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From: "Randy Oliver"
Subject: Re: [BEE-L] Misguided enthusiasm?
>It seems that this thread has strayed far from its title.
>
>It's obvious that *A. mellifera *is an invasive species of pollinator in
>North America, and is well established as feral or wild-type populations in
>certain ranges. By this time, any remaining native pollinator species have
>demonstrated their ability to coexist with a wild-living honey bee
>population.
Possibly so. But the trend to put larger loads down may well
have an effect. A concern in Australia is that the pollination of some
native species could be affected. I.e. Increase one species and
decrease another. Not all that likely as in Australia the environment
is driven by fire. A bit too much recently. Some interesting work was
done here with honey bees versus native bees in a remote area. Remote
enough to need helicopters to get the bees in. In this case the native
bees increased in numbers. The hypothesis was that there was a massive
increase in insect numbers because of the honey bees and therefore a
reduction in predation on the native bees.
Geoff Manning
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