> In Europe honeybees sampled in nature reserves had genetic diversity and colony densities similar to those sampled in agricultural landscapes, which suggests that the former are not wild but may have come from managed hives. Other results also support this idea: putative wild bees were rare in our European samples, and the mean estimated density of honeybee colonies on the continent closely resembled the reported mean number of managed hives. 

> As disease dissemination and land use continue to threaten European honeybees, only populations managed by beekeepers are likely to survive. Although we cannot discount apiculture itself as involved in the decline of wild European honeybees, our data suggest that without beekeeping, honeybees in Europe would be close to extinction. 

> Our estimates of honeybee population density across Europe were in the same range as those found in the adverse climatic conditions of the Kalahari and Saharan deserts, which suggests that beekeeping activities do not compensate for the loss of wild honeybee colonies. Moreover, the current pollination services provided by honeybees might not fulfill agricultural demand. 

> Added to the parallel decline of other pollinators, honeybee losses could therefore seriously threaten pollination services and ecosystem functioning in Europe. Because honeybees are “rescue pollinators” and thus able to compensate for the decline of native pollinators in degraded habitats, we suggest that promoting beekeeping activities could compensate for habitat loss and ensure adequate pollination of wild plants and crops. 

> In the light of severe declines in beekeeping activities in various European countries, we recommend that beekeeping with local subspecies should be encouraged to preserve native genetic diversity and to reduce the transmission of pathogens throughout the continent. A first step toward this could be to reconsider the conservation status of honeybees in Europe and to regard beekeeping not only as a profitable business for producing honey, but also as an essential component of biodiversity conservation.

Excerpts from

Estimating the Density of Honeybee Colonies across
Their Natural Range to Fill the Gap in Pollinator
Decline Censuses
RODOLFO JAFFE, et al in Conservation Biology, in press
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