One third of pollinator species, such as bees, butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds, are in decline in many parts of the world. 

In Europe, one out of ten bee and butterfly species is threatened with extinction.

Without pollination (which is crucial for plant reproduction), many plant species would decline and eventually disappear, putting food security at risk. 

Almonds, apples, coffee, and strawberries are some of the foods that depend on the essential pollination work carried out by bees.

Honeybees are often called ‘managed pollinators’ because they can be domesticated by humans.

However, most pollinators are wild, or ‘non-managed’, including more than 20,000 different species of bees, species of flies, butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles, thrips, birds, bats, and other vertebrates.

But as wild bee and butterfly populations shrink, the number of honeybee hives in the European Union has been steadily growing, making the EU the world’s second-largest honey producer after China.

Animal pollination contributes an estimated €5 billion to the EU's agricultural output per year.

Why are wild pollinators in decline?

Land use change, intensive agriculture, pesticides, pollution, invasive species, infectious diseases, and climate change are the main threats to pollinators, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

However, a 2023 study in Canada linked urban beekeeping to reduced pollen availability and fewer wild bee species.

“When there is an abundance of honeybees in the neighbourhood, wild pollinators have some serious competition”, said Mario Vallejo-Marin, professor in Ecological Botany at Uppsala University.

That happens “because wild bees are quite picky, they do not go to any flower, they go to the flowers they are adapted to, and different species will visit different flowers”, explained Ignasi Bartomeus, researcher at the Doñana Biological Station.

Are honey beekeepers saving the wrong bees?

“Honeybees clearly face a lot of threats, such as pesticides and pathogens”, Bartomeus told Euronews.

However, “the number of honeybee hives in Europe is generally stable, and in Spain, for example, it is increasing,” he added.

That is why, for many ecologists, honey beekeeping is not bee conservation. Instead, it can be counterproductive. 

Astudy published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution in 2024 found that losing wild pollinators is more harmful to plant reproduction than losing honeybees. 

Ainhoa Magrach, Ikerbasque research professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change, added: "85% of wild plant species and 70% of the crops we consume (including the most nutritious ones) depend on pollinator to set fruit. If we lose these pollinators, we will also lose much of the plant diversity in the world, which in turn are the base of many terrestrial food webs".

“I have even seen some campaigns trying to increase the number of commercial honeybee hives to rescue pollinators. That would be equivalent to saying we need more chicken farms to save bird biodiversity”, Bartomeus told Euronews.

The negative impact of honey beekeeping is still scientifically debatable and depends on the specific environmental context and floral variety in each region. 

Raquel Teixeira de Sousa, former honeybee researcher at the Oxford Bee Lab, says beekeeping still is very important: "it is fundamental to keep the livelihoods of small rural communities”.

So, how can we save wild pollinators? 

Watch the video to find out.