People take honey, but in exchange bees receive a few things
1) Pillbox Housing. Expensive beehive, made from metal and wood, and with only a few narrow entries easy to defend.
2) Comfort. In a quiet sunny place without loud music or sounds. A lid protecting from rain and storms and walls able to stand winds guarantee a dry and warm inner area. A lot of clean wax combs ready to be occupied with minimum effort and a structure to put each comb apart exactly how bees like it.
3) Free medical care. Provided by the species with the most advanced medicine known in the universe.
4) Free emergency help. Including extra food rations in winter and beehive rescue in case of wildfire or flood
5) Bodyguard services. Anti bear stone walls, Anti-wasp electric fences and Bee-eater deterrents if needed. Banners against human trespassers and regulation discouraging thieves.
8) Holidays. Free vehicle transport to visit fields in bloom exactly in the be-est touristic season.
9) Dating services at intercontinental level
10) All you can eat buffet. Gardens designed specifically and seeded with the best international selection of premium nectar.
I think the idea was that the native bees lose share of the resources to honeybees that are artificially supported. Which is not something I had thought about before.
> the idea was that the native bees lose share of the resources to honeybees that are artificially supported
This is not true necessarily (it depends on the context)
Most solitary native bees will not compete with honeybees (or will compete only partially) because they favor different flowers. In general if you find bees of very different sizes they basically will not compete. Honeybees rarely will touch small Fabaceae and are not common on Apiaceae. Alfalfa fields are pollinated by tiny native bees.
Pollen also has fats. Bees very much need some of those fats. I recently saw a presentation on a paper about bee diets where they tested honeybee pollen preferences, and they tend to like pollens with omega-3-rich fats, up to 25% or so.
