Many commercial beekeepers migrate their colonies during the year to provide pollination services to farmers and to reach the most abundant sources of nectar.
Millions of acres of U.S. fruit, vegetable, oilseed and legume seed crops depend on insect pollination, including honey bees.
The USDA has estimated that 80 percent of insect crop pollination is accomplished by honey bees. Approximately one-third of the total human diet is derived directly or indirectly from insect-pollinated plants (fruits, legumes and vegetables).
Crop Dependence
The almond crop is entirely dependent on honey bee pollination. Without honey bees, there would be no almonds. More than 80 percent of the world's almonds are produced in California.3 To pollinate California's approximately 790,000 bearing acres of almonds4 requires more than a million colonies of honey bees.
Numerous other crops are 90 percent dependent on honey bee pollination. Some of those crops include apples, avocados, blueberries, cherries, cranberries and sunflowers. Other crops such as cucumbers, kiwi fruit, melons and vegetables are also pollinated by honey bees.*
It's a rant that's been building up in my head for a while, so I had to get it out :) You see these "Bees are dying" stories all the time now, and they use the same sketchy logic, and like to present the topic in a very self serving way.
In regards to this specific story, the article admits that sugar beets are not a flowering crop. There would be no reason for wild honey bees to travel in these fields.
But collateral damage from chemicals washing into waterways, or some bees flying onto the property I'm sure is a big problem. But enough to endanger the entire wild population?
Since I posted my original comment, I was interested to find out more. My wife knows a couple of wives of farmer, so she asked 2 on my behalf, and both said they don't do anything like this, and haven't heard of it either. Might depend what crops you are farming, and where?
Even though farms are smaller in the UK, am I correct in assuming that many farmers still practice mono-crop? If they do, then depending on wild pollinators alone is never going to be the best strategy. Crop yields will always increase significantly by introducing farmed bee-hives.
Here is an article I found from the UK Bee Farmers Association https://beefarmers.co.uk/working-with-other-sectors/contract...
It says in the organization even runs a 'National Pollination Service' with a sitting 'Pollination Secretary'.
I think beekeeping is a very interesting industry. I'm sure many people in the UK and the States are probably unaware of these practices and how integral they are to farming.
More arable land than nearly any other nation, comparatively thinly populated, early leader in mechanized farming, steady consolidation of small family farms into large corporate ones for many generations.
I've also never heard of "bees as a service" here, though I know it exists in the US.
For reference, I'm not a farmer, but live in the British countryside.