The wild honeybee population of Europe is in decline: evidence from monitoring studies

The wild honeybee population of Europe is in decline: evidence from monitoring studies

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Comment #206 David Allen @ 2025-04-25 11:36

Line 46-47: The species has been assessed for the European region:
De la Rúa, P., Paxton, R.J., Moritz, R.F.A., Roberts, S., Allen, D.J., Pinto, M.A., Cauia, E., Fontana, P., Kryger, P., Bouga, M., Buechler, R., Costa, C., Crailsheim, K., Meixner, M., Siceanu, A. & Kemp, J.R. 2014. Apis mellifera (Europe assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014: e.T42463639A42463665.

The likely reason for the species not being assessed globally is probably a mix of expertise, capacity and knowledge.

Comment #204 David Allen @ 2025-04-02 14:02

Line 24:
Category A (population size reduction) is measured over the longer of 10 years or 3 generations, not just "over ten-year periods, the time frame considered for population evaluation..."
However, it is correct that for this species, the ten year period is applied.

line 56-57:
You should clarify that the assessment was not by Nieto et al but by de la Rúa et al (2014):
De la Rúa, P., Paxton, R.J., Moritz, R.F.A., Roberts, S., Allen, D.J., Pinto, M.A., Cauia, E., Fontana, P., Kryger, P., Bouga, M., Buechler, R., Costa, C., Crailsheim, K., Meixner, M., Siceanu, A. & Kemp, J.R. 2014. Apis mellifera (Europe assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014: e.T42463639A42463665. Accessed on 02 April 2025.

Probably also worth mentioning that this was a European regional assessment, not a 'global' assessment of the species.

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Authors

Patrick Laurenz Kohl , Benjamin Rutschmann

Abstract

Populations of wild western honeybees (Apis mellifera) have been neglected because the species has been considered to consist of managed colonies only. New data suggest that wild colonies (still) make up at least one sixth of the overall European honeybee population. Their population trends can be evaluated like those of other species, albeit with some methodological adjustments to account for the bias introduced by swarms emigrating from apiaries. We used data on the annual survival rates of free-living colonies from seven European countries and assumed a realistic swarming rate of two swarms per colony per year to estimate the intrinsic growth rates of wild populations. Observed variation in nest site reoccupation rates among years was taken as a measure of environmental stochasticity in population performance. We then simulated the autonomous wild population changes over ten-year periods, the time frame considered for assessments by the IUCN. Wild honeybee populations still exist in five of the seven countries with data, but they currently act as demographic sinks in most regions. With an estimated median population decline of 56% per decade, the honeybee can be considered “Endangered in the wild” at the European level. (For future updates on the population status see https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18424042.) 

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/X2SW5M

Subjects

Life Sciences

Keywords

pollinator decline, IUCN, Red List, Monitoring, conservation status, beekeeping, native bees, IUCN, Red List, monitoring, conservation status, beekeeping, native bees

Dates

Published: 2024-10-01 14:29

Last Updated: 2026-02-20 18:20

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License

CC-By Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Conflict of interest statement:
None

Data and Code Availability Statement:
The data used for this work are either directly listed or reverenced in the mansucript.

Language:
English

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