A harsh article regarding honey bees

[Bakersdozen]

https://xerces.org/blog/want-to-save-bees-focus-on-habitat-not-honey-bees

This article by the Xerces Society says not to worry about the honey bees because they are endangering native bee populations.  Beekeepers can over populate an area with colonies which can lead to lack of forage for native bees. I agree to a point, but I always regard honey bees as the poster child.  If the honey bee colonies weren't dying at an all time high no one would notice the bumblebees. I do agree with the encouragement regarding planting forage.  When one species benefits, they all do.

[The15thMember]

I agree with this sentiment.

Beekeeping is not bee conservation. If you are thinking of getting a hive, we encourage you to consider carefully why you want to do so.

Honey bees don't need saving in the sense that they are in danger of disappearing or going extinct.  Yes, the US's MASSIVE industrial scale beekeeping industry is in danger, due to a lot of factors, but that's a complicated and potentially charged topic.  The backyard beekeeper or sideliner is not in danger of not being able to purchase local packages or nucs due to a shortage of live honey bee colonies any time soon. 

Many people think that "bee" means honey bee, since they don't know about any other bees except maybe bumble bees.  So they get this whole situation confused.  I know because I used to be one of them once upon a time.  But these two issues, the potential extinction of wild bees and the potential collapse of US industrial-scale beekeeping, while having some correlative causes, are not the same problem.  And honestly, neither situation is solved by thousands of people indiscriminately taking up beekeeping. 
     
This is the sentiment I take issue with.

Managed honey bees are domesticated livestock, and their very presence has the potential to harm native species.

Xerces is hedging their language throughout this article so everything they are saying is technically accurate, but sounds very negative toward honey bees.  The key word here is POTENTIAL.  The studies about how honey bees affect native bees are by no means unanimous or conclusive, and this shouldn't be surprising, as the individual ecosystem and number of colonies is going to produce different results every time.  I think it's quite likely that introducing 5000 bee colonies in one location that is already under some amount of ecological stress would have a negative affect on native bees due to competition.  I think it's quite unlikely that the same is true of a few backyard beekeepers in a relatively healthy ecosystem.

I don't believe people should become beekeepers to "save the bees", but I also don't believe that by becoming beekeepers they are harming bees, except maybe honey bees through poor management.