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When someone disturbs a colony to take honey or pollen it places a great amount of stress on the bees. This disorients them for a period and, in that sense, the
by clydethefrog 8y ago
When someone disturbs a colony to take honey or pollen it places a great amount of stress on the bees. This disorients them for a period and, in that sense, their whole order has been tampered with.
We cultivate honey bees just like chickens, cows, and pigs, and like all agriculture animals, their high population is a harm to wild populations: they compete directly for nectar and pollen, transmit diseases, and push wild bees out of their native areas.
- skilled 8y agoHmm, so, my local farmer who sells glass jars of Bee Pollen at the market is doing this as well?
- lostlogin 8y agoSort of yes, sort of no. You can collect pollen without opening up the hive. However hives must be opened regularly to inspect and treat, which actually helps the hive in easily measurable ways, like ‘is the colony alive?’.
- lostlogin 8y agoDone right, beekeeping doesn’t stress bees very much at all and there is a feedback mechanism which trains the beekeeper very quickly if they are bad at it. If the beekeeper works in hot, still weather, is careful and avoids the squashing of bees they can work without smoke or protective gear. Even basic things like entrance size are not controlled in the wild, and having a beekeeper open the entrance or reduce it down is a huge advantage to a colony. Managed bees can be looked after such that they live far longer than any feral colony will. Diseases haven’t been shown to be spread to native bees in New Zealand, but competition for food sources is definitely going to be occurring.