Guidance - Honey bees and beekeeping on protected areas

Originally published: 2018
Reviewed: July 2026

Summary

The honey bee species familiar to us, the Western or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) ('honey bee' hereafter), has been managed by beekeepers for thousands of years and is present in nearly every country in the world. Honey bees are super-generalist foragers, exploring more plant species than any other pollinator. Thanks to their capacity to recruit nestmates by communicating distance, direction and quality of food, honey bees quickly dominate the harnessing of floral resources, which overlap substantially with those required by most wild bee species. Honey bees are very good at what they do, which could be bad news for other pollinators. 

There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the honey bee has a competitive advantage over wild pollinators. When introduced into a new habitat, the honey bee quickly becomes the dominant species that monopolises flowering plants. In response, wild bees often switch to less rewarding plant species, or spend more time searching for flowers that have not yet been depleted. Moreover, some wild bees gained less weight, and produced fewer and smaller offspring when in the proximity of honey bees. Densities of bumble bees, solitary bees, some flies and other flower visitors are reduced when honey bee hives are introduced, or increase when honey bees are removed. Other studies have demonstrated negative correlations between number of honey bees or beekeeping activity and the abundance and taxonomic diversity of wild bees. 

Honey bees can be infected by a range of parasites and pathogens, some of which are found in bumble bees, solitary bees and other insects, and are likely transmitted to each other by flower-sharing. Precise transmission routes and directionality remain unclear, but studies have demonstrated much higher viral loads in managed honey bees than in wild pollinators; increased levels of infection in wild bees also occurred when honey bees were present in high densities, or near apiaries. 

Domesticated honey bees are important for crop pollination, but they are ubiquitous farm animals with ever increasing numbers around the world. Many wild bees and other pollinators on the other hand have declined, and some have become threatened. Loss of habitat, agricultural intensification and urbanisation are considered the main causes of wild pollinators' declines, but a great deal of evidence suggests that managed honey bees can add to the troubles faced by wild bees and other pollinators.

Competition between honey bees and other pollinators depends on whether pollen or nectar are in short supply. To determine that, we would need to know how much each resource is needed and shared. Unfortunately, we don't have this information. The best we can do is to expect competition where food is likely to be scarce for at least part of the season: for example, in small areas, in homogeneous landscapes with a dearth of flowering plants, at high latitudes and altitudes where the flowering seasons are shorter and the climate is harsher, at the beginning or at the end of bees' foraging period, and during unusually cold or dry years. 

Honey bees are susceptible to a range of viruses and other pathogens that can infect other species of bees, wasps and hoverflies. Infestations are bidirectional, i.e., from honey bees to wild bees or vice-versa, but honey bees are considered the main reservoirs of pathogens, particularly in places of high hive densities. 

Considering the relentless pace of urbanisation and agriculture intensification in the UK and around the world, nature reserves and other conservation units are increasingly important to safeguard local biodiversity. Given the potential risks posed by managed honey bees, they should not be introduced to protected areas or areas hosting rare, vulnerable or declining populations of wild pollinators, especially in places with no history of beekeeping. The precautionary principle dictates that if a human activity has a reasonable chance of causing environmental harm, measures should be taken to prevent or mitigate harm: uncertainty should not be an excuse for inaction.

Evidence

The honey bee species familiar to us, the Western or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) ('honey bee' hereafter), has been managed by beekeepers for thousands of years and is present in nearly every country in the world. Thanks to its uncommon degree of sociality and colony longevity when compared to most bee species (Michener, 2000; O’Toole & Raw, 2004), ability to adapt to new habitats, ease of management, and large numbers of foraging individuals, the honey bee has become the most economically important managed pollinator globally, particularly in countries subject to intensive agricultural practices such as the UK (Costanza et al., 1997; Michener 2000; Vanengelsdorp & Meixner, 2010: Kennedy et al., 2013; Kleijn et al., 2015; Requier et al., 2015; Potts et al., 2016). 

Although retaining some elements of untamed animals such as uncontrolled mating and swarming, the honey bee is considered managed livestock, a position adopted by legislations around the world. Thus, beekeeping is an agricultural activity, and should not be treated as wildlife conservation (Geldmann & González-Varo, 2018). Despite panicked reports in the media about the honey bee's imminent demise, its global population has been increasing steadily for the past 50 years (Herrera, 2020; Osterman et al., 2021; Zattara & Aizen, 2021). In the UK alone, numbers have increased by 45% since 2018, according to DEFRA. Wild honey bees - that is, those living freely in natural habitats independently of human management - are classed as Endangered in Europe, but they are rare and their populations are very small (Requier et al., 2019).

Honey bees are super-generalist foragers, exploring more plant species than any other pollinator, accounting for 13% of all flower visits in non-managed habitats (Hung et al., 2018). Thanks to their capacity to recruit nestmates by communicating distance, direction and quality of food (von Frisch, 1963), honey bees quickly dominate the harnessing of floral resources, which overlap substantially with those required by most wild bee species (Crane, 1999; Goulson, 2003; Willmer, 2011; Simanonok et al., 2021; Casanelles-Abella et al., 2025). 

Honey bees are very good at what they do, which could be bad news for other pollinators.

Interaction with other pollinators

Bees in general have three main requirements: a place to build their nests, a place to hibernate, and food, in the form of pollen and nectar. Food availability fluctuates considerably along the season: the summer months are times of plenty, but scarcity is common in early and later months. Shortage of food, especially pollen, usually is the main obstacle to bees' reproduction and population growth (Williams & Kremen, 2007; Roulston & Goodell, 2011; Crone & Williams, 2016; Carvel et al., 2017; Thomson & Page, 2020), but the honey bee is uniquely prepared to avoid famine. 

Honey bees consistently forage up to 6 km from their hives, but are capable of reaching 12 km in search of food (Seeley, 1985; Winston, 1987; Beekman & Ratnieks, 2000). And they are quite effective foragers. Depending on floral abundance, season, climatic conditions and density of hives in the area, a single colony may consume 10 to 60 kg of pollen and 55 to 400 kg of nectar per year (O’Neal & Waller, 1984; Seeley, 1985; Winston, 1987; Rortais et al., 2005). A large apiary may collect the equivalent amount of nectar and pollen to support 102 bumble bee colonies (Heinrich, 1979), and a single hive can gather up to 10 kg of pollen across three summer months (June-August), which would be enough to rear the progeny of 100,000 Megachile rotundata solitary bees; a 40-hive apiary could remove enough pollen to provision four million M. rotundata offspring each summer (Cane & Tepedino, 2017). In an unmanaged scrub ecosystem in southern California, feral honey bees can take more than 60% of the available pollen produced by three common native plants, which would be sufficient to rear some 2,300 to 15,900 native bees per hectare (Travis et al., 2015). These figures are bound to be consequential, considering that wild bees may collect up to 97-99% of all pollen available when honey bees are not around (Schlindwein et al., 2005; Müller et al., 2006; Larsson & Franzén, 2007; Carvalho & Schlindwein, 2011). The upshot is that in some circumstances, there may not be enough food to go around.

Species that share a resource (food, water, territory, mates, etc.) usually carry on with their lives without conflict as long as the common resource is plentiful. But when it becomes scarce, the species involved will compete for it. However, experimental evidence for competition between pollinators is not straightforward. Homogeneous replicates (experimental plots) at the scale required for controlled experiments in field conditions are difficult to come by, and highly mobile, long-distance fliers like bees cannot be confined to different experimental treatments (Butz-Huryn, 1997; Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke, 2000; Steffan-Dewenter & Kuhn, 2003; Forup & Memmott, 2005). 

Nonetheless, there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the honey bee has a competitive advantage over wild pollinators. When introduced into a new habitat, the honey bee quickly becomes the dominant species that monopolises flowering plants (Garibaldi et al, 2021; Baena-Díaz & Dáttilo, 2025). In response, wild bees often switch to less rewarding plant species, or spend more time searching for flowers that have not yet been depleted. These flowers are frequently at considerable distances from the bees' nests, making foraging more difficult (Inouye, 1978; Anderson & Anderson, 1989; Buchmann et al., 1996; Walther-Hellwig et al., 2006; Shavit et al., 2009; Zurbuchen et al., 2010; Spiesman & Gratton, 2016; Roulston & Cane, 2000; Di Pasquale et al., 2013; Fruend et al., 2013; Hudewenz & Klein, 2013; Spiesman & Gratton, 2016; Page & Williams, 2023; An & Sun, 2025). Moreover, a number of studies have revealed that some wild bees gained less weight, and produced fewer and smaller offspring when in the proximity of honey bees (Schaffer et al., 1983; Sugden & Pyke, 1991; Thomson, 2004, 2006, 2016; Paini & Roberts, 2005; Goulson & Sparrow, 2009; Elbgami et al., 2014; Hudewenz & Klein, 2015; Torné-Noguera et al., 2016). These effects are likely to be worse for the rarer pollinating species, which often collect food from a narrow range of plants and consequently are more vulnerable to the rapacity of an efficient, generalist feeder such as the honey bee. 

Research under an array of conditions and locations has shown that densities of bumble bees, solitary bees, some flies and other flower visitors are reduced when honey bee hives are introduced, or increase when honey bees are removed (Pyke & Balzer, 1985; Thorp et al., 1994; Garibaldi et al., 2013, 2016; Lindström et al., 2016; MacKell et al., 2023). Other studies have demonstrated negative correlations between number of honey bees or beekeeping activity and the abundance and taxonomic diversity of wild bees (Forup & Memmott, 2005; Thomson, 2006; Henry & Rodet, 2018; Ropars et al., 2020; Angelella et al., 2021; Lazaro et al., 2021; Renner et al., 2021; Maclnnis et al., 2023). 

Scrambling for food is not the only consequence of bees' interactions. Shifts of wild bees' floral visitation induced by honey bees may disrupt interactions between wild bees and plants (Magrach et al., 2017; Lazaro et al., 2021), changing the habitat's plant species composition and often aiding the spread of weeds (Barthell et al., 2001; Hanley & Goulson, 2003; Geslin et al., 2017; Mallinger et al., 2017). 

Not all investigations indicated harmful effects of honey bees on other pollinators or their habitats; but most did, as reported in reviews of the literature (Goulson, 2003; Paini, 2004; Geslin et al., 2017; Mallinger et al., 2017; Wojcik et al., 2018; Iwasaki & Hogendoorn, 2022). 

The intensity of competition depends on the density of honey bee hives and distance from apiaries (Walther-Hellwig et al., 2006; Goulson & Sparrow, 2008; Hudewenz & Klein, 2013, 2015; Elbgami et al., 2014; Henry & Rodet, 2018, 2020; Magrach et al., 2025). Additionally, competition is likely to be more severe when species share small areas, homogeneous landscapes, or semi-natural habitats with limited flower resources (Beard, 2015; Herbertsson et al., 2016; Thomson & Page, 2020). Competition is also more acute at the beginning or at the end of bees' foraging period, and during unusually cold or dry years. The competitive potential of honey bees is greatest where they have been introduced, and islands are particularly vulnerable; native bees have become endangered in New Caledonia, New Zealand, Japan and Tasmania after honey bees were brought in (Kato & Kawakita, 2004). Because of the potential risks, there have been calls for legislation to ban or control beekeeping in national parks and other protected areas in Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the USA (Pyke, 1999; Shavit et al., 2009; Beard, 2015; Geldmann & González-Varo, 2018; Leung & Reid, 2025). 

Case studies: honey bees in the Mediterranean basin

Every spring, Tenerife beekeepers bring up to 2,700 beehives to Teide National Park to take advantage of the seasonal bloom. A research team saw this cyclical migration as a good opportunity to evaluate the impact of honey bees. So for three years, they monitored the park before and after hives were brought in. They observed a clear reduction in the number of pollinator species and diversity of flower visitors when honey bees were present (Valido et al., 2019). 

Giannutri, a 2.6-km² Mediterranean island in Tuscan Archipelago National Park (Italy), offered another opportunity to assess the effect of honey bees. For three years, researchers controlled the comings and goings of honey bees from the island's 18 hives by closing and opening hive entrances on selected days, then observing the consequences for the island's two most abundant plant species and two most abundant wild bees. The results: a 11-h honey bee exclusion ensued ~60% and ~30% increase of nectar volume and pollen availability, respectively. Additionally, on days of honey bee exclusion the two wild bees became the dominant flower visitors, a remarkable outcome considering that their populations had declined by 80% since beekeeping was introduced to the island (Pasquali et al., 2025). 

In three Israeli nature reserves, the diversity of the 295 local bee species decreased sharply within 1 km of apiaries (Tourbez et al., 2025). Similarly, high-density beekeeping in a Mediterranean scrubland in southern France led to a 55% decrease of wild bees' occurrence and 50% reduction of their nectar foraging success (Henry & Rodet, 2018).

Bees and diseases

Honey bees can be infected by a range of parasites and pathogens such as viruses, microsporidia (fungus-like single cell parasites) and fungi. Pathogen-related losses of honey bee colonies are closely linked to the mite Varroa destructor, a parasite that facilitates the spread of viral diseases and intensifies their virulence, causing dramatic declines in honey bee populations (Vanengelsdorp & Meixner, 2010; Manley et al., 2015). Some honey bee diseases such as Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and multiple RNA viruses are found in bumble bees, solitary bees and other insects, and are likely transmitted to each other by flower-sharing (Durrer & Schmid-Hempe, 1994; Genersch et al., 2006; Singh et al., 2010; Fürst et al., 2014; Li et al., 2014). The transmission can go from honey bees to other insects or the other way around, and some pathogens first detected in honey bees have been found at higher loads in non-Apis bees. Precise transmission routes and directionality remain unclear (Colla et al, 2006; Alger et al., 2019; Purkiss et al., 2019; Proesmans et al., 2021; Tehel et al., 2022). Nonetheless, several studies have demonstrated much higher viral loads in managed honey bees than in wild pollinators; increased levels of infection in wild bees also occurred when honey bees were present in high densities, or near apiaries. These studies suggest that the honey bee acts as a reservoir host for many pathogens that infect wild pollinators (McMahon et al., 2015; Alger et al., 2019; Müller et al., 2019; Maurer et al., 2024; Wham et al., 2024; Kahnonitch et al., 2025; Capela et al., 2026; Proesmans et al., 2026). Some of these honey bee-associated pathogens don't seem to harm other hosts, but some do: their impacts range from reduced survival, fecundity and colony founding, to disrupted diapause (Paxton, 2010; Singh, 2011; Graystock et al., 2013, 2016; Fürst et al., 2014; Meeus et al., 2014).

Conclusions

Domesticated honey bees are important for crop pollination, but they are ubiquitous farm animals with ever increasing numbers around the world. Many wild bees and other pollinators on the other hand have declined, and some have become threatened. Loss of habitat, agricultural intensification and urbanisation are considered the main causes of wild pollinators' declines (Winfree et al., 2011; Kennedy et al., 2013; Dicks et al., 2021), but a great deal of evidence suggests that managed honey bees can add to the troubles faced by wild bees and other pollinators.

Competition between honey bees and other pollinators depends on whether pollen or nectar are in short supply. To determine that, we would need to know how much each resource is needed and shared. We also would need a measure of the carrying capacity of the species involved, that is, an assessment of the maximum number of individuals a given habitat can sustain. Unfortunately, we don't have this information. The best we can do is to expect competition where food is likely to be scarce for at least part of the season: for example, in small areas, in homogeneous landscapes with a dearth of flowering plants, at high latitudes and altitudes where the flowering seasons are shorter and the climate is harsher, at the beginning or at the end of bees' foraging period, and during unusually cold or dry years. 

Honey bees are susceptible to a range of viruses and other pathogens that can infect other species of bees, wasps and hoverflies. Infestations are bidirectional, i.e., from honey bees to wild bees or vice-versa, but honey bees are considered the main reservoirs of pathogens, particularly in places of high hive densities. 

Considering the relentless pace of urbanisation and agriculture intensification in the UK and around the world, nature reserves and other conservation units are increasingly important to safeguard local biodiversity. Given the potential risks to wild pollinators and their habitats posed by managed honey bees, they should not be introduced to protected areas or areas hosting rare, vulnerable or declining populations of wild pollinators, especially in places with no history of beekeeping. The precautionary principle dictates that if a human activity has a reasonable chance of causing environmental harm, measures should be taken to prevent or mitigate harm: uncertainty should not be an excuse for inaction.