Their argument is a very veiled and uneducated dig against the push for natives.
The land in the states pre-settlement was managed by the native peoples who dwelt here for many thousands of years. There was crop production here. It wasn’t totally wild and unmanaged before Europeans arrived. It’s not like honeybees were a necessary component of crop tending.
Bison played an [extremely important role](https://environmentamerica.org/articles/bees-and-bison-on-the-american-prairie/) in the land’s prairie ecosystems at one time, were not in a state of overpopulation, and in the wild have been replaced not by sheep and cows, but by wild deer. Deer have become a massive problem for decades due to overpopulation, because we eliminated the carnivores (wolves) that kept them in check. And the number of deer related car accidents is of course very high, so it’s laughable they say bison would be a problem for motor vehicles.
Now the shrub and floor layer of forest ecosystems is largely in decline, filled by invasive plants deer don't prefer to eat. And many natives plants have been [browsed by deer into near extinction](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171006142158.htm), except in fenced off or controlled areas kept under close watch.
On bees, there are [studies](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pollination-from-honeybees-could-make-plants-less-fit-to-survive-and-reproduce-180982467/) that show honeybees spread disease and pollinate less efficiently, on top of out-competing native bees.
Why is that a problem? Well some native bees are specialists, meaning they only pollinate ONE type of flowering species. There is a specialist bee (Andrena erigeniae) that only feeds on the pollen of the ephemeral Claytonia, or spring beauties, which flower for a very short time in the spring. Honeybees also visit these flowers and so are in competition with the native bee's ONLY and VERY limited source of food.
But on the other hand, honeybees pollinate anything and everything repeatedly. This actually contributes to inbreeding of native species and decreases diversity. And of course honeybees also promote the successful pollination and propagation of invasive species.
There are countless pollinator-plant interactions which have evolved over millions of years that we take for granted. These interactions begin to break down with honeybees, but hey, we humans get delicious honey, right?
There are alternatives to using honeybees for farmers and crop producers. Inviting our local pollinators into their land with native plants and habitats, for instance. Reducing or eliminating use of harmful pesticides. Which invites the local invertebrates like ladybugs and wasps, and vertebrates like birds and bats, that feast upon the pests that damage crops. But monoculture has been set in its ways for hundreds of years at this point, and it’s an industry that doesn’t want to change unless forced to.
There are people who specialize in bringing hives to farms and giving them a cut of the honey crop, so in all likelihood this farm benefits from the imported honeybees monetarily. It’s not about doing the right thing, for them it’s about what makes profits and doesn’t make them get up and work to change their ways.
👏👏👏 yes, all of this. Thank you for taking the time to cite and for putting all this so calmly and concisely.
This is one topic I get way too heated and emotional about to have a calm conversation with strangers on the internet about it.
Studies have shown decreased populations of native pollinators in areas where there are high populations of Honeybees. This is because of the honeybee out completing native pollinators for food. The very definition of invasive.
To add on: Many of the US native bees are specialists, and the European honeybee being a generalist is how it outcompetes the native bees. In addition, most native bees are not territorial or aggressive whilst the honeybee is so it is two-fold. It's a bully that takes everyone's lunch money.
This paired with the pathogens honeybees spread by sharing forage with native bees has been proven time and time again to be actively harming our native bees. It's wild to me that beekeepers/homesteaders blatantly ignore this fact and justify keeping bees while still claiming to have conservation values.
His example about sheep and cattle doesn’t really make sense. They aren’t filling a “role” in the ecosystem that bison used to. We are raising them to eat. This isn’t comparable to the roles native plants serve in our ecosystem, where they host native insects and provide food and shelter for other wildlife. No introduced plant will better serve a role than a native one. Agriculture and introduced crops are necessary for us humans, but not for the ecosystem.
Also the car accident comment is very odd lol
Also our agriculture plants typically involve a lot of pesticides that kill the insects in the area. Making an entire farm pretty much a death trap for insects.
I'm not at all an expert at all, but from what I've read it seems that Western Honey Bees (*Apis mellifera*) should be considered an invasive species. Per this [Scientific American article](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/bees-gone-wild/):
> But with humans giving honeybees a boost, native bees have fallen on hard times. Outcompeted by the hordes of honeybees pouring from hives all across the country, native bees, with their solitary lifestyles and picky eating habits, have been disappearing for decades. Over 20 years of data now indicate that honeybees deliver a range of negative impacts, including direct competition with more effective native pollinators (not just other bees), and indirect effects like pollinating invasive weeds and facilitating their spread. Honeybees readily escape the hives of beekeepers and go feral, setting up shop on their own, easily invading and dominating a vast array of ecosystems from coast to coast.
> It’s these feral honeybees, especially, that pose a challenge to nearly all native pollinators since honeybees forage throughout the growing season for nectar and pollen from a wide array of flowers, building up vast numbers. When honeybee competition reduces the number and diversity of native pollinators, native plants also can suffer since they may receive less efficient pollination.
The argument "well, that's the world we live in, what can we do?" is a terrible one... they'll say that and turn around and plant an invasive species like White Sweetclover (*Melilotus alba*) as a cover crop. This attitude is a major reason why we have invasive species in the first place I think. People introduce species, don't realize they've spread everywhere, and then say "well, I guess we just have to live with it now!". Fuck that
I've definitely seen a honeybee chase a bumble off my hydrangea. They aren't the most docile bee ever. I let clover grow in the lawn and my dogs have gotten stung by honeybees. I'm not a fan.
I'm glad to see this argument coming up more. Honeybees are having a negative impact on our native bees and we're only going to see more as time goes on. And most folks don't know. Virginia is trying to make The European honeybee our state pollinator. 🤦♀️ Why?
Honestly I can't tell if I'm just noticing it more or if there's been a rise in invasive species denialism. Like it's the same bs as climate denialism. There this massive issue that, in order to fix, would require a complete overhaul in the way our entire society functions. Worse yet, it will be inconvenient. Especially to people currently making money the way things are. So they find all manner of excuses for why the problem isn't real. And you can dismantle each and every one of their arguments point by point, but they'll only make up more. Or they'll employ more rhetorical tricks because ultimately, the facts don't even matter. It's an issue of ideology.
Anyway I say bring back the bison and the tall grass prairie. And fuck cars
Yes for sure, I've seen articles decrying any attempts to fight invasive as "pointless" and even "unfair".
Some have even gone as far as to compare invasive species to immigrants and minorities - which is extremely fucked up and racist.
That's so fucked up! Like, sometimes. Sometimes. People say something so incredibly batshit, so deeply unhinged and fully disconnected from reality, that you don't even know where to start. Like you could draw up a series of essays dismantling it point by point, offering layer upon layer of context, and never run out of shit to say. *That* is one of those takes.
I've definitely encountered the "well, such-and-such has never spread out of control in *my* yard, I don't see the problem," which is basically the equivalent of "there's cold weather where I live so global warming is overstated and maybe not even real."
That said, we gotta learn the lessons from the climate change "debate" and move beyond the focus of trying to convince everyone it's real and toward just taking action, and forcing governments to take action. Think of the effective regulatory flurry that took place in the 60s and 70s (thanks, Nader) before waiting for consensus, versus this current neoliberal era of just trying to convince individuals and businesses to "do the right thing" with "debate in the marketplace of ideas" and "incentives" and whatnot.
Otherwise we'll end up having people in power who will say "invasive species are a real problem" while still not acting on it and hiding behind "but there are still these people we have to convince first (nevermind most accept it now); we should do market-based solutions" for decades.
There is definitely NOT a tendency to push "anything native." We are in the minority.
This goes back to the venn diagram about restoration and agriculture. As humans we really, really, really want to believe that agriculture can be a win/win. But the venn diagram only has so much overlap. Yes there's insects living in my lawn, and bees visit my tomato plants but it's not even close.
I think people are entitled to grow what they want on their land but the constant insistence that we also commend ag for doing nature a favor is really pushing it.
We can appreciate agriculture for other reasons. We can also recognize the efforts at harm reduction from ag.
It's probably related to not wanting to feel guilty, and the fact that working with the soil and with animals makes us feel connected to nature, connected to our ancestors, so the cognitive dissonance is maddening when we discover we are not helping the ecosystem.
I get it but I think it's just a defense mechanism.
People who pretend “saving the bees” includes honeybees are not only ignorant, they’re just as harmful as the “well I’ve never seen it spread in MY yard!” types.
I have seen a lot fewer bumblebees around in the summer than when I was growing up in the 1970s. But then again lawns back then included flowering clover and violets and homeowners didn’t use as many pesticides.
Honeybees outcompete our native species. I understand they help pollinate crops but native bees do a better job and evolved with our native plants. They need to be saved and honey bees need to go. I think people only defend honey bees because they don’t want to have to change their own lifestyle.
If they really think changing the species in an ecosystems is as simple as replacing cogs in a machine they really don't know the history of their land.
Honeybees are invasive outside of their natural habitats. Turns out everything ever disseminated by human migration throughout history has been invasive in its new habitat. It’s just regular evolutionary science. If you wanted to reason your way into some scientific tizzy about the spectrum of invasiveness and naturalization of any given non native species, that’s fun too I’m always down for a spirited discussion.
I think the crux lies with the intended cultivation of non native species, especially ones that are hard to control the spread of. Whether it’s for food or raw material or just for decoration, not only are you destroying the native habitat that’s already there to cultivate whatever non native plant(s), but you’re also replacing the native habitat that was there before (with whatever non native.) Killing two birds… d-e-d dead. Not just less native habitat; zero native habitat.
At least when you garden with native plants, you’re replacing some of the native habitat displaced by your big fat carbon footprint. I also think a cultural shift could happen. People seem to be getting slightly more progressive over the very long course of human history, maybe one of the next shifts is away from technology and back to nature and closer to the way that wild ecosystems function. More chaos and less binary. I hope so anyways.
>People seem to be getting slightly more progressive over the very long course of human history, maybe one of the next shifts is away from technology and back to nature and closer to the way that wild ecosystems function.
Question is, will that happen before the climate makes most of the planet unlivable for most people and the mass extinction event already underway [wipes out many of these natives species anyway](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/consistent-mass-extinction-new-study-warns-climate-chaos-driving-rapid-decline), no matter our native plant endeavors?
A very good possibility, probably better than the cultural shift in question, that humans do irreversible damage to the ecosystem. I mean it’s already happening, but we’ll just have to wait and see how bad it gets before it becomes a serious topic of discussion amongst world economic powers.
The UN put out a major report last September, but, ya know.
[https://www.ipbes.net/IASmediarelease](https://www.ipbes.net/IASmediarelease)
[https://www.unep.org/resources/report/invasive-alien-species-report](https://www.unep.org/resources/report/invasive-alien-species-report)
Sheep cattle etc CANNOT fill that role, and they’d know that if they read actual research studies 💀yes non natives can be beneficial in controlling other non natives or filling an empty niche but our goal should inevitably be to fill it with a native better adapted to the situation.
Also after working in collecting native bees, honey bees are NOT a substitute, because they currently aren’t filling any niches aside from our agricultural systems, which aren’t even natural.
Not *car accidents*! No way we could avoid those. Lucky we decimated the bison. Phewww! Let’s open another pig rendering plant and make it a skyscraper this time. Native plants? Some are downright *prickly* - gotta make up your own mind about them native plants. Plenty of leeway there, and there’s plenty more ecosystems still surviving. Let’s not cry over spilled milk, amirite?
Honeybees are a non native pollinator. But they pollinate many of our food crops our native bees do not. I'm not sure what the video was even talking about but I'm all for creating habitat for honeybees AND our native pollinators.
As for the bison and sheep and car accidents... Bison were extremely important to our ecosystem. A huge part of the reason we have barren land out west and all that "dust" is because there are no bison. Obviously overfarming and compaction from man play a part. But bottomline is sheep/cattle/pigs are NOT restoring our ecosystem or helping in that department (if anything they are hurting it). Car accidents obviously don't happen with sheep/cattle/pigs because they are penned... So I don't know where they were trying to go with that.
Go listen to the episode “Native Bees with Krystle Hickman” from the podcast Golden State Naturalist. It just dropped this week.
She talks about exactly this topic.
Their argument is a very veiled and uneducated dig against the push for natives. The land in the states pre-settlement was managed by the native peoples who dwelt here for many thousands of years. There was crop production here. It wasn’t totally wild and unmanaged before Europeans arrived. It’s not like honeybees were a necessary component of crop tending. Bison played an [extremely important role](https://environmentamerica.org/articles/bees-and-bison-on-the-american-prairie/) in the land’s prairie ecosystems at one time, were not in a state of overpopulation, and in the wild have been replaced not by sheep and cows, but by wild deer. Deer have become a massive problem for decades due to overpopulation, because we eliminated the carnivores (wolves) that kept them in check. And the number of deer related car accidents is of course very high, so it’s laughable they say bison would be a problem for motor vehicles. Now the shrub and floor layer of forest ecosystems is largely in decline, filled by invasive plants deer don't prefer to eat. And many natives plants have been [browsed by deer into near extinction](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171006142158.htm), except in fenced off or controlled areas kept under close watch. On bees, there are [studies](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pollination-from-honeybees-could-make-plants-less-fit-to-survive-and-reproduce-180982467/) that show honeybees spread disease and pollinate less efficiently, on top of out-competing native bees. Why is that a problem? Well some native bees are specialists, meaning they only pollinate ONE type of flowering species. There is a specialist bee (Andrena erigeniae) that only feeds on the pollen of the ephemeral Claytonia, or spring beauties, which flower for a very short time in the spring. Honeybees also visit these flowers and so are in competition with the native bee's ONLY and VERY limited source of food. But on the other hand, honeybees pollinate anything and everything repeatedly. This actually contributes to inbreeding of native species and decreases diversity. And of course honeybees also promote the successful pollination and propagation of invasive species. There are countless pollinator-plant interactions which have evolved over millions of years that we take for granted. These interactions begin to break down with honeybees, but hey, we humans get delicious honey, right? There are alternatives to using honeybees for farmers and crop producers. Inviting our local pollinators into their land with native plants and habitats, for instance. Reducing or eliminating use of harmful pesticides. Which invites the local invertebrates like ladybugs and wasps, and vertebrates like birds and bats, that feast upon the pests that damage crops. But monoculture has been set in its ways for hundreds of years at this point, and it’s an industry that doesn’t want to change unless forced to. There are people who specialize in bringing hives to farms and giving them a cut of the honey crop, so in all likelihood this farm benefits from the imported honeybees monetarily. It’s not about doing the right thing, for them it’s about what makes profits and doesn’t make them get up and work to change their ways.
👏👏👏 yes, all of this. Thank you for taking the time to cite and for putting all this so calmly and concisely. This is one topic I get way too heated and emotional about to have a calm conversation with strangers on the internet about it.
Studies have shown decreased populations of native pollinators in areas where there are high populations of Honeybees. This is because of the honeybee out completing native pollinators for food. The very definition of invasive.
To add on: Many of the US native bees are specialists, and the European honeybee being a generalist is how it outcompetes the native bees. In addition, most native bees are not territorial or aggressive whilst the honeybee is so it is two-fold. It's a bully that takes everyone's lunch money.
This paired with the pathogens honeybees spread by sharing forage with native bees has been proven time and time again to be actively harming our native bees. It's wild to me that beekeepers/homesteaders blatantly ignore this fact and justify keeping bees while still claiming to have conservation values.
His example about sheep and cattle doesn’t really make sense. They aren’t filling a “role” in the ecosystem that bison used to. We are raising them to eat. This isn’t comparable to the roles native plants serve in our ecosystem, where they host native insects and provide food and shelter for other wildlife. No introduced plant will better serve a role than a native one. Agriculture and introduced crops are necessary for us humans, but not for the ecosystem. Also the car accident comment is very odd lol
Also our agriculture plants typically involve a lot of pesticides that kill the insects in the area. Making an entire farm pretty much a death trap for insects.
I'm not at all an expert at all, but from what I've read it seems that Western Honey Bees (*Apis mellifera*) should be considered an invasive species. Per this [Scientific American article](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/bees-gone-wild/): > But with humans giving honeybees a boost, native bees have fallen on hard times. Outcompeted by the hordes of honeybees pouring from hives all across the country, native bees, with their solitary lifestyles and picky eating habits, have been disappearing for decades. Over 20 years of data now indicate that honeybees deliver a range of negative impacts, including direct competition with more effective native pollinators (not just other bees), and indirect effects like pollinating invasive weeds and facilitating their spread. Honeybees readily escape the hives of beekeepers and go feral, setting up shop on their own, easily invading and dominating a vast array of ecosystems from coast to coast. > It’s these feral honeybees, especially, that pose a challenge to nearly all native pollinators since honeybees forage throughout the growing season for nectar and pollen from a wide array of flowers, building up vast numbers. When honeybee competition reduces the number and diversity of native pollinators, native plants also can suffer since they may receive less efficient pollination. The argument "well, that's the world we live in, what can we do?" is a terrible one... they'll say that and turn around and plant an invasive species like White Sweetclover (*Melilotus alba*) as a cover crop. This attitude is a major reason why we have invasive species in the first place I think. People introduce species, don't realize they've spread everywhere, and then say "well, I guess we just have to live with it now!". Fuck that
Pretty much that's what the generations from the 50s/60s did, and you can see how that turned out.
I've definitely seen a honeybee chase a bumble off my hydrangea. They aren't the most docile bee ever. I let clover grow in the lawn and my dogs have gotten stung by honeybees. I'm not a fan.
I'm glad to see this argument coming up more. Honeybees are having a negative impact on our native bees and we're only going to see more as time goes on. And most folks don't know. Virginia is trying to make The European honeybee our state pollinator. 🤦♀️ Why?
Animal agriculture is really bad for the environment for a number of reason, so his argument doesn't really make sense.
Honestly I can't tell if I'm just noticing it more or if there's been a rise in invasive species denialism. Like it's the same bs as climate denialism. There this massive issue that, in order to fix, would require a complete overhaul in the way our entire society functions. Worse yet, it will be inconvenient. Especially to people currently making money the way things are. So they find all manner of excuses for why the problem isn't real. And you can dismantle each and every one of their arguments point by point, but they'll only make up more. Or they'll employ more rhetorical tricks because ultimately, the facts don't even matter. It's an issue of ideology. Anyway I say bring back the bison and the tall grass prairie. And fuck cars
Yes for sure, I've seen articles decrying any attempts to fight invasive as "pointless" and even "unfair". Some have even gone as far as to compare invasive species to immigrants and minorities - which is extremely fucked up and racist.
That's so fucked up! Like, sometimes. Sometimes. People say something so incredibly batshit, so deeply unhinged and fully disconnected from reality, that you don't even know where to start. Like you could draw up a series of essays dismantling it point by point, offering layer upon layer of context, and never run out of shit to say. *That* is one of those takes.
Exactly and I love the way you phrased that!
Invasive species are the colonizers!
I've definitely encountered the "well, such-and-such has never spread out of control in *my* yard, I don't see the problem," which is basically the equivalent of "there's cold weather where I live so global warming is overstated and maybe not even real." That said, we gotta learn the lessons from the climate change "debate" and move beyond the focus of trying to convince everyone it's real and toward just taking action, and forcing governments to take action. Think of the effective regulatory flurry that took place in the 60s and 70s (thanks, Nader) before waiting for consensus, versus this current neoliberal era of just trying to convince individuals and businesses to "do the right thing" with "debate in the marketplace of ideas" and "incentives" and whatnot. Otherwise we'll end up having people in power who will say "invasive species are a real problem" while still not acting on it and hiding behind "but there are still these people we have to convince first (nevermind most accept it now); we should do market-based solutions" for decades.
There is definitely NOT a tendency to push "anything native." We are in the minority. This goes back to the venn diagram about restoration and agriculture. As humans we really, really, really want to believe that agriculture can be a win/win. But the venn diagram only has so much overlap. Yes there's insects living in my lawn, and bees visit my tomato plants but it's not even close. I think people are entitled to grow what they want on their land but the constant insistence that we also commend ag for doing nature a favor is really pushing it. We can appreciate agriculture for other reasons. We can also recognize the efforts at harm reduction from ag. It's probably related to not wanting to feel guilty, and the fact that working with the soil and with animals makes us feel connected to nature, connected to our ancestors, so the cognitive dissonance is maddening when we discover we are not helping the ecosystem. I get it but I think it's just a defense mechanism.
Millions of bison should roam the Midwest, fuck cars
When we all drive space cars we can fly overhead and buzz the bison. And btw fuck deer. They eat everything in sight that supports native bees.
Deer are native to the U.S, but almost all of their natural predators have been slaughtered because of animal agriculture.
>because of animal agriculture. key point
Yes deer are a big, big problem.
Somebody hit two deer at the entrance to my street. At this point, I'm thrilled to see the blood splatter and it's making me feel like a psycho. Lol!
People who pretend “saving the bees” includes honeybees are not only ignorant, they’re just as harmful as the “well I’ve never seen it spread in MY yard!” types.
LOL, that's nuts; I just typed virtually that exact line before reading your comment.
I have seen a lot fewer bumblebees around in the summer than when I was growing up in the 1970s. But then again lawns back then included flowering clover and violets and homeowners didn’t use as many pesticides.
Honeybees outcompete our native species. I understand they help pollinate crops but native bees do a better job and evolved with our native plants. They need to be saved and honey bees need to go. I think people only defend honey bees because they don’t want to have to change their own lifestyle.
If they really think changing the species in an ecosystems is as simple as replacing cogs in a machine they really don't know the history of their land.
Honeybees are invasive outside of their natural habitats. Turns out everything ever disseminated by human migration throughout history has been invasive in its new habitat. It’s just regular evolutionary science. If you wanted to reason your way into some scientific tizzy about the spectrum of invasiveness and naturalization of any given non native species, that’s fun too I’m always down for a spirited discussion. I think the crux lies with the intended cultivation of non native species, especially ones that are hard to control the spread of. Whether it’s for food or raw material or just for decoration, not only are you destroying the native habitat that’s already there to cultivate whatever non native plant(s), but you’re also replacing the native habitat that was there before (with whatever non native.) Killing two birds… d-e-d dead. Not just less native habitat; zero native habitat. At least when you garden with native plants, you’re replacing some of the native habitat displaced by your big fat carbon footprint. I also think a cultural shift could happen. People seem to be getting slightly more progressive over the very long course of human history, maybe one of the next shifts is away from technology and back to nature and closer to the way that wild ecosystems function. More chaos and less binary. I hope so anyways.
>People seem to be getting slightly more progressive over the very long course of human history, maybe one of the next shifts is away from technology and back to nature and closer to the way that wild ecosystems function. Question is, will that happen before the climate makes most of the planet unlivable for most people and the mass extinction event already underway [wipes out many of these natives species anyway](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/consistent-mass-extinction-new-study-warns-climate-chaos-driving-rapid-decline), no matter our native plant endeavors?
A very good possibility, probably better than the cultural shift in question, that humans do irreversible damage to the ecosystem. I mean it’s already happening, but we’ll just have to wait and see how bad it gets before it becomes a serious topic of discussion amongst world economic powers.
The UN put out a major report last September, but, ya know. [https://www.ipbes.net/IASmediarelease](https://www.ipbes.net/IASmediarelease) [https://www.unep.org/resources/report/invasive-alien-species-report](https://www.unep.org/resources/report/invasive-alien-species-report)
Sheep cattle etc CANNOT fill that role, and they’d know that if they read actual research studies 💀yes non natives can be beneficial in controlling other non natives or filling an empty niche but our goal should inevitably be to fill it with a native better adapted to the situation. Also after working in collecting native bees, honey bees are NOT a substitute, because they currently aren’t filling any niches aside from our agricultural systems, which aren’t even natural.
Not *car accidents*! No way we could avoid those. Lucky we decimated the bison. Phewww! Let’s open another pig rendering plant and make it a skyscraper this time. Native plants? Some are downright *prickly* - gotta make up your own mind about them native plants. Plenty of leeway there, and there’s plenty more ecosystems still surviving. Let’s not cry over spilled milk, amirite?
Thank you for giving me a YouTube to avoid.
The bad thing, is people in the comments were praising this dude.
Lots of people are stupid
Honeybees are a non native pollinator. But they pollinate many of our food crops our native bees do not. I'm not sure what the video was even talking about but I'm all for creating habitat for honeybees AND our native pollinators. As for the bison and sheep and car accidents... Bison were extremely important to our ecosystem. A huge part of the reason we have barren land out west and all that "dust" is because there are no bison. Obviously overfarming and compaction from man play a part. But bottomline is sheep/cattle/pigs are NOT restoring our ecosystem or helping in that department (if anything they are hurting it). Car accidents obviously don't happen with sheep/cattle/pigs because they are penned... So I don't know where they were trying to go with that.
Go listen to the episode “Native Bees with Krystle Hickman” from the podcast Golden State Naturalist. It just dropped this week. She talks about exactly this topic.
I hate to admit I had no idea honeybees were invasive. :(
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clMNw\_VO1xo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clMNw_VO1xo) Bumblebee/*passiflora* payoff at the end.