How do native bees get along with commercial bees?
If commercial honey bees (Apis mellifera) and native bees are foraging on the same flowers, they do not fight one another. However, commercial bees are much better foragers than most native bee species and they can often fly at much lower temperatures. If there is plenty of food available, this would probably not cause a problem. However, in a situation of limited food resources, the native bees would probably come out second best. Most of our native bees are tiny, fragile, almost inconspicuous creatures and such bees would have great difficulty competing with the highly efficient commercial bees we have introduced from Europe.
