Session 3—Panel: Exploring the impacts of honey bees on native pollinators: balancing pollinator management with biodiversity conservation with biodiversity conservation.

The western (formerly European) honey bee is an extremely important agricultural commodity, given our dependence on it for the production of honey bee products (i.e. honey, wax, etc.), but is also culturally important due to both its role in agriculture and its unique ability to capture the fascination of hobbyists and scientists alike. Humans have thus introduced this species around the globe, making it the single most ubiquitous species of bee in both managed and natural ecosystems throughout the world. However, while honey bees may be important to humans, scientists have known and many demonstrated that honey bees also impact the ecosystems in which they are introduced and subsequently the conservation of native pollinators and plants. This session will bring together a panel of honey bee and native bee researchers with honey beekeepers, to explore what we know about how managing for honey bees impacts native bees and plants, and discuss how best to balance interest in honey beekeeping, with the need to conserve native species.

Moderator: Dr. Adrian Carper, Research Associate, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology &
Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, Boulder

Panelists:

• Dr. Keng-Lou James Hung, Assistant Professor, Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory & Oklahoma Biological Survey The University of Oklahoma

• Sarah Red-Laird, Bee Girl Organization, Executive Director and American Beekeeping Federation, Kids, and Bees Director

• Dr. Christy E. Briles, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Denver