Honeybees were the only ones that mattered. “Now we know that even under the most generous assumptions they provide only a third of the pollination services that we require. Other species are definitely filling the gap.”
That’s a big gap, and no matter how many honeybee hives are established to fill it, for certain crops, including strawberries, tomatoes and peppers, it won’t help, because bumblebees are their main pollinators. For others, including field beans, apples and raspberries, honeybees are not as effective pollinators as wild insects. There are, therefore, plenty of practical reasons why we should be concerned about the ongoing decline of natural pollinators