Do you see more honeybees or native bees in your area?

50 years ago, when I was a child, I remember my father's car covered by dead insects every time we took a ride. Now my car stays clean even if I take a long ride. It's just an example for how many billions insects humanity has killed in just a few decades..

Farmers using dangerous unnecessary pesticides are killing not just the worlds bees but all insects its a tragedy

I keep honeybees, and enjoy them, but I delight so much more in seeing native bees and providing housing for them, as well as planting pollinator friendly plants. Every now and then I get to see a Blue Orchard bee… what a sight to behold…

As a beekeeper of 6 years, I agree with you on some points. Honey bee as a species is not at risk of going extinct any time soon. The decline of native bees, however, is not caused by honey bees, but by destruction of their habitats and over-use of pesticides. If we humans can be a little less greedy, both honey bees and their cousins will be benefited greatly.

I have loads of bees in my garden . And loads of flowers

Last year I saw plenty of bees in my area on my flowers..this year very few. I had to hand pollinate my cucumbers and zucchini 😢

I love the diversity of native bees on my property. The tiny ones are so cute! The dark ones are very abundant here. They swarmed my early flowers like crocus and wood violets. Hoping to add even more of those this fall to give them that early spring food.

I've heard honeybees can cause inbreeding in flowering plants.

Great video Stefan. This is why I promote log beehives. Focus more on developing flora. A backyard beekeeper may have 5 beehives each with two or three supers and only a handful of plants in their garden. On my property I have 1 log beehive and several bumblebee nests in my built up hugelkulturs. Log beehives are never opened. Never treated. And, never fed. The honeybee nest can survive for years in this condition. And when they finally do die out or abscond they leave behind delicious aged honey covered in propolis.

The bees being a little too efficient at pollinating? The plus-side is honey if you manage to harvest that from a hive... a lot of work for something native pollinators probably do in a fashion that doesn't cause over-pollination?

Completely agree. Getting honey bees because of bee populations declining would be like getting chickens because of declining bird populations.

There is a good population of native bees at my place in middle Tennessee. I do have 3 honeybee hives, but in early spring it is the native bees I see doing the most pollination in my small fruit orchard. And in the garden I can see which blossoms the native bees prefer and which the honeybee prefers. There is a lot of activity and fun to watch. I love to have the honey, but I'm especially excited to see all the native bees. Good video here!

i struggled with this when i first started to build my little orchard. i wanted to have honey bees but i learned about the native bees. for the past 40+yrs as i have changed the soil and built a very diverse plant and animal base here, i have noticed a huge increase in native bees. a surprising result is that there are now no aggressive wasps here at all. when i first got this place in the early 80's you could hardly go outside as you would be attacked by yellow jackets, and aggressive wasps. the eve of the barn was like a condominium for aggressive insects and they just really went for you. now there is a gentle humming all around of native bees as they tumble from flower to flower. every day i try to improve the balance of the wild life habitat / orchard / garden / oasis i have here and it brings me peace, contentment, love, and purpose. it is better than any therapy out there. get rid of your stupid american gardens people... it will save your life.

The ants pollinate my vegetables and raspberries more then the bees do now. There's always ants crawling on the flowers in the garden. And everything gets pollinated. It's nice having backup pollinators lol.

Humans are in the "find out" phase of "F-around and find out" regarding how we treat our planet. What we need is a groundswell of nature-conscious growers, and we need to make an army. We need to plant and re-wild our planet. We need to fundamentally overhaul our food system. A good way is to get as many nature-friendly gardens in every backyard of anyone who has room. That's why I personally created my channel - to help inspire people that not only does this help the planet, but it also enriches your life, makes you healthy, happy and grounded. Stefan has been one of my inspirations on why I MYSELF got started, and I just hope I'm doing his message proud. 🤜🤛💪 🥰

We no longer spray, and our mowing is greatly reduced. I now see giant daisy's, dragonflies, hedgehogs etc coming back to our home garden. We have greatly increased usage of the heather and the lavender plants for winter & summer flowering. So many bees thankfully are appearing.

Yes! This video is needed and I hope ppl have the ears to hear the message ❤

I have lots of small bees looking for water from the openings in the sides if my potted plants. I had to move the pots from my walkway because it is well used by people and the dog. I worry about them being the killier bees that plegue the low az desert. But so far they were not agressive. They are all over the flowers, so today I will find a few saucers, add sand, a flat rock or two and keep it wet. It is so hot here in 9b even the lizards come out when I water.

I have mostly wild bees here in my Alberta town. All sizes come when my 5 apple trees bloom. Now I have 3 huge comfrey plants that the bees & other insects love. I leave clover in my lawn for the insects, too. There are so many neighbours that spray their lawns so I’m thankful the insects can find refuge in my yard. I’ve turned most of my front yard into a permaculture garden & the deer love it, too. Thanks for sharing your great knowledge! 🤗

This summer, I have not noticed any bumble bees and while there are usually tons of monarch butterflies on the milkweed this year, I think I have only seen one. Is it the smoke from the wild fires in Canada blowing down here and disrupting their life cycle or is it something else?

Bees are not the problem! Problem are humans and they way they live!

Thank you for shouting out Paul Stamets!! He is doing wonderful work, though it’s all pollinators not just honey bees!!!

If farmers are applying pesticides to flowering crops, they’re not following the labels, which is federal law.

Interesting, I'm happy to see a large variety of native pollinators on our permaculture homestead in the Netherlands, situated between large swaths of biodiversity deserts aka farmland. I've learned a lot from your videos.

I planted marigolds, giant sunflowers, wildflowers and a few vegetable plants. I saw so many bees on the first blooms that I added water pans and a bee house. They are hard at work right now. Plus they are extremely friendly and tolerant. Native bees and prey mantis, ladybugs, butterflies and even moths at night. I even added a bird feeder and some perch spots. There’s always something to see.

I have 5 hives in central Florida, near the intracoastal. Somewhere they were exposed to pesticides, nearly the whole hive dead out front of 3 hives. Frustrating to watch.

On my organic farm, we make all of our fertilizers and pesticides with multiple methods. The native bees we get that visit our property every year are so small and amazing to watch. American lands have over 4 thousand species native to our continent.

Layen's hives all-natural no treatments, make the bees stronger.

Geez, the honeybees are always working overtime and people don't want to work at all.

I have been working to increase native bee food and shelter and even though I keep honey bees I see more varieties of native bees every year. If I see my native bee populations decrease I'll reduce the honey bees that I keep. You nailed it about the large monoculture orchards not supporting native bees. I'm building example plots that are more complete ecosystems; hopefully more of us doing these projects will make it so we don't need honey bees. Until then I carefully keep honey bees. maybe some day we'll learn to work with nature instead of against it.

I have long grasses and Fox and Cubs flowers in my Wild patch. Lots of other flowers blown in the garden. Busy Bees visiting.

I was tempted to keep honey bees…but after counting over thirty species of native bees on our little farm, I think it’s best to keep them gainfully employed! No need to bringing in honey bees…Our favourites are berries and strawberries…the bumbles were very busy this year! Wait I g for our rusty patch to come back. We have friends who keep honey bees that come and visit…they are safe to forage here. We will NEVER use pesticides or herbicides on our farm. Today I had a sweat bee land on me. They are so cute. The fire flies were busy tonight. The butterflies are coming along…but no monarchs yet even though we have a pile of milk weed.

When the African honeybee came to Brazil there was concern that they would outcomplete and damage or wipe out the native bees. Turned out that the African honeybee pollinated the flowering trees to a point that there was an abundance of flowers and the native bees benefitted and grew in number.

Einstein also said... "I don't know, I made it all up."

Hoverflies are much overlooked pollinators too. They often do double duty as pest control too as many of their larvae are ferocious predators of pests such as aphids.

this year i set up a spot for leaf mold. oh, how happy i was it worked out. i used it as a premulch. some pots seemed to be struggling, so i used some of the leaf mold on them, and they improved. lots of mushrooms sprouted.

Apis mellifera AKA 'the white man's fly' was imported from the Old World, but so were pome fruits too. When I was keeping several colonies in NH years ago, the solution to keeping the bees healthy was IPM (integrated pest management), but that requires coordination between farmers and beekeepers! Likewise, action definitely is needed to support the various indigenous bee species. We are currently trying to support the plants that they rely on as well as providing providing safe nesting habitats for the solitary bees.

I love my honey bees. Can't wait to split my hives next spring

I see more bumblebees and smaller bees than honeybees here in Levis.

I've been stung by three honeybees in my life; never a wasp or bumble bee. I don't understand why people ever kept them.

Well said! ❤ Thank you! You are an excellent teacher.🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

Bee is a very generic term. I have a ton of native bees in my yard, just not honey bees

I keep honeybees in my garden and if I walk around my garden I can count more native bees than my honeybees, it doesn't take much to make a big difference.

Over here in Germany, I see mostly, many different species of bumble bees taking the place of honey bees. I still see honey bees, but not as many as I'm used to seeing.

having my dad build mason bee colonies in his yard - in NJ; visiting and I'm noticing lots of sweet bees and mason bees

couple weeks ago in Ohio in a few clover fields only seen few Bees, used to be hundreds, We ask Our Creator to help the Bees out...

Another thing is for your City's to STOP !!! Spaying Mosquitoe Sprayers up and down Neighborhoods. Starting to see less n less Lighting Bug's and other insects that help grass, Trees etc... and put a BAN on BUG ZAPPERS. Better to use Battery operated Mosquito Tennis Rack swatters they work good if your outside on top of wearing Mosquito Bug Spray

I'm a beekeeper too. Yes, over pollination does destroy well structured tree for the best reasons. I'm learning to reduced our colonies to save the orchard!

Thanks for this video Stefan. I’m a huge advocate for bees and pollinators at my home. Great work!

Bravo et merci pour ce cri du coeur

Beautiful words and dead on with the issues

We have also reduced the woodlands where fungi thrive. where can a bee find the substrate mycelium enjoy - fungal soil with rotting wood product. Very little acreage of that left in the city. :(

Thank you for this beautiful video. I would have an unrelated question: On your plastic ground cover, how do you ensure that shoots from plants like raspberries can get out?

I have 6 hives about a mile from you. Purely for honey and wax production. Certainly am not under any illusion that keeping honey bees is a way to “save the bees”.

5:29 great point. Agricultural science has been maximalist, when it really should have been sustainable-ist this whole time..

Thank you so much for all that you do to help others learn and understand nature better. Every one of your videos opens my eyes to new light and understanding on something. I'm going to work hard to have my own land and start using my knowledge about permaculture to feed myself and help all of the wilderness in my state. Bless your heart

Would you be interested in showing the viewers how to build and where to place nesting area for the native bees? I think this would be very beneficial for those who do not want honeybees in their gardens or orchards.

this is interesting... I have 4 hives... and yet in my garden im always surprised to only see wild bumble bees!

wtf is a honey mushroom? I see tons of little bee things around here tho.

Excellent excellent points. Thank you for this!

Honey bees arent dying. I started keeping them 6 years ago because i thought they were dying. I catch more honey bees every year.

We have 2 hives. We had an organization we belong to have a go at us about it impacting the local types of bees and say we should not keep honey bees. I was well unimpressed! What i wrote back was we only keep native local honey bees! They are extinct in the wild due to varroa and are classed as severely threatened due to both low population and a big issue of hybridization! Yes all those latest and greatest yellow honey bees that are wanted for added production are the problem! Not only that in the local climate the local variety actually operates better and will keep working in bad weather where the yellow ones don’t! So, while I like a good many of the points mentions like expanding food availability etc as this is also part of my interest what I would recommend is also look into what was/is native and its status and if it needs support! I have looked into this in other animal areas and found the same issue where people have so focused on the biggest best, they have driven function and what was actually not far behind to dangerously low levels!

I live in the city in Minneapolis and have a lot of native plant species and watch the bees on them. It would be great to have native woodland plants like Jacob's ladder, wild geranium, bloodroot, hepatica, rue anemone, false rue anemone, wood anemone, waterleaf, Dutchman's breeches, golden alexanders, asters, goldenrod, solomon's seal (and sedges though those are not used by bees) as understory in northeastern North American orchards to encourage native bees. I see a lot of non-native plants mentioned in permaculture and that worries me because there are many specialist bees (25%) that use particular native pollen and cannot use native flowers, but generalist bees can use the native flowers that specialist bees require. Specialist bees won't pollinate the orchard trees unless they specialize on them, but they are an essential part of the ecosystem for those native plants and they're lovely to watch. Dandelions might be okay for generalist bees like bumblebees (though a study said their pollen has less protein for the baby bees than some early blooming plants like male pussywillows), but they probably don't have any specialist bees in northeastern North America because they aren't native. I hope that more people will plant native plants as a default or for particular purposes when there's a choice to be made between native and non-native because that will help bees and other insects like caterpillars and wasps that support the food web.

Nice information 🎉❤❤

I’ve actually seen quite a few bees this year, over here in Saskatchewan, but only a wasp or two… not sure where the wasps are at. 🤔

Yay! Thank you for making this video!! ❤️

You keep it simple 4 us Stefan...= Gift 4 teaching! Thank-you and God Bless!

I love this message. So important and I am very glad you bring forth this point of view. Thank you

Everyone is quick to blame farmers which is fair, but it's really a human problem as we have all destroyed eco systems. I'd say the farmer is only a third of the actual problem

Good perspective and some great details. Personally, I feel like the dramatic music is incongruous with the content and kinda distracting.

60 days of bloomimg for pollinators would be a good video. What are the plants?

My neighbour once said, "the best thing you can do to help the bees, its not "keep" them..." It made me mad at the time due to my uneducated world view 5 years ago. I wanted bee's, and so my ego prevented her knowledge from seeping in. Luckily, through other failures that year, i couldn't get a queen and couldn't start a production. I later that year asked her what she meant, and she shared quite a bit of knowledge on it. The main point being they are not native - being the biggest problem. DON'T KEEP HONEY BEES.

Neonicotinoids I bought my property over 30 years ago. I could go for a walk in my pastures and see 1000s of honey bees. Today? Haven’t seen even ONE in several years.

Plenty of bees here in Bethlehem NH

Another end of world scare tactic ? Im neer 80 and i see no difference now than when i was a kid. In fact in some ways its eben better . We love our bees . All types of them. They work hard everyday.

I wonder if you planted a few crab apples, would it might take away some over pollination pressure? Would it mess up any cross-pollination?

Hi Stefan i have just found your channel your knowledge is outstanding you got my subscription right away thank you for this informative information

Thanks! I already knew the gist of this, bit you explained very well in depth. As a European I'm curious what part of the world honey bees are actually native. Do you know?

How/where do mason bees fit into the picture? Does it just depend on which species you use in conjunction with where you live?

I do love honey but prefer bumblebees in my garden

I love this man: I learn so much 🙏

Hey Stefan. I was very careful picking my apple trees for my yard, like you suggested. I picked trees that have very good disease resistance, and I thought should be compatible to cross pollinate each other. The liberty apple and William's pride apple. I tried to make sure they would pollinate each other, and I thought there should also be crab-apples or other apple trees in my suburban area to pollinate them even if they don't. I also made traps that you suggested to trap apple maggot flies and coddling moths. I am in hardiness zone 7b which I didn't think was important, but maybe it is. I picked the varieties so I would have ripe apples in August and September. This is the fourth year I am growing these trees. Every year instead of getting ripe apples in August and September, my apples fall off the trees in July and August before they are ripe. Most seeds are still white, not black, so the fruit are not ripe. Most are tart like granny Smith apples. We are getting plenty of rain this year. Some apples have a lot of worm damage, despite the traps. Some have no worm damage. Some are sour and not ripe, some are sweet and ripe even though it's roughly a month early, though I guess fruit are variable and some are ready earlier than others. Some fruit when I tried to grab them fell into my hand and were sweet. Some fall while tiny and sour. Some I picked off the ground and are large, but still are sour and have white seeds. I don't know. Researching the problem, I've read that some trees have problems dropping fruit early before they are ripe, though I wasn't warned about this while researching trees. It's really disappointing, especially because I had a big old tree here previously that held on to it's apples and didn't drop them early. I am not sure what my point is, because i don't think you can help me at this point. The apples from these trees just seem to fall off before they are ripe. I guess maybe I am asking you to warn people to find varieties that don't do that? It's really frustrating.

Excellent

This is a great video but I just wanted to mention that we actually we have thousands of bee species, not hundreds. We have 20,000 in the world and more than 4,000 in America!

Where I am living in Wales in UK ,I have not seen any bees on my flowers for the last 2weeks,can someone tell me why.

I gained so much knowledge with this one video ❤🎉

I like European honey bees, but those Africanized honey bees are too aggressive, even bee keepers talk about their aggressive nature.

Except I’m trying to help the monarch butterfly caterpillars and it seems every thing else in my garden want to eat these cats!

It truly is sad that humans have come to believe that we are apart from nature. We were created by an alien/God, in their image, utilizing the biodiversity this planet had to offer. We all ate plants in the Garden, as there was no death. We teach children that a chicken, a pig and a cow are food animals and that dogs, cats, and rodents are pets. What discrimination we instill in these souls when they came into this plane of existence with loving wonder inside of them! All life with a nervous system is able to experience pain, they just don't speak our language to tell us how and where we hurt them. Let your food be your medicine! Eat more whole foods. No, that doesn't mean a whole pizza or a whole rotisserie chicken! Fruits, veggies, nuts and grains! And fungi! Love when folks bring up Paul Stamets! Wonderful mycologist! 🍄

News flash! New fossil records prove honeybees originated in the america`s! So not feral, just wild and free!

Thank you so so so much for making this video!!

Unfortunately, this is half truths. Honeybees are great at what they do and yes native pollinators can do a lot of what honeybees do. The apple trees that get so heavy they break branches...well you are having young trees that you haven't shaped well to take those loads 😂 but you don't have to tear down the honeybee to build up the fact that native bees are amazing and need us to plant more native flowers and give them back the habitats they need to thrive 😊

Sorry, I really do enjoy your content and the knowledge you pass along but, on this topic, I am going to have to disagree with you. I am sure that as knowledgeable as you are, that you have done some homework on this, but did you know that we are at less than half the number of managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. than we had at the end of WWII? The issues are many but the main problem we are facing is the lack of forage that is forcing greater and greater amounts of competition between all species of pollinators. The lack of forage has happened for many years and for many different reasons...manicured lawns that now make up the largest single irrigated monoculture crop in the U.S., rightaways and roadsides being sprayed with herbicides, pesticides that have compounding effects on our pollinators- both native and imported. I know that in certain circles it has become "chic" to blame the honeybee but I think that it is people that are truly to blame. Thanks again for the great videos and look forward to watching more of your content.

Native carpenter bees lives matter!!!

They're an invasive species.

I was out when you said " over pollination" was bad because your trees were too waid down with fruit. Trim your trees lanky branches to support the weight of fruit problem 1.

Most of your crops and trees are not native, native insects can not pollunate them. What you say is the most crazy and unlogic thing I heard in the last 50 years.

no big deal if they die, I don't eat plants I'm not stupid.

Hi Stefan! I just attended your webinar today great job as usual! This is Tonia. Following up here on potential of a farm visit. I actually emailed you through the Miracle Farm website contact form about a month ago about this... I'd love to send you my (dare I say, exceptional?!) Landscape Architecture portfolio featuring 10 years of Urban Agriculture 🍎🍑🥬 Education with Chicago youth and my desired (hopeful) objectives for a visit. Can you please tell me how to go about sharing this with you if possible? Thank you for your time and what you do!!!