You're Worrying About the Wrong Bees

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You're Worrying About the Wrong Bees | WIRED

chasinglinnaeus:
Honey bees will be fine. They are a globally distributed, domesticated animal. Apis mellifera will not go extinct, and the species is not remotely threatened with extinction. The National Survey of beekeepers released last week reported the lowest winter hive losses of the last 8 years.

The bees you should be concerned about are the 3,999 other bee species living in North America, most of which are solitary, stingless, ground-nesting bees you’ve never heard of. Incredible losses in native bee diversity are already happening. 50 percent of Midwestern native bee species disappeared from their historic ranges in the last 100 years. Four of our bumblebee species declined 96 percent in the last 20 years, and three species are believed to already be extinct…

That wouldn’t be a big deal, if commercial honeybees could pick up the slack. They can’t. Managed honey bee colonies supplement the work of natural wild pollinators, not the other way around. In a study of 41 different crop systems worldwide, honeybees only increased yield in 14 percent of the crops. Who did all the pollination? Native bees and other insects.
^ This.
This is why it’s important to find out what native plants in your area are favorites with bees and plant those. Because those are the ones that are adapted to the native bees. Also a lot of the solitary native bees nest in old wood or the dirt, so you can create a bee hotel for the wood-living ones.

(via strigops)