These are interesting articles Sal and Member. Thank you both 'very much' for posting. I have tried to comprehend the latter in an excepting manner and view. The statement: "As the title suggests, all the "Save the Bees" rhetoric is aimed at honey bees when, in fact, it is the wild bees that are in trouble. Far from being in decline, honey bees are backed by hoards of researchers and truckloads of money. Their numbers are increasing and they are not going extinct."
I can not and will not attempt to debate that the statement of suggesting efforts of saving 'native bees' is or is not correct or accurate. (I am still leaning about native bees.) In fact the statement of native bees, may be preciously correct? Perhaps the concern for native bees should be emphasized more so than the article suggest? Honestly I do not know.
As was stated in the article concerning Honey Bees, I will concur; "Honey Bees are backed by hoards of researches and truckloads of money." This in my opinion this is very good!
It is my opinion; Truckloads of money and hoards of research, are 'justified', and for good reason.
Allow me to explain:
When I was small, wild bees could be found readily 'thriving' in hollow trees and like places year after year in my area. Not only did they survive, these wild, unmolested honey bees most defiantly thrived! Meaning: They would swarm and multiply from such establishments and locations year after year. (thriving).
(Though my family were not beekeepers at that time, and no beekeepers were in my area; My first experience with honey bees was when I was very small, maybe about 5 years old. We had a wild hive in the woods just behind our house in a hollow rotten tree. I had the 'bright idea' of taking a cane fishing pole and dobbing the end into the hive, to have a 'single bee', (thankfully a single bee, lol), beeline the pole to my noise! lol, Lesson learned)! Don't mess with the bees!
Now days since the introduction of SHB from Africa, and Varroa Destructor from Asia (along with the many viruses they carry), this is not the case. 'Wild' honey bees are struggling 'in many areas' and makes me wonder, "without human intervention would they even survive (jn these areas)"? Yes, Honey Bees can be found in such places as hollow trees, but it is my observation they do not thrive. I personally have noticed that wild bees (meaning wild honeybees) in such places, when can be found, rarely survive more than three or more years in my area before they are overcome. And yes; a new swarm, 'might' come in and take their place in the same location of the failed hive, appearing to be the original when in fact they are not. This, in my opinion, is 'not thriving'. For these reasons, and more, I will concur, the 'honey bee' does have our help, but most defiantly needs our help. IMHO, "all the rhetoric" of preventive research and money for the Honey Bee is justified.
Phillip