More snips from the original paper. From what I could tell the paper is written from a conservation standpoint and is not suggesting eradication of any species - honey bee or otherwise. What I read, is they are trying to garner some support for conservation of native pollinators.  They make an interesting distinction by labeling honey bees as domestic stock with management issues while natives are just that natives that should be conserved.  


>Pollinator declines have resulted in an increasing number of policies and actions to conserve bee populations in many parts of the world. In North America, >there is strong public engagement but also growing controversies over how to address declines. The controversies are fueled by the complexity of scientific >information on species, habitat types, and countries and by intense lobbying by non- governmental organizations and the beekeeping, agro- chemical, >and farming industries. Policy and conservation initiatives often focus on the western honeybee (Apis mellifera), a domesticated species not native to North >America. Although losses of managed honeybee colonies are recorded annually, we argue that North American honeybee losses are not a conservation >problem; rather, they are a domesticated-animal-management problem. By focusing attention on honeybees, policies and funding priorities may >undermine native bee conservation and have negative impacts ecologically and socially.


>Honeybees compete with wild bees for pollen and nectar (Kato et al. 1999; Dupont et al. 2003, Paini 2005; Watts et al. 2012; Hudewenz & Klein 2013). A >typical apiary of 40 hives removes the equivalent of the larval mass pollen provisions of 4,000,000 solitary bees (Cane & Tepedino 2017). Honeybees can >forage over large fragmented areas (2–3 km) and visit thousands of flowers (Beekman & Ratnieks 2000). Once a good food source is found, they recruit >nestmates to maximize pollen and nectar foraging (Seeley et al. 1991). This has negative impacts on native bees. For example, Thomson (2004, 2006) >documented declines in foraging activity of native bees with proximity to honeybee colonies, especially among species active at the end of the summer.


>The act of beekeeping under the auspice that one is saving the bees is akin to domesticating nature, whereby natural processes are lost in exchange for a human benefit (Kareiva et al. 2007).


Colla, S. R. and MacIvor, J. S. (2017), Questioning public perception, conservation policy, and recovery actions for honeybees in North America. Conservation Biology, 31: 1202–1204. doi:10.1111/cobi.12839


Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT 
Northeast USA

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