Wild bees face accelerating habitat loss, pesticide exposure, and disease pressure, affecting both population viability and the welfare of billions of individual insects.
Wild bee welfare sits at the intersection of ecological and individual animal welfare concern. The evidence that bees experience nociception and show pain-related behaviours has grown substantially, suggesting that sub-lethal pesticide exposure causing navigation failure, immune compromise, and reduced foraging success constitutes genuine suffering at the individual level. At the population level, the collapse of wild bee diversity has cascading welfare effects on the plants and animals that depend on pollination. Gardens, farms, and public land managed for flowering plant diversity provide not just ecological services but direct welfare benefits to billions of individual bees.