actually apiculture hurts the bees more than helping them
because the bees that are bred (? for honey infect wild bees with diseases (they're different species), and in apiculture legs and wings are commonly cut off, also they're artificially inseminated, and queen bees are marked, and many bees are purposefully killed /:

I figured someone was going to comment something like this. I really don't have time to get into "Bee Politics", but your points are coming off a bit exaggerated and one-sided. I would not say that cutting wings and legs is a "common" practice. The only situations in which I've heard of this happening was with large-scale industrial honey producing companies. Corporations value profits over animal welfare, which is why I urge people even more to support their small LOCAL beekeepers.

Yes, bees ARE artificially inseminated. I'm not sure why you bring this up as if it's a bad thing? Humans artificially inseminate every kind of domestic animal in their care, from dogs to horses to fish. Bees are no exception. Selective breeding is beneficial because they choose disease-resistant genes to make stronger and healthier bee colonies.

Do domestic and wild bees pass around diseases? Yes, but this is just... kind of how nature works. Animals carry diseases, and those diseases get spread around through contact with others. Domestic dogs and cats can transmit diseases between their wild brethren as well. This is another reason why people who work very closely with bees are valuable in helping to understand how we can combat and prevent the spread of these diseases and breed more resistant colonies.

I'm really not sure what you mean by "many bees are purposefully killed". This is just.. really vague and untrue. Beekeepers don't kill their bees - that would be completely counter-productive to the whole point of being a beekeeper in the first place. Sometimes a hive will grow too big for one colony, and the bees will swarm and divide themselves into two groups. In this case, a beekeeper will try to move the swarm into a new hive and grow a new colony. Colonies themselves can cost $150 or more; these are not animals they're going to just go and kill after investing time and money year-round to nurture. Once again, this is where a rift forms between small-scale beekeepers and industrial farming. Corporations might find it cheaper to kill their bees in winter and then buy more in spring, instead of trying to keep them alive through the winter. No bee-loving person would support this practice - it's just greedy corporate decisions at work.

Both domestic and wild bees are threatened by the same things - pesticides, climate change, habitat loss, disease. Supporting domestic hives and learning as much as we can about bees from the people who work closest with them helps bees both in human care AND wild populations. Working closely with bees gives us valuable information and insight. Breeding disease-resistant bees helps keep them alive. Growing diverse plants avoids competition between wild and domestic bee populations. Supporting your local farmers and beekeepers helps their bees, and ultimately helps the ecosystem for ALL bees. So I really have to disagree with your sentiment that apiculture "hurts bees more than helping them". That's just not true. Like all complex things, there are positives and negatives to every situation. Just because there are some downsides, or some soulless corporations that mistreat their animals for profit, does not condemn the entire practice of beekeeping, and does not negate the positive benefits of beekeeping. If apiculture were to suddenly stop, I guarantee you'd see drastically more negative effects to bees everywhere.

The most damaging threats to wild bees are pesticides, habitat reduction, and climate change - all things that beekeepers have an interest in preventing and combating, because it threatens domestic bees as well. Ecology involves very complex balances that humans don't always get right, but we're learning more and more every day about how to better care for our native bees, thanks in huge part to the efforts of our local beekeepers.

artificial insemination can also come as counterprductive, because the smaller the gene pool gets, the more likely the animal's going to have diseases because of recesive genes, and some people instead of making disease-resistant bees, can breed bees to produce more honey

artificial breeding of animals is exactly what can cause that domesticated animals loose their biological niche and eventually become invasive species, and these animals need us to survive and cannot survive on the wild by themselves

exactly killing bees in winter is what I'm referring to

all in all, beekeeping shouldn't aim to obtain products from bees for human consumption, it should aim to protect bees, therefore it's kinda pointless to just breed domesticated bees, since they're not exactly the ones with risk of extinction, because we'll keep breeding them to basically steal their honey, the bees that need help and conservation are huge variety of species of wild bees and other hymenoptera

(sorry if my english is shitty I kind of wrote this in a rush)

https://www.animal-ethics.org/explo.....dfootnote14sym
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-veg.....honey-industry
https://www.truthordrought.com/beek.....ervation-myths

Also this one's important as well: https://www.theguardian.com/environ.....onds-hives-aoe

I heard that eating locally-produced honey is supposed to help with allergies. I was pretty skeptical, but figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a try - I'd rather support local farmers anyway. To my surprise, my allergies are SUPER mild this year, despite there being so much pollen in the air it looks like summer snow. So heck yes to honey and bees!