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At the risk of alienating yet another economic sector, I've just read a paper which suggests that keeping honeybees is even more harmful than I thought: massive suppression of wild pollinators, and much poorer reproduction of wild plants. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41271-5?fbclid=IwAR27pY0Np-wF4_VUwfCWZZpFK7Zf4w5b6azzSM5a1A_McBHQyg00Cj-AYMg
Bringing in beehives is like building an insect city in the countryside. Because their numbers are so great, honeybees mop up the nectar, outcompeting native bees, beetles and other pollinators. Good pollination depends on a high diversity of pollinators, so plants also suffer.
In other words, the impacts of keeping honeybees are similar to those of keeping other kinds of livestock: domestic grazers, as their numbers are so great, suppress wild herbivores and radically change plant communities.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news yet again. I've discovered over the years that the most popular rural bloodsport is shooting the messenger, so I'm prepared for the flak.
This paper suggests that enhancing the populations of wild pollinators, by creating habitat for them, gives you better crop pollination than bringing in honeybees. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880919302026
There are similar results, across several papers I've read, for other crops, with the exception of almonds, that flower too early for most wild pollinators to visit.
