Keeping hives to save bees is like keeping chickens to save birds

[Chrisbarlow]

A fair article here

Keeping hives to save bees is like keeping chickens to save birds.

I like the analogy, Sounds about right


https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/keeping-hives-to-save-bees-is-like-keeping-chickens-to-save-birds-1.4023891?mode=amp

[AdamD]

I get the authors point. It's still the case that for ISO14001 (the environmental standard) people are told to keep honeybees at work. Better to plant the right kind of trees and shrubs and such-like.

Having said that I have bees at work occasionally as it's a staging post between my home apiary and my out apiary which is 500 metres away so sometimes colonies have a little trip to the office for a few weeks and then back to nearly where they came from.

[WalnutTreeBees]

Spot on! And a good article too.

Although honeybees are very useful for encouraging engagement with nature, and also means of raising awareness of how nature can be integrated into an urbanised landscape.

[Chrisbarlow]

its something I have discussed with other beekeepers before. The honey bee has become a poster child for the environment but the honey bee itself is in no danger of dying out. All new beekeepers talk about saving the honey bee, all old beekeepers just say or think, what are you on about, how many hives do you want to buy?

[Patrick]

In fairness, for many people until you keep bees you do not really appreciate the presence or absence of useful nectar sources and hence feeding habitat for non- honey bee pollinators. It’s an eye opener how poor much of our countryside has become for nectar feeding insects who do not live as social insects or have evolved to store nectar to tide themselves over the dearth periods I.e which includes just about all pollinators that are not honey bees.

I always tell the public not to worry about honey bees, they have beekeepers to symbiotically look after them (I don’t actually mention symbiosis you will be mighty relieved to hear..), it’s the native wild insects that are really up against it on all fronts and no gloss to put on it, are simply declining across the board mainly due to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation.

So they do serve a purpose in helping raise awareness but are certainly not the “solution” to the underlying much larger issue.