Are Honey Bees Good?

A female Allegheny Miner (Andrena alleghaniensis), a native bee, on a blackberry flower.

Bees. They make honey, live in hives, and will sting you if you get too close. And, as you’ve heard, they need saving. 

Well, kinda. 

Nearly all the honey we eat comes from a single, domesticated species: the Western Honeybee. Some call honeybees flying livestock. But the other 349 species of bees in Vermont are wildly different in many ways, and worthy of as much (if not more) respect and admiration. 

As a wild bee biologist for VCE, I’ve spent the better part of the last five years studying, counting, and watching these overlooked residents of our state. As part of that work, I’ve chatted with hundreds of Vermonters and witnessed a satisfying (albeit subtle) shift in their bee knowledge.

In the early years of the Vermont Wild Bee Survey, most folks were shocked to know that there was more than one or two species of bees here. All they wanted to talk about was their aunt or uncle who kept bees. But in the past few years, I’ve encountered a lot more folks who say something like, “Aren’t there, like, a lot of bee species?” or even, “Are honey bees good?”

That last question is complicated. 

The Difference Between Honeybees and Native Bees

First, you should know the critical differences between honey bees and all the other bees in Vermont — and the world. There are eight species of honey bees (genus Apis) in the world, but when we talk about the bees producing our jars of honey, we’re talking about Apis meliffera. 

Honey bees colonies are the equivalent of perennial plants, with an individual queen persisting for several years. They are active through the winter, using the body heat of the colony to keep the queen from freezing. This year round activity of the honey bee is the reason we have honey—it’s nectar collected during the growing season that is concentrated into a high energy, shelf-stable sugar to keep the colony going through the dark months. All our native bee species are effectively annuals, with each generation living roughly one year or less (except for a few biannual species). They spend the winter (and often much more of the year) in a deep sleep. 

Honey bees are also fairly indiscriminate in what they eat, visiting an incredible assortment of flowers (and occasionally other things like animal feed and fungi). Some of our native bees also have a broad pallet, but many are very picky, only visiting a single species or genus of plants. 

Not surprisingly, within the 335 native bee species in Vermont, there is a lot of variation in their natural history. Some, like the familiar bumble bee, have a queen caste that overwinters and then spends the summer laying eggs for a worker caste, who help feed the colony until new queens and males are produced at the end of the summer.

Others, like the Spring Beauty Miner (Andrena erigeniae), prefer to live alone. After mating, the females spend a few weeks frantically collecting as much Spring Beauty (genus Claytonia) pollen as they can and storing it in the ground for their kids, whom they will never meet. After the Spring Beauties are done blooming in early May, the adults die, and the next generation develops from egg to maggot-like larvae to pupae, only to emerge from the ground the following April! 

Crazier still are the cuckoo bees, who act like cowbirds, not collecting any pollen but spending their days trying to find nests of their host bees to lay their eggs. A full quarter of the bee species in New England have adopted this parasitic lifestyle! 

Should We Be “Saving” the Honeybees?

Back to the main question: Are honey bees good? As with most things, I suppose it depends on who you ask. If you are an almond farmer in California or a large blueberry grower in the midwest, honey bees are indispensable. 

From the native bees perspective, it’s not as pretty. The issue is well-summarized here, but is often poorly understood and articulated by the mainstream media. In essence, honey bees compete with native bees for forage and can be a major reservoir for diseases that can spill over into wild bees (and other insects).

One thing is for sure, if being stung is your concern, it’s female honey bees (and some social wasps) that you should pay attention to. The barbed stinger that gets ripped from a honey bee is yet another unique feature. All male bees and most female native bees can’t sting humans, and those that can aren’t likely to since most don’t have a colony to defend and are more interested in their own survival.

In terms of “saving the bees”, honey bees have a multi-billion dollar industry behind them and aren’t in danger of disappearing any time soon. In fact, we might have too many honey beekeepers! The native bees are a different story—the threats and conservation needs are summarized here in our 2022 State of Bees Report. 

If you’re not up for reading that report, the main thrust is easy to remember: avoid pesticides and plant native plants. And if you’re after a natural, bee-friendly sweetener, consider some bird-friendly maple syrup, since a well-managed sugar bush can support hundreds of native pollinator species!