Urban beekeeping is growing rapidly, but poorly managed urban hives can harm native bee populations and raise welfare concerns for honey bees themselves.
Urban beekeeping creates welfare tensions between managed honey bees and native bee communities. In floral resource-poor urban environments, high managed honey bee densities can out-compete native solitary and bumblebee species, reducing their nutrition and reproductive success. Poorly managed urban hives suffer high varroa mite infestations and may act as disease sources for neighboring wild bee populations. Welfare-positive urban beekeeping requires adequate management skills, appropriate hive numbers relative to available forage, and active disease management.