Eli5 Why is it ok that bees are dwindling but I constantly see posts of people taking and eating their honey, don’t the bees need the honey for something? Isn’t it time we just left them alone?

Question

As above says I subscribe to a lot of gardening groups and I see dozens of posts of people cutting into honey as self proclaimed ‘satisfying’ posts. Bees don’t eat honey I know but they make it for a reason right? They’re on the downward slope of endangerment and their lifespans are shrinking too.

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Answer 1

Some corrections needed here. Domesticated honey bees don’t make too much honey. They make honey to feed their hive and help it expand but the bee keeper puts a screen across half the hive so the queen can’t lay her eggs in one layer but the workers can build honey comb for her young and fill it with honey. This means that the bee keeper can take that honey knowing it won’t have any grubs in it who need the honey. Domesticated bees are at risk from viruses and parasites they are also worked too hard and there are grave risks to moving hives around to pollinate lots of crops in different time zones and then taking the honey and feeding bees substandard sugar water. Basically bees are exploited for greed and it’s killing entire colonies.

This does not take into account the extended use of pesticides which are known to kill bees but are perfectly legal in lots of places

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Not a bee keeper but have worked with one and built the website for the regional bee keepers association.