> the recommended number of honeybees required to provide crop pollination across Europe has risen 4.9 times as fast as honeybee stocks between 2005 and 2010
What these analyses fail to acknowledge is that the number of colonies actually required to pollinate is not known, so the results of any equation based on this, will be unknown as well. Where the actual number is known, such as in almonds, beekeepers are paid the value of the bees, based on supply and demand. Further, the predicted pollination shortfall that we have been hearing about since the 1970s when colonies numbers in the USA were twice that of today, never materialized.
PLB
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