Guidance - Honey bees and beekeeping on protected areas

Pages: 9
Published: 2018

Background

The Western or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most economically important managed pollinator in the world (Vanengelsdorp & Meixner, 2010: Kennedy et al., 2013; Kleijn et al., 2015; Potts et al., 2016), particularly for mass-flowering crops (Rader et al., 2009) and in countries subject to intensive agricultural practices, such as the UK. In Scotland, around 30 commercial bee farmers and 2,400 hobbyists keep honey bees, collectively employing local people, generating several million pounds in honey bee products each year and providing pollination services. Beekeeping plays an indispensable role in the survival of the European honey bee because there are few remaining colonies in the wild. 

Honey bees have uncommon degrees of sociality and colony longevity when compared to most bee species (Michener, 2000; O’Toole & Raw, 2004). They are very effective in harvesting pollen and nectar, and are known to forage 5 km or more from their nests. An average honey bee colony (approximately 50,000 bees) collects up to 120 kg nectar and 55 kg pollen, although these figures depend greatly on location, time of year, floral abundance and climatic conditions (O’Neal & Waller, 1984; Seeley, 1995; Winston, 1987; Rortais et al., 2005 and references therein). Heinrich (1979) estimated that a large apiary collects the equivalent amount of nectar and pollen to support 102 bumble bee colonies, and Cane & Tepedino (2017) calculated that a 40-hive apiary collects the pollen equivalent of four million wild bees at high season (June–August); according to these figures, one hive gathers pollen sufficient to produce 100,000 progeny of an average solitary bee species. 

Honey bees can be effective generalist pollinators in the natural environment (Aslan et al., 2016 and references therein), increasing fruit production and seed set of many native plants (Cayuela et al., 2011). However, because they are so efficient at what they do, concerns have been raised about possible competition for nectar and pollen with other pollinators, particularly wild bees (bumble bees and solitary bees). 

Risks of competition

No experiment has clearly demonstrated that honey bees have caused long-term reductions in populations of other pollinators because rigorous manipulative experiments of competition are

difficult to design, particularly for highly mobile organisms such as bees (Butz-Huryn, 1997; Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke, 2000; Steffan-Dewenter & Kuhn, 2003; Forup & Memmott, 2005). Nonetheless, a number of studies have shown adverse impacts of honey bees on wild bees (Goulson, 2003; Mallinger et al., 2017, Wojcik et al., 2018). In several cases where honey bee hives have been removed, wild bee abundances have increased, suggesting there has been competition (Pyke & Balzer, 1985; Thorp et al., 1994). 

In some situations, wild bees switch to less abundant and less rewarding plant species when honey bees are present (Anderson & Anderson, 1989; Buchmann et al., 1996; Walther-Hellwig et al., 2006; Shavit et al., 2009; Hudewenz & Klein, 2013). Other studies have demonstrated that some wild bees were more scarce, foraged on different flower species, gained less weight, and produced fewer and smaller offspring when in the proximity of honey bees (Schaffer et al., 1983; Sugden & Pyke, 1991; Evertz, 1993; Thomson, 2004, 2006, 2016; Paini & Roberts, 2005; Goulson & Sparrow, 2009; Elbgami et al., 2014; Hudewenz & Klein, 2015; Torné-Noguera et al., 2016). 

Managed honey bees may drift from mass-flowering crops such as oil-seed rape into seminatural and natural habitats, increasing the interactions with the local fauna (González-Varo & Vilà, 2017, Magrach et al., 2017),  and lowering the densities of wild bumble bees, solitary bees, hoverflies and other flies (Lindström et al., 2016). Reduction in the occurrence of local wild bees, and nectar and pollen harvesting may reach distances of 600–1.100 m around apiaries (Henry & Rodet, 2018). Because of their large numbers, honey bees have the potential to alter their environment (Geslin et al., 2017).

Competition between honey bees and other pollinators depend on whether resources are limiting, which would imply the habitat is close to its carrying capacity. If not, resources are simply shared with no disadvantage to the species involved. Therefore, competition is more likely to occur on small areas, homogeneous landscapes, on semi-natural habitats with scarce flower resources (Beard, 2015; Herbertsson et al., 2016), at the beginning or at the end of bees' foraging period, and during unusually cold or dry years. Availability of flowering plants and densities of A. mellifera hives are the main factors determining the intensity of competition (Aslan et al., 2016). Considering that wild bees are capable of collecting up to 97–99% of all pollen available in a foraging area (Schlindwein et al., 2005; Larsson & Franzen, 2007), competition for a limiting resource is a likely outcome of interactions with honey bees (Cane & Tepedino, 2017). 

The competitive potential of honey bees is greatest where they are not native and have been introduced, leading to calls for legislation to ban or control beekeeping in national parks and other sensitive areas in Australia, Israel, New Zealand and the USA (Pyke, 1999; Shavit et al., 2009; Beard, 2015; Kleijn et al., 2018). Islands are particularly vulnerable; native bees have become endangered in New Caledonia, New Zealand, Japan and Tasmania after honey bees were introduced (Kato & Kawakita, 2004 and references therein). 

The impact of honey bees is not always negative, and in some environments these generalist pollinators may protect wildflower communities from the decline in wild pollinators (MacIvor et al., 2017; Hung et al., 2018). However, honey bees can only pollinate about 50% of flowering plants, so there is still a need to encourage recovery of wild pollinators and ensure that sufficient resources are available for both wild and managed pollinators (Hung et al., 2018).

Risks of diseases

Pathogens have emerged as a significant threat to beekeeping in recent years; more than 18 viruses have been identified from honey bee eggs, larvae, pupae, adult workers, drones and queens. However, the main culprit in pathogen-related colony losses is the mite Varroa destructor, which does not affect non-Apis species. This parasite facilitates the spread of viral diseases and intensifies their virulence, causing dramatic declines in honey bee populations (Vanengelsdorp & Meixner, 2010; Manley et al., 2015). 

Recent research has demonstrated that some honey bee diseases such as Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and multiple RNA viruses can be found on bumble bees and other species of native bees, and likely transmitted by flower-sharing (Durrer & Schmid-Hempe, 1994; Genersch et al., 2006; Singh et al., 2010; Fürst et al., 2014; Li et al., 2014). The pathogenicity of most of these RNA viruses to bumble bees has not yet been evaluated, but bumble bees infected with DWV can develop malformed wings (Genersh et al., 2006) and have higher mortality (Fürst et al., 2014). In addition, bumble bees have recently been seen to harbour Nosema ceranae, an emergent and particularly virulent disease of honey bees (Paxton, 2010; Graystock et al., 2013; Fürst et al., 2014). Managed honey bees and bumble bees are likely to be linked to the dispersal of many diseases observed in wild bees, therefore it is reasonable to assume that the proximity of managed bees of any species may be detrimental to vulnerable or declining native bees (Fürst et al., 2014; Manley et al., 2015; McMahon et al., 2015; Graystock et al., 2016; Mallinger et al., 2017). 

The purpose of the Scottish Honey Bee Health Strategy (2010) is to improve the health and sustainability of Scottish honey bee populations, hence reducing the need for importation of large numbers of honey bees and reducing the potential of disease transmission from infested honey bees to native pollinator populations. Whilst the risk of honey bee diseases to wild pollinator communities have yet to be fully established, encouraging and educating sustainable beekeeping in Scotland with good disease control may reduce the potential risk of pathogen spillover.

Conservation objectives

Addressing these threats are embedded in the Pollinator Strategy for Scotland, namely identifying actions required to minimise the risk of managed bees to native pollinator species, and increasing awareness within key sectors and amongst the public of opportunities to help pollinators and their habitat. The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy also includes measures to safeguard our wild pollinators: reduce adverse pressures on ecosystems, habitats and species, and develop a wildlife management framework to address the key priorities for sustainable species management, conservation and conflict issues, including reintroductions and invasive non-native species. Honey bees may be necessary for crop pollination, but beekeeping is an agricultural activity that may add pressure on wild bee species, and should not be considered wildlife conservation (Geldmann & González-Varo, 2018).

Policy and practice advice for SNH

Given these potential risks, SNH should take a precautionary approach and consider new requests for apiary sites on National Nature Reserves or other protected areas comprising biological interests by assessing possible consequences. Risks to be taken into consideration include:

• Nature of the environment (e.g., degree of isolation, extent and composition of floral components).
• History of beekeeping in the area (removing stock may be detrimental in areas of extended beekeeping activity).
• Presence of native plants requiring pollination.
• Status of wild pollinators: presence of vulnerable species or declining wild pollinator populations. 
• Beekeeper details:  number of colonies, heritage of the bees (Scottish/recently imported), health records (Varroa control, frame replacement).

It is further advised that any SNH officers consulted about beekeeping on protected areas should discuss such plans with the Policy & Advice Officer (terrestrial invertebrates) and the Biodiversity and Geodiversity Activity team.

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