Port City Pollinator Project

Today I’m grateful that I don’t have the time or energy to argue with all of the “well meaning” but poorly informed fools on the internet. 🫡

Yes, European honeybees are invasive to the USA. They’re livestock. You want to know what else is nonnative livestock? Dairy cows, domestic goats, wool sheep, chickens, pigs and practically every other farm animal you can think of here. Are they useful to humans, yes. Are they financially beneficial to our economy, yes. Are they tasty, depends who you ask but I say yes. Not to even mention domestic cats and dogs and the entire scope of animals involved in the pet trades. Oh and practically almost all of the people too, dang.

Do honeybees need saving? Absolutely not. Like I mentioned above they’re financially beneficial livestock and people will keep them going because we need them. We need them to fill the gaps in pollination that we have created with our industrial farming practices and other forms of habitat destruction. We also need them for honey, yummy. Can you imagine how much honey would cost if it had to be imported? It would be completely out of reach except to the extremely wealthy.

Can we rid the USA of European honeybees? Probably about as easily as we can rid it of people of European descent. So no we can’t. Should we monitor and manage their reach, definitely. Should we work to minimize their effects on the native populations of pollinators, for sure 💯.

Now this brings me to the “save the bees” movement, which should really be a “save the pollinators” movement or even a “save the insects” movement at this point. Deep down inside the “save the bees/pollinators/insects” movement within the USA honeybees shouldn’t even be of consideration, but on the surface they’re great for it. As a mascot for the movement honeybees get people considering ways in which to live a more ecologically supportive lifestyle which benefits the rest of the pollinators. Every little step we take individually to “save the bees” is a step in the right direction. If cute sweet honeybees can encourage people to use less pesticides and protect natural spaces then we all benefit. If people plant flowers for the sake of honeybees they’re also inadvertently feeding bumblebees, sweatbees, butterflies, wasps, flies, beetles, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and countless other critters including us on up the food chain.

We’re divided on so many stupid things. Don’t let bugs be one of them please.
✌️💛🐝 go do some good today.