Since we have so many honeybees, why does it matter that native bee populations are endangered? I’m not sure if this is true, but bee predators don’t really care about bee species right? They just eat whatever bees they can find. And since bees all pollinate, shouldn’t it be fine that some bee species are dying out?
In: Biology
There are no honeybees alive today that are native to North America. They are basically a commodity – a managed species like cows or sheep. They compete with native pollinators, they don’t pollinate native plants as well as the bees that evolved with the native plants, the products of honey and wax are sold just like the pollination services are.
We have lots of sheep, too – and wolves don’t care what the sheep taste like. But the farmer who is raising their own sheep wants to protect their product against any predator or other causes of loss.
Part of the problem is that we’ve interfered with their environment. Natural evolution gives some native species defenses against bee predators. We’ve moved the honeybees out of their natural environment and allowed predators from other environments to interact.
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