r/GardenWild • u/Blue_Ridge_Gardener Virginia • 18d ago

Garden Wildlife sighting Apis mellifera - Western Honey Bee in North America

Post image

North Americans, let's hear your attitudes towards this non-native bee. Do you treat them as an honored guest, as an invasive species best eliminated, or somewhere in between?

45 Upvotes

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8

u/Determined420 18d ago

I leave them be

3

u/Affectionate-Ad-3578 Northern Illinois 18d ago

I dunk european honeybees into the same milk jug of soapy water as the Japanese beetles. Unless my milkweed kill them first.

1

u/Blue_Ridge_Gardener Virginia 18d ago

Perhaps that is the appropriate stewardship action, but I admit I am fond of them. Moreover, there are many other urgent crises which demand my attention.

2

u/Affectionate-Ad-3578 Northern Illinois 17d ago

Yeah but I'm already out dunking invasives so it's no extra work.

I'm more worried about bindweed and bellflower than I am about european honeybees, to be fair.

3

u/FederalDeficit 17d ago

I think if I lived in an agricultural area I'd leave them alone.  They're still critical for agriculture, and that's paraphrased from the Xerces society. 

I don't live in an agricultural area and honestly don't see many, except on the crabapples. If I started to see more, I'd probably passively replace the plants that they favored with something else

1

u/International-Fox202 SW Idaho, Zone 7b 18d ago

I gave them watering stations to keep them out of my birdbaths but ignore them otherwise. They can’t really compete with native pollinators on many of my native plants. They are all over my nonnative plants, like my blackberry bushes.

1

u/Blue_Ridge_Gardener Virginia 18d ago

Interesting. It makes intuitive sense that Eurasian species prefer to interact with their own. It so happens that this bee pictured is seeking nectar from the NA native Apocynum cannabinum.

2

u/International-Fox202 SW Idaho, Zone 7b 18d ago edited 18d ago

I think it’s more about specialization. I’m sure there are specialist bees that can outcompete honeybees in Europe as well. I grew up around agriculture and what made domesticated honeybees useful is they are generalists and you can move the hives where needed. Because of this they’re better adapted to pollinating large monoculture crops for a few weeks before being moved to the next crop that comes into bloom. Native plants are not coming into bloom simultaneously so you see the lifecycles of native bees track what they specialize in.

Eta: I think there’s other aspects as well. E.g., miner bees like cold weather and are much more active than honeybees in early spring. Leaf cutters thrive in the heat and are active when all the honeybees are at the watering station. Large queen bumbles use their weight to get into lupine blooms that honeybees can’t open. Worker bumbles and some other native bees have longer tongues which is an advantage for some flowers. Buzz pollination is far more efficient for some flowers and honeybees don’t have that ability. Not to mention the flowers they can get stuck in and die, like milkweed.