and are much more efficient foragers, and it’s hard to state the scope of impact they have had on native bee populations, but most believe it to be significant.
They were introduced to North America in the 1600s and then again, over repeated colonizations as colonizers were frustrated that native bees didn’t produce honey. Native Americans called them “white man’s flies”.
Africanized honey bees were introduced from South America around the 1990s. Which are even more aggressive in their foraging and nature then their European cousins, although produce more honey.
Native bees are relatively docile and some variants lack the ability to sting at all.
Specifically, honey bees (Apis mellifera). Native bees that aren’t colony dwellers may not be impacted the same by the mites.
Who cares then, aren’t they only useful for monocropping large farms? Most US bee enthusiasts would instantly cull every honey bee if they could.
Personally, I care because I love honey, farm grown food, and they are a poster child for all bees. Without them, there is certainly a lot less care for native bees. While yes they are primarily important for large monocropped farms, that’s your food. Like, so much of your food. Natuu is very bee populations aren’t sufficient or interested in pollinating our food crops, so yes we should really care.
Why would the bee enthusiasts cull honey bees?
Because the aren’t native, would be my guess
That’s really interesting and I’d love to read more
Honeybees compete for resources with native bees and are much more efficient foragers, and it’s hard to state the scope of impact they have had on native bee populations, but most believe it to be significant.
They were introduced to North America in the 1600s and then again, over repeated colonizations as colonizers were frustrated that native bees didn’t produce honey. Native Americans called them “white man’s flies”.
Africanized honey bees were introduced from South America around the 1990s. Which are even more aggressive in their foraging and nature then their European cousins, although produce more honey.
Native bees are relatively docile and some variants lack the ability to sting at all.
Here is an article, or op ed about the problem: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-honey-bees/