Honey bees

Exploitative competition between honey bees and native bees could have negative consequences for native bee populations, but we know surprisingly little about when and where negative effects are likely to occur. Ongoing projects include manipulative cage experiments and field surveys designed to assess when, where, and how honey bee competition impacts native bee fitness.

In our analysis of 168 pollination effectiveness studies, we found that honey bees were less effective than the average bee and rarely the most effective pollinator of plants they visit.