Are U.S. Honey Bees Sustainable?
An Environment Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Josh Wayne, MSW, MPH, T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies
June 2021

This article focuses squarely on the question of the sustainability of honey produced in the United States with the help of the common honey bee, Apis mellifera. The honey bees we see today in the United States, and in the entire Western Hemisphere, are not native.

This article focuses squarely on the question of the sustainability of honey produced in the United States with the help of the common honey bee, Apis mellifera. The honey bees we see today in the United States, and in the entire Western Hemisphere, are not native. Thus, my assessment of their sustainability is based on the western hemisphere, and my conclusions for sustainable practices in the United States would differ from sustainable practices for honey bees in South Asia, for example, where they are native.

While I have not consumed honey in over a decade, I know that pollinators are important and I thought that beekeepers may still be able to benefit the environment, even with the potential exploitation of the honey bees. Some beekeepers are more ethical than others, and I imagined I could find one who truly cared about the bees and tried their best to take only what the bees could spare. I didn’t see beekeeping as a big issue—that was, until February of 2021.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE AND SEE MORE PHOTOS HERE (PDF)

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