Nabhan and Buchmann write this about the honey bee in Australia:
   Today, ecological researchers and conservation biologists have good
evidence that honeybees are adversely affecting vertebrate pollinators (in
Australia) including rare honeyeaters and honey possums. Especially during
critical breeding periods and during years of drought, nectar and pollen
production in the bush are so low that native nectar-feeding wildlife starves
while honeybees usurp their needed floral resources."
   The only source given anywhere near this statement is a Professor R. Wills
in Perth. The statement purports that there is a consensus of opinion about
the "hordes" (to borrow yet another politically charged word from the
authors) of honeybees.
   Yet Trevor  Weatherhead reports, "We have cases now of leaf cutter bees
being imported to Australia for lucerne pollination." If native pollinators
were so put upon in Australia—if their situation was as dire as all that—I
find it hard to believe that authorities would approve the experimental
release of another non-native pollinator. i am assuming, of course, that the
leaf cutter releases were approved by Australian authorities. I can only
conclude from this that Australian biologists are not so greatly concerned
about competition from non-native pollinating insects, whether honey bees or
leaf cutters.