Commercial beekeeping practices can create significant stress for honeybee colonies. Understanding colony-level welfare helps protect both bees and the pollination services they provide.
Colony welfare is best understood at the group level — chronic stressors reduce colony resilience and lead to collapse. Transportation stress from migratory pollination services causes disorientation and increased mortality. Prophylactic antibiotic use masks underlying health problems. Unrestricted access to diverse forage plants is essential for colony nutritional health, which monoculture agricultural landscapes fail to provide.