Commercial honeybee colonies are transported thousands of kilometers annually for crop pollination services, raising welfare concerns about hive stress, disease spread, and colony losses.
Commercial bee pollination involves transporting hives on flatbed trucks across thousands of kilometers, exposing colonies to temperature extremes, vibration, and disruption of normal flight patterns. Concentration of hives from across the country in monoculture crops facilitates disease and parasite transmission, particularly Varroa mite infestations. Pesticide residues in pollen and nectar, including neonicotinoids, impair navigation, memory, and immune function. The welfare of individual bees in commercial operations is rarely considered, but colony-level welfare including disease burden and colony strength has direct economic implications. Wild bee populations, which provide a larger proportion of pollination services than honeybees, suffer additional habitat loss from monoculture agriculture.