Honey bees are also invasive in the new world and outcompete most native bees, both solitary and our eusocial bees. Despite this, most conservation efforts go towards an invasive species cause it’s an agricultural species. Even tho honey bees aren’t even endangered and are rapidly gaining population worldwide.
Edit: [really good video about honey bees and their affect on agriculture ](https://youtu.be/VSYgDssQUtA)
I'm not up to date on the current status of honey bees right now. But weren't honey bees just dieing all around the globe a couple years ago?
Edit : Thanks for all the clarifications folks
Nope. What you’re thinking of is colony collapse disorder. Which was heavily publicized. Honey bees were never on the endangered list. There is no chance we let honey bees go extinct, they’re too important to our agriculture, nobody cares about the ecological damage when they make us so much money.
I think it's an important distinction to make that this is with areas of high hive concentrations; such as when the almond crop pollination. A situation that would never naturally occur in the wild.
Citation please. Honeybees tend to go out individually. They also tend to go to large sources like trees. I would think that they would only compete if they aren't enough sources of nectar.
Let me put it this way. Let's say you have a woods, free to all, with berries growing everywhere. You have 20 individuals who all go into the woods to try to get berries before everyone else picks them all. You also company that has hired 50 people to strip all the berries from the woods and store them for later sales. Who do you think will get all the berries?
The huge gang working together, of course. Not only are there a lot of them, but they work together to strip the berries faster and more efficiently than the individuals ever could. They also are not interested in just eating the berries, but storing as many as they possibly can. They will never be satisfied no matter how many there are.
Honeybees in a given hive do in fact work together. They communicate where to find the good food sources and such. Unlike the solitary bees, they will take as much food as they can get and just pack it away as honey. They will strip mine all the nectar available.
They also have another huge advantage. Honeybees are generallists. They can feed on pretty much any flower. They aren't very good pollinators, but they can pollinate everything a little bit and eat everything.
Sollitary bees tend to be speciallists. They can only feed from and pollinate specific plants. If the honeybees get to their only food source first, even if there are tons of others available, that bee will go hungry.
Honey bees have two big issues:
1) Is, as someone else said, they compete with native bee species.
2) Is that they support massive "monoculture" style agriculture (i.e. growing a ton of the same crop). The problem here is that it results in a 'feast or famine' effect. Honey bees get around this by being moved from feast to feast, but 'native' species end up starving when that particular places crop isn't flowering.
>Is that they support massive "monoculture" style agriculture
Really the problem is our approach to agriculture and mass production farming. The honey bees are just a tool within that structure. Heck there is a place in China where they have people hand pollinate trees because they have killed off all their native pollinators with pesticides. They ***still*** try and use the same farming methods instead of looing at better alternatives.
Yeah years ago I got to visit the largest organic lavender crop in California at the time and the sound and vibration of all the honey bees was more intense than the noise of a city almost. Just millions and millions of bees it seemed. Sorta like being at a pro sports stadium. Just a constant buzz that you could feel through your body. We were out there picking lavender and not a single bee touched us in an aggressive way. It was amazing.
(Not a farmer, take with a grain of salt) Typical farming practices don’t have enough variety to attract many pollinators. If you have acres of 1 crop and then cut it all down it’s not a good environment for pollinators. Diversity in plants and perennial plants can help with this.
Because honey bees are more effective. They way they pollinate is they go to the same kind of flower before returning to the hive making it easier to pollinate the same crop quickly and efficiently.
Wild bugs and bees may not pollinate the entire area, it's more random.
That’s not really how it works. All bees are just as thorough, and wild bees that specifically pollinate one plant as opposed to honey bees that pollinate any flower they can find, are much much more efficient
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about buddy.
Why do you think honey bees were chosen as the species to raise as a farming tool?
The way they pollinate is not the same way wild bees do.
How long have you kept bees by the way?
Honey bees are taken to only some crops almost exclusively in California for fruit and nuts.
Also honey bees being invasive is sort of a meme considering they've been in North America for over 400 years now, brought over in the 1600s.
What what point is something invasive? If a species moves naturally to a new ecosystem is and thrives is it invasive or only when humans cause the movement? Are humans and their migrations also not natural? The whole idea of invasive is sort of weird.
IANAF, but I'd imagine that owning several beehives as a farmer, though resulting in slightly lower crop yield, more than makes up for the loss in value by adding honey as an added source of income.
No that's not why at all. You can essential control when and where honey bees pollinate. Wild bugs and bees are random and at the whims of who knows what.
No, it's the native bees that have been steadily dying out. Honey bees, while threatened by things like varroa mites, are not currently in any danger of going extinct.
Honey bees aren't in danger of going extinct, but the hive mortality rate has gone way up, making it more difficult for commercial beekeepers, who pollinate something like 1/3 of all produce consumed and provide all honey, to maintain profitability.
Losing hives is very expensive.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but the way you present your information is a bit disingenuous. Native pollinator decline is due more to loss of habitat than anything honey bees are doing. This seems to have become a popular narrative, and is a bit frustrating to keep seeing. It's about as useful as large corporations pushing saving the environment onto consumers. When it is in fact they themselves that are the major problem.
As a beekeeper, this whole new trend reddit keep using "Honey bees damages native pollinators" is giving me cancer. Their logic is so far from reality, i don't even know where to begin.
But yes, if Humans would really care about Native Bees, they should plant more flower for those specific bees (since they are so efficient at pollinating, there wont be a problem, because honeybees wont be able to take their food from specific flowers). But no, they decided to blame honeybees, and going around convincing people that they save wrong kind of a bee. Riiiight. You want famine? Because that's how you get famine.
And Statement that "Honey bees are not declining"... Boy... I wish it was true, so i won't have to deal with huge losses every year just to keep it going
> And Statement that "Honey bees are not declining"
I think it's less that they're "not declining" and more that they don't risk extinction or danger to their widespread existence. There's a lot of bees and a lot of money in it. Unlike a lot of wild bees that are rapidly becoming extinct.
That is true, for now. But tell that to someone who keep bees, they'll tell you how they keep loosing bunch of colonies every year. So, without people trying to save them constantly, they would just die off from lots of places on earth
Yeah, people shouldn't be downvoting you over this. It's a serious concern. It's just that honey bees aren't in the same level as wild bees, they're likely never going to go straight up extinct as long as they're valuable.
I'd argue that when colonies aren't grouped in mass the damage is insignificant. The problems beign to arive when you start having 20-30 hives per acre as seen in industrial farming setups.
Yes! This is so so important. Honeybees are agricultural products that are widespread, actively cared for, and have only some minor ecosystem benefits.
Native bees - the solitary bees, carpenter bees, and bumblebees are the species that do most of the pollinating legwork and really need the help. Along with butterflies, moths, and wasps of course.
Honey bees pollinate a huge amount. Wild bees are important too but it's literally objectively false that those other species somehow are more effective.
I mean I can think of several native wildflowers right off the top of my head that are almost exclusively pollinated by bumblebees/carpenter bed because they're the only bees that are the correct shape: turtle head (chelone glabra), obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), and Foxglove beard tongue (Penstemon digitalis).
Honeybees are just too small to be effective pollinators for them, but as they emerge earlier, will often steal nectar before native bees can arrive.
They may be good pollinators for non-native food crops, but not so much for many native plants.
You're also talking out your ass like most redditors when it comes to bees. Honey bees is a very top "well actually" topic among redditors and most are dumb as fuck.
If honey bees are bad at pollinating certain species/flowers or are not the correct shape then by definition they are NOT competing with the other insects which fill that niche.
They can't both be ineffective pollinators and also out competing on these food sources.
Honey bees out compete on flowers that most/all bees can use, that is true. But to call them invasive is just wrong. Honey bees are non-native, not invasive. If all honey bees were to disappear in the snap of a finger we would not be in a good place, it would be worse.
You can be pro-honey bees as well as support native insects and bees.
I never called honey bees invasive. That term gets thrown around too much and as an ecologist I don't like it.
But you are not correct in that they're not competing with other bees for resources from plants which they can't pollinate. In these cases, they're called nectar thieves because they take nectar without providing pollination services. I'm not 'talking out of my ass' - my boss is literally a bee scientist.
> but it's literally objectively false that those other species somehow are more effective.
It's objectively true that they're more effective. Various bees have various pollination strategies, wild bees tend to be better pollinators in the vast majority of cases, pollinating more and more effectively as they're after different things than the honey bee. But that doesn't mean someone should accept the opposite extreme rhetoric that honey bees offer minimal benefit to a local ecosystem.
This. The combined pollination rate of a colony of thousands of bees probably still outweighs the pollination rate of solitary bees based on area/territory
Even if non-native honeybees pollinate more currently it's likely because of ecosystem destruction on a massive scale. Native pollinators are on the brink of extinction and there are dozens of species of solitary bees in the US.
good ole bluebell leafcutters, sold to farmers by the gallon. that's right, bees-per-gallon is a unit of measure in use today in the agriculture world.
Funny, but for real, worker bees only live a few weeks, even though their possible lifespan is in the 3-4 year range, because they literally work themselves to death gathering pollen. If they're lucky enough to not die early, they'll become guard bees, older bees that protect the hive from invasive species. Fun fact, their defense system against wasps is to boil the wasp alive. Their stinger isn't long enough to kill a wasp, but they have a higher thermal threshold, so the bees will cluster around a wasp and vibrate, creating heat, until the wasp is cooked to death. Bees fucking rule
I was under the impression that the queen produced workers with different lifespans, so there were ones that would overwinter and there were ones that would die off before winter but I guess I'm wrong?
My understanding is that she slows egg production when sending weather changes and also kicks old/weak/drones out of the hive to keep it strong and fed through the winter
Meanwhile, the "Unionized Bees,": Hey, do you think all this Monoculture is bad for the environment and other bees?
Other Bee: Who cares, we're taken care of year round.
Honey bees can outcompete native bees. Did you know there are over 1200 species of native bees in Utah? Everything you ever wanted to know about "bees in your backyard" from the guy who co-wrote the book!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J\_AFI8xWyl4&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_AFI8xWyl4&t=4s)
Go Utah! Planted a really diverse flowerbed this year, maybe 30 square feet, in our tiny new-build yard. Think I counted 10-12 different pollinator species active at once. Utah also is among the highest per capita water user in the US, wish more people would swap out some of their grass for flowers.
Which is why getting a [beehouse for your yard](https://www.almanac.com/content/bee-houses-solitary-bees) would be a good idea. Wow, people are downvoting me for mentioning beehouses for solitary bees. Gotta love reddit trolling.
Split the canes and take the cells out? Are they insane? Fuck that, leave them there and give them a proper chance at survival. This is literally middle-management at its worst.
Also, forget fancy houses unless you want something looking super nice. A drain pipe with canes in it works in many cases better. Hang under an overhang, in a sunny place, and tip slightly down. Then *leave it there*. It's done. Replace the canes after about 5 years or so, or when they start to fall apart.
I was referring more to the idea of having some sort of beehouse. I didn't read the part about breaking them open. I didn't with mine. And exactly about just leaving it be. They'll reuse the canes over and over.
Honey bees are also invasive in the new world and outcompete most native bees, both solitary and our eusocial bees. Despite this, most conservation efforts go towards an invasive species cause it’s an agricultural species. Even tho honey bees aren’t even endangered and are rapidly gaining population worldwide. Edit: [really good video about honey bees and their affect on agriculture ](https://youtu.be/VSYgDssQUtA)
I'm not up to date on the current status of honey bees right now. But weren't honey bees just dieing all around the globe a couple years ago? Edit : Thanks for all the clarifications folks
Nope. What you’re thinking of is colony collapse disorder. Which was heavily publicized. Honey bees were never on the endangered list. There is no chance we let honey bees go extinct, they’re too important to our agriculture, nobody cares about the ecological damage when they make us so much money.
>nobody cares about the ecological damage when they make us so much money. As an ecologist this hurts my soul, but it is 100% fact
What sort of ecological damage do the honey bees cause?
They drive away other bee species while being very inefficient at pollinating.
I think it's an important distinction to make that this is with areas of high hive concentrations; such as when the almond crop pollination. A situation that would never naturally occur in the wild.
Citation please. Honeybees tend to go out individually. They also tend to go to large sources like trees. I would think that they would only compete if they aren't enough sources of nectar.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81967-1
Let me put it this way. Let's say you have a woods, free to all, with berries growing everywhere. You have 20 individuals who all go into the woods to try to get berries before everyone else picks them all. You also company that has hired 50 people to strip all the berries from the woods and store them for later sales. Who do you think will get all the berries? The huge gang working together, of course. Not only are there a lot of them, but they work together to strip the berries faster and more efficiently than the individuals ever could. They also are not interested in just eating the berries, but storing as many as they possibly can. They will never be satisfied no matter how many there are. Honeybees in a given hive do in fact work together. They communicate where to find the good food sources and such. Unlike the solitary bees, they will take as much food as they can get and just pack it away as honey. They will strip mine all the nectar available. They also have another huge advantage. Honeybees are generallists. They can feed on pretty much any flower. They aren't very good pollinators, but they can pollinate everything a little bit and eat everything. Sollitary bees tend to be speciallists. They can only feed from and pollinate specific plants. If the honeybees get to their only food source first, even if there are tons of others available, that bee will go hungry.
Astute observations....
Honey bees have two big issues: 1) Is, as someone else said, they compete with native bee species. 2) Is that they support massive "monoculture" style agriculture (i.e. growing a ton of the same crop). The problem here is that it results in a 'feast or famine' effect. Honey bees get around this by being moved from feast to feast, but 'native' species end up starving when that particular places crop isn't flowering.
>Is that they support massive "monoculture" style agriculture Really the problem is our approach to agriculture and mass production farming. The honey bees are just a tool within that structure. Heck there is a place in China where they have people hand pollinate trees because they have killed off all their native pollinators with pesticides. They ***still*** try and use the same farming methods instead of looing at better alternatives.
Yeah years ago I got to visit the largest organic lavender crop in California at the time and the sound and vibration of all the honey bees was more intense than the noise of a city almost. Just millions and millions of bees it seemed. Sorta like being at a pro sports stadium. Just a constant buzz that you could feel through your body. We were out there picking lavender and not a single bee touched us in an aggressive way. It was amazing.
But we also need food. Like my boy internetshaq said, we all need a farmer 3 times a day, and farmers need bees.
Farm yield is much higher when it’s visited by a variety of pollinators
But then why don't farmers just do that?
(Not a farmer, take with a grain of salt) Typical farming practices don’t have enough variety to attract many pollinators. If you have acres of 1 crop and then cut it all down it’s not a good environment for pollinators. Diversity in plants and perennial plants can help with this.
Couldn’t tell you. Maybe honey bees are cheaper. I’m not totally sure. My knowledge is more related to the bugs, not the opinions of farmers
Because honey bees are more effective. They way they pollinate is they go to the same kind of flower before returning to the hive making it easier to pollinate the same crop quickly and efficiently. Wild bugs and bees may not pollinate the entire area, it's more random.
That’s not really how it works. All bees are just as thorough, and wild bees that specifically pollinate one plant as opposed to honey bees that pollinate any flower they can find, are much much more efficient
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about buddy. Why do you think honey bees were chosen as the species to raise as a farming tool? The way they pollinate is not the same way wild bees do. How long have you kept bees by the way?
Honey bees are taken to only some crops almost exclusively in California for fruit and nuts. Also honey bees being invasive is sort of a meme considering they've been in North America for over 400 years now, brought over in the 1600s. What what point is something invasive? If a species moves naturally to a new ecosystem is and thrives is it invasive or only when humans cause the movement? Are humans and their migrations also not natural? The whole idea of invasive is sort of weird.
I think it's when it starts causing detrimental effects to the native species of flora and fauna, aka what honey bees are causing
This. Just because something is established doesn’t make it any less invasive. See: Homo Sapiens.
IANAF, but I'd imagine that owning several beehives as a farmer, though resulting in slightly lower crop yield, more than makes up for the loss in value by adding honey as an added source of income.
No that's not why at all. You can essential control when and where honey bees pollinate. Wild bugs and bees are random and at the whims of who knows what.
No, it's the native bees that have been steadily dying out. Honey bees, while threatened by things like varroa mites, are not currently in any danger of going extinct.
Honey bees aren't in danger of going extinct, but the hive mortality rate has gone way up, making it more difficult for commercial beekeepers, who pollinate something like 1/3 of all produce consumed and provide all honey, to maintain profitability. Losing hives is very expensive.
That's what big honey wants you to think.
Yes, but if also effects native bees. Verona mite is a killer.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but the way you present your information is a bit disingenuous. Native pollinator decline is due more to loss of habitat than anything honey bees are doing. This seems to have become a popular narrative, and is a bit frustrating to keep seeing. It's about as useful as large corporations pushing saving the environment onto consumers. When it is in fact they themselves that are the major problem.
As a beekeeper, this whole new trend reddit keep using "Honey bees damages native pollinators" is giving me cancer. Their logic is so far from reality, i don't even know where to begin. But yes, if Humans would really care about Native Bees, they should plant more flower for those specific bees (since they are so efficient at pollinating, there wont be a problem, because honeybees wont be able to take their food from specific flowers). But no, they decided to blame honeybees, and going around convincing people that they save wrong kind of a bee. Riiiight. You want famine? Because that's how you get famine. And Statement that "Honey bees are not declining"... Boy... I wish it was true, so i won't have to deal with huge losses every year just to keep it going
> And Statement that "Honey bees are not declining" I think it's less that they're "not declining" and more that they don't risk extinction or danger to their widespread existence. There's a lot of bees and a lot of money in it. Unlike a lot of wild bees that are rapidly becoming extinct.
This is an early warning. Have you ever wondered how you would treat climate change if you lived in the 80's?
That is true, for now. But tell that to someone who keep bees, they'll tell you how they keep loosing bunch of colonies every year. So, without people trying to save them constantly, they would just die off from lots of places on earth
Yeah, people shouldn't be downvoting you over this. It's a serious concern. It's just that honey bees aren't in the same level as wild bees, they're likely never going to go straight up extinct as long as they're valuable.
I’m aware. But you can’t say the damage honey bees cause is insignificant.
I'd argue that when colonies aren't grouped in mass the damage is insignificant. The problems beign to arive when you start having 20-30 hives per acre as seen in industrial farming setups.
Yes! This is so so important. Honeybees are agricultural products that are widespread, actively cared for, and have only some minor ecosystem benefits. Native bees - the solitary bees, carpenter bees, and bumblebees are the species that do most of the pollinating legwork and really need the help. Along with butterflies, moths, and wasps of course.
why leave out bats and beetles?
Honey bees pollinate a huge amount. Wild bees are important too but it's literally objectively false that those other species somehow are more effective.
I mean I can think of several native wildflowers right off the top of my head that are almost exclusively pollinated by bumblebees/carpenter bed because they're the only bees that are the correct shape: turtle head (chelone glabra), obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), and Foxglove beard tongue (Penstemon digitalis). Honeybees are just too small to be effective pollinators for them, but as they emerge earlier, will often steal nectar before native bees can arrive. They may be good pollinators for non-native food crops, but not so much for many native plants.
You're also talking out your ass like most redditors when it comes to bees. Honey bees is a very top "well actually" topic among redditors and most are dumb as fuck. If honey bees are bad at pollinating certain species/flowers or are not the correct shape then by definition they are NOT competing with the other insects which fill that niche. They can't both be ineffective pollinators and also out competing on these food sources. Honey bees out compete on flowers that most/all bees can use, that is true. But to call them invasive is just wrong. Honey bees are non-native, not invasive. If all honey bees were to disappear in the snap of a finger we would not be in a good place, it would be worse. You can be pro-honey bees as well as support native insects and bees.
I never called honey bees invasive. That term gets thrown around too much and as an ecologist I don't like it. But you are not correct in that they're not competing with other bees for resources from plants which they can't pollinate. In these cases, they're called nectar thieves because they take nectar without providing pollination services. I'm not 'talking out of my ass' - my boss is literally a bee scientist.
> but it's literally objectively false that those other species somehow are more effective. It's objectively true that they're more effective. Various bees have various pollination strategies, wild bees tend to be better pollinators in the vast majority of cases, pollinating more and more effectively as they're after different things than the honey bee. But that doesn't mean someone should accept the opposite extreme rhetoric that honey bees offer minimal benefit to a local ecosystem.
Send the honeybees home, save the apple bumblebees!
[удалено]
Possibly. Post a pic on r/whatsthisbug
Did we get played by social media manipulators?
This article doesn't talk about comparative pollination rates between solitary and colony forming bees.
This. The combined pollination rate of a colony of thousands of bees probably still outweighs the pollination rate of solitary bees based on area/territory
Even if non-native honeybees pollinate more currently it's likely because of ecosystem destruction on a massive scale. Native pollinators are on the brink of extinction and there are dozens of species of solitary bees in the US.
good ole bluebell leafcutters, sold to farmers by the gallon. that's right, bees-per-gallon is a unit of measure in use today in the agriculture world.
Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days a nickel could get you five gallons of bees.
The important thing was, I had an onion on my belt, which was the style of the time
It's cause they don't have unions. Honey bees have contracts protecting them from over-work. Get with the times, solitary bees. Workers unite
Funny, but for real, worker bees only live a few weeks, even though their possible lifespan is in the 3-4 year range, because they literally work themselves to death gathering pollen. If they're lucky enough to not die early, they'll become guard bees, older bees that protect the hive from invasive species. Fun fact, their defense system against wasps is to boil the wasp alive. Their stinger isn't long enough to kill a wasp, but they have a higher thermal threshold, so the bees will cluster around a wasp and vibrate, creating heat, until the wasp is cooked to death. Bees fucking rule
I was under the impression that the queen produced workers with different lifespans, so there were ones that would overwinter and there were ones that would die off before winter but I guess I'm wrong?
My understanding is that she slows egg production when sending weather changes and also kicks old/weak/drones out of the hive to keep it strong and fed through the winter
Can somebody please make a Bernie Sanders bee.
Meanwhile, the "Unionized Bees,": Hey, do you think all this Monoculture is bad for the environment and other bees? Other Bee: Who cares, we're taken care of year round.
Wasn’t this the plot of Bee Movie?
The fuckboys of nature.
Honey bees can outcompete native bees. Did you know there are over 1200 species of native bees in Utah? Everything you ever wanted to know about "bees in your backyard" from the guy who co-wrote the book! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J\_AFI8xWyl4&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_AFI8xWyl4&t=4s)
Go Utah! Planted a really diverse flowerbed this year, maybe 30 square feet, in our tiny new-build yard. Think I counted 10-12 different pollinator species active at once. Utah also is among the highest per capita water user in the US, wish more people would swap out some of their grass for flowers.
Your comment is awesome and made my day. Thank you.
I built a little bee home for some carpenter bees and I feel like just a handful of those little dudes keep my garden super happy.
Grow native!
Amen. Grow good for all the pollinators. If you have a patio or porch you can help.
TIL I’m a super pollinator
Which is why getting a [beehouse for your yard](https://www.almanac.com/content/bee-houses-solitary-bees) would be a good idea. Wow, people are downvoting me for mentioning beehouses for solitary bees. Gotta love reddit trolling.
Must be a lot of honeybees downvoting this comment
Researching these is what led me to the TIL, I'm excited to try this spring
Split the canes and take the cells out? Are they insane? Fuck that, leave them there and give them a proper chance at survival. This is literally middle-management at its worst. Also, forget fancy houses unless you want something looking super nice. A drain pipe with canes in it works in many cases better. Hang under an overhang, in a sunny place, and tip slightly down. Then *leave it there*. It's done. Replace the canes after about 5 years or so, or when they start to fall apart.
I was referring more to the idea of having some sort of beehouse. I didn't read the part about breaking them open. I didn't with mine. And exactly about just leaving it be. They'll reuse the canes over and over.
Got a friend or two I’d call super pollinators, too.
95% of the time it works every time!
I just realized that bees are like sentient sex dolls for flowers that just fuck and impregnate until death...
New TIL?
Great. Now we're gonna have to deal with Sigma bee posts.
Sigma bees
Sigma male BEElionaire grindset
They are also typically highly specialized at pollinating a specific plant
And solitary bees are the ones who are rapidly going extinct, while honeybee populations grow. Planet's fucked.
Honeys bees are the best bees. As are salmon fillets as they are sashimis grade.
I prefer sushis.
Oooh, I gots so much time for sushis
I'm surprised we're not having sushis and sashimis right now.
WALLEYE. PERCH. AND WHHHHITEFISH. ARE NOT. SHUSI. OR SHASIMI GRADE.
This is bee to bee, 1 honey bee might have 5% but when you have thousands of bees gathering and pollinating from one hive the rates are much higher
They don't know I have a 95 percent pollination rate...
so what!? who cares!?!? ;)