Managed-bee supplementation may drive parasite-mediated exclusion of wild bees.
Feng T, Rueppell O, Wang H.
Pollinators
Every squash, blueberry, and apple in your garden depends on wild bees that honeybee hives — if poorly managed — can quietly crowd out by outcompeting them for flowers and spreading parasites.
Scientists built a math model to study what happens when beekeepers add more honeybee hives near wild bee populations. They found that too many managed hives can squeeze wild bees out by hogging flowers and passing along diseases — but a moderate number of hives can actually help keep the whole bee community stable. The tricky part is that tipping too far in either direction can cause sudden, hard-to-reverse collapses in wild bee numbers.
Key Findings
Excessive managed-colony supplementation risks driving wild bees to local extinction through a combination of floral resource competition and parasite spillover.
Intermediate supplementation levels can stabilize bee community dynamics and dampen population oscillations, suggesting a 'Goldilocks zone' for managed hive density.
The system exhibits hysteresis near tipping points, meaning wild bee loss from over-supplementation may not be reversible simply by reducing hive numbers — sudden regime shifts can lock communities into a new state.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A mathematical model shows that adding too many managed honeybee colonies can push wild bees out of an area, especially when parasites spread between species. The right amount of supplementation, however, can actually stabilize bee communities and reduce disease-driven population swings.
Abstract Preview
Sustaining pollination while limiting parasite spillover from managed bees requires a quantitative understanding of how supplementation of managed colonies, floral resource competition between mana...
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