alt Hacker NewsThanks for the detailed comment! I always heard that bees pollinate the vast majority of plants, so in the parent comment, I assumed incorrectly that the meaning was for bees in general being non native.
Thanks for the detailed comment! I always heard that bees pollinate the vast majority of plants, so in the parent comment, I assumed incorrectly that the meaning was for bees in general being non native.
Yeah, there's a claim I've seen about 'every third mouthful of food' that humans eat needs honeybees, and that may well be true.
I'm in Australia, and we only got Varroa in 2022, and it was suppressed for about a year before a regrettable 'oh well' attitude overwhelmed us. The last couple of years has seen a breathtaking impact.
Anecdata - one of my five hives is still struggling on.
Australia's experience since 2022 had (I thought) laid to rest a lot of the 'It's not varroa that's the problem' claims from armchair analysts.
But yes, per my earlier point, lots of our tree crops require honeybees to be shipped in - just because of broadacre / monoculture style farming. Well, along with honey production being its own industry - so they need to follow the nectar, and change up the flavours a bit, but also some trees just don't produce useful amounts of nectar but absolutely require a lot of pollinators for a few weeks only (almonds / peaches I think fit this category).