The rapid growth of urban and backyard beekeeping has created uninformed colony management that harms bee colonies through disease spread and inadequate care.
Well-intentioned backyard beekeeping without adequate training creates welfare harm rather than benefit. Colonies left without Varroa treatment collapse slowly from mite-vectored viral disease. Untrained keepers fail to recognize swarm prevention needs, emergency queens, and starvation risk. Bees may not experience suffering the same way vertebrates do, but colony failure is a welfare and conservation concern.