b"EDITORS MESSAGESTOP! WE ARE SAVING THE WRONG BEES! cifically produces honey, as honey is theirAltogether, crop yields are declining with primary source of food.wild pollinator populations. Honeybees are native to Asia, EuropeThere have been a lot of people that and Africa but nowadays are found every- thought that they could only save the where. Humans have managed honeybeesbees when having their own beehive in for thousands of years as beekeeping hasthe backyard. In fact, the number of bee-always been widespread. This species getskeepers in the EU has increased, from extra sugary food to get through cold peri- 470,000 in 2003 to 655,000 in 2020. Ask ods and receives veterinary treatment, soagain the same people on the street and theres no risk they will become extinct. most will say the more honeybee hives we Our common honeybee is the besthave, the better. Wrong again! studied bee species and because of this,Honeybees can be a threat to wild we know they are general pollinators,bees because each hive has a very large meaning they will pollinate most plants.number of honeybees, typically often tens In contrast, the thousands of wild bee spe- of thousands of individuals, that need a cies are mostly solitary and, unlike honey- lot of nectar and pollen. In a short amount Marcel Bruins bees, are suited to specific plants, whichof time, they can finish it, leaving insuf-makes them much better at pollinating.ficient amounts of those floral resources For example, plants in the Solanaceaefor the other pollinating species. I n2018theEUhad17.6millionfamily, such as potatoes, tomatoes, or egg- For the EU apiculture years 2020-honeybee hives, managed by 650,000plants need wild pollinators. These spe- 22, 240 million will be spent on national beekeepers. These hives altogethercies require a vibrating buzz to releaseapiculture programmes in the EU, an produced 280,000 tonnes of honey.their pollen - something a bumblebee pro- increase of 11 per cent compared to the Beekeeping is practiced in all EU Membervides perfectly. Honeybees just dont havefunding available for 2017-19. Half of this States where, together, they are thethat skill. will come from the EU budget and the world's second largest honey producer. Or lets take apple for example. Itother half from EU countries. Despite millions of hives, peoplewould require tens of thousands of hon- Spending that amount of money on are worried about honeybees. Ask anyeybees to pollinate one hectare, but ithoneybees alone makes you wonder: What number of people on the street, and mostwould only take a few hundred of a spe- if that money would be spent on wild bees will claim honeybees are disappearing.cific wild bee named Osmia cornuta,and other pollinators? For example, by Wrong!which is particularly good at apple polli- spending money to increase and improve Compared to 2017, the 2018 17.6 mil- nation. Co-evolution for centuries, whichtheir habitats. lion hives in the EU was up 5.5 percentis still ongoing, has created the situationTo recap, in Europe, were spending (16.7 million hives). Fifteen years earlierwhere each flowering plant is stronglyalmost a quarter of a billion Euro on a in 2003, the number of hives in the EUconnected to a pollinator, creating a per- species that is already perfectly man-stood at a meagre 8.9 million. Globallyfect fit. aged by humans for centuries, gets all in 2019 there were 90.1 million beehives,The unfortunate reality is its wildthe necessary care, whose numbers keep increasing from 89.6 million beehivesbees who are in decline. Certain forms ofgrowing and is thriving like never before. the previous year. According to the FAO,agriculture and especially habitat loss areWhereas other, more efficient, pollinators managed hives have increased worldwidethe main drivers. A recent study foundare in decline and could use all the help by 83 per cent since 1961.that we may already have lost a quarterthey can get. Lets be clear, we absolutely of wild bee species.need honeybees, but they are nowhere WHATS THE DEAL WITHOther studies have shown the yieldnear of going extinct. With the wild bees BEEPOCALYPSE? of cultivated plants is higher when theyits another story and perhaps its time to The problem is the general public con- are visited by a variety of pollinators com- rethink of where we spend our taxpayer fuses bees with honeybees. There arepared to when they are visited by onlymoney. around 20,000 different species of wildhoneybees. Countries with large mon-bees and while there are 10 bee speciesocultures see the yield impact of thisMarcel Bruinsthat produce some amount of honey, it ismore than their diverse counterpartseditorial director, European Seedthe honeybee (Apis mellifera) that spe- because it discourages pollinator habitat.mbruins@seedworldgroup.com4IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM"