Urban apiarists ‘pose a threat to wild bees’
Experts claim that growth in hobby leaves insects struggling to gather enough pollen and nectar
THE rise in amateur beekeepers maintaining hives on roofs and in gardens contributes to the decline of wild bees, Cambridge University has claimed.
Experts at the university’s zoology department said that a growth in urban beekeeping has left wild bees struggling to gather enough pollen and nectar.
Urban beekeeping has flourished in recent years, with many museums, charities and businesses creating colonies on their roofs, and home owners setting up hives in their backyards.
“Keeping honey bees is an extractive activity. It removes pollen and nectar from the environment, which are natural resources needed by many wild species of bee and other pollinators,” said Cambridge zoologist Dr Juan González-varo.
“Honey bees are artificially bred, agricultural animals similar to livestock such as pigs and cows. But this livestock can roam beyond any enclosures to disrupt local ecosystems through competition and disease.”
The conservationists argue that there is a “lack of distinction” in public understanding – fuelled by misguided charity campaigns – between an agricultural problem and an urgent biodiversity issue. “The crisis in global pollinator decline has been associated with one species above all, the western honey bee.
“Yet this is one of the few pollinator species that is continually replenished through breeding and agriculture,” said Dr Jonas Geldmann, the co-author of the new research report.
“Saving the honey bee does not help wildlife. Western honey bees are a commercially managed species that can actually have negative effects on their immediate environment through the massive numbers in which they are introduced.”
Honey bees are active for nine to twelve months and travel up to six miles (10km) from their hives.
Experts say this results in massive “spillover” from farmed honey bees into the landscape, potentially outcompeting wild pollinators. Honey bees also pass on diseases to wild bees when they feed from the same flowers, the researchers warn.
Wild European bee species include the great yellow bumblebee, which was once found across the UK but has lost 80 per cent of its range in the past half century and is now limited to coastal areas of Scotland.
The experts say that there needs to be greater controls of managed honey bee hives.
Previous research by the University of Sussex also found that more honey bees in the city simply meant less nectar and flowers were available to the wild bee population.
The study, published by The Society of Biology, said that people should be planting wild flowers instead.
Novice keepers have also been blamed for causing spates of swarms in towns and cities. Swarming, a natural process which takes place every spring, sometimes happens when new queen bees are born in a colony and some of the hive leaves with the original queen, settling on items such as railings, trees and cars as they search for a suitable new home.
It can also happen when a hive runs out of space and some of the bees leave to find a new home.
The British Beekeepers Association (BBA) has reported a doubling in the number of bee hives nationwide in recent years, with many of the new keepers coming from urban areas of the nation.
The BBA recorded a slight increase in the proportion of the honey bee population lost last winter – 16.7 per cent – compared to 14.5 per cent in 2014-15.