Wild Bee Conservation Welfare | Animal Welfare Hub

Wild bee populations are declining globally due to multiple threats, with consequences for both ecosystem welfare and invertebrate wellbeing.

Key Facts

Over 20,000 species of wild bees exist globally — only about 2% are honeybees
Approximately 40% of wild bee species are threatened with extinction
Pesticides, habitat loss, and pathogen introduction from managed bees threaten wild populations
Wild bees perform 80% or more of pollination in many natural ecosystems
Some wild bee species show complex learning behaviors and may have meaningful experiential states

Welfare Considerations

Wild bee welfare sits at the frontier of invertebrate welfare science. Whether bees experience something meaningfully analogous to pain or wellbeing is debated, but evidence for complex learning, memory, and possibly emotional states in bees has grown substantially. Regardless of this uncertainty, wild bee decline cascades into ecosystem welfare effects for animals whose pollination-dependent food sources collapse. Protecting wild bee populations through pesticide reduction, habitat creation, and pathogen control is an investment in the entire ecosystem community of animals that depends on functioning pollination networks.

What You Can Do

Plant diverse native flowering species throughout spring-fall blooming sequence
Reduce or eliminate pesticide use in your garden and advocate for landscape-scale reduction
Leave undisturbed soil, hollow stems, and leaf litter for wild bee nesting habitat
Avoid introducing managed honeybees in areas with high wild bee diversity
Support wild bee monitoring programs and advocate for pollinator protection policies