My wife and I had wanted honey bees for a long time, but when we finally moved to a place that we could have had them, we noticed that we regularly saw at least 5 native bee species. We decided not to get a hive since they compete for resources and can spread disease. Given that there are neighbors that have them within about a mile, and that either those or feral colonies are close enough that we also see honey bees around, I'm not sure how much difference it makes, but we don't regret the decision.

▲

bregma 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's not as much crossover as you might think. In North America the native pollinators are adapted to the native plants and can't even pollinate the introduced eurasian ones. And it goes the other way: honeybees can't pollinate the native plants, only the introduced eurasian ones.

If course, if you're in Europe, honeybees are the native pollinators. At least around the Mediterranean.

	▲	pfdietz 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		So, what you're saying is that honeybees are facilitating the spread of invasive plants in North America? Seems like a definite negative.
	▲	justincormack 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		We also have many wild bees in Europe.

▲

Joel_Mckay 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The mite has already hit most wild populations hard, and tending hives requires quite a bit of time to learn. Planting local wild flowers is often helpful, and requires just a few minutes. =3

▲

2muchcoffeeman 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you “build colonies” for native species?

▲

chongli 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You just need to supply the native plants they prefer to pollinate, they’ll do the rest. If you’re wondering about whether you can harvest honey from them, I don’t think so. Most native pollinator species don’t produce honey.

Bumblebees do produce a kind of honey, but it’s much thinner and less concentrated than proper honey (which has had most of the water evaporated off by the wing beats of the bees).

▲

bombcar 2 hours ago | parent [-]

A thousand years of effort might be able to "domesticate" the bumblebee and make it produce something akin to usable amounts of honey - but unlikely to be worth it.

	▲	gus_massa 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Someone domesticated foxes in 20 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox , so perhaps it's possible to domesticate bumblebee in a few decades - but unlikely to be worth it.

▲

Modified3019 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, though you need to know what sort of nesting sites they like, and what sources of food they need. Many native bees need certain plants to get the nutritional profile they are adapted for, and don’t do so well on nothing but dandelions and typical ornamental flowers. They also need food sources throughout their active time.

For mason and leaf cutter bees, a box sheltered from rain and filled with Japanese knotweed tubes (don’t grow it yourself, it’s highly invasive) works well for “I like seeing solitary bees around, but want minimum efforts”. There are tons of videos you can find on the subject.

Drilling various sized holes in wood blocks also often works. The nice thing about “solitary” bees (which are often quite communal), is they don’t have much of a drive to defend a nest, and would much rather fly away than bite/poke you. I’ve walked alfalfa fields full of them, and while the loud buzzing was a bit disconcerting, they couldn’t care less about me. Leafcutter bees are used for alfalfa because they don’t mind how alfalfa flowers work mechanically. European Honeybees will just chew through the base of the flower to get the nectar, avoiding pollination.

For other bees, there is highly likely to be a native bee enthusiast group in your local area that can give guidance on native flower mixes and possible setups for habitat.

Here in western Oregon, the hazelnut orchards on the sandy soil near rivers have actually become a great nesting place for multiple species of beautiful green metallic “sweat” bees: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2017/11/13/po...

They like the semi-compacted neutral to slightly alkaline sandy soil that’s clear of weeds, hence a long term orchard is perfect, especially as we’ve moved to softer insecticide chemistries that generally preserve beneficial insects. Offhand I think I start seeing them filling the ground with little holes in may when I start monitoring for Filbertworm moths.

And don’t forget bumblebees. While it’s a hated introduced weed for growers, it turns out that Sharppoint Fluvellen in the fescue grass fields is loved by bumblebees because it happily continues to flower in the late summer/fall when everything else has dried up or run it’s course.