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.
Wildflower habitats planted along field borders are a widely promoted strategy for supporting bees in agricultural landscapes. However, honey bees, which are often stocked at high densities in crop lands, can compete with wild bees for pollen and nectar, potentially limiting the successfulness of wildflower plantings at supporting diverse bee communities. My most recent research on this subject uses data on the nutritional quality of pollen from different plant species and pollen collected by bees to assess whether increasing protein availability in wildflower plantings can mitigate negative impacts of honey bee competition.
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.