Commercial honey bee colonies are transported thousands of kilometres to pollinate crops, with growing evidence that this practice compromises colony health and individual bee welfare.
Commercial pollination exposes bees to the cumulative stressors of repeated transport, novel disease environments, pesticide-treated crops and habitat loss along transit routes. Research groups including those led by Lars Chittka have demonstrated that honey bees show pessimistic cognitive biases after stressful experiences — a marker of negative emotional states. Colony health collapse directly harms the billions of individual bees involved.