Cat Among the Penguins

This episode of Cat Among the Penguins follows on from episode 2, where we looked at managed honeybees and their impact on wild pollinators. But not all honeybees live in hives managed by people – some are free-living. We speak to Dr Jon Ellis and Dr Ollie Visick to explore whether these free-living honeybees are an important part of our ecosystems, or whether they are a threat to agriculture and wild insects.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

If you see wild honeybees in southwest England, Ollie and Jon need your sightings: please report them at Free-living Honey Bees SW. Wherever you are, you can follow their advice on how to find free-living honeybee colonies. This work cannot be done without the help of the many people who report their sightings, so thank you for taking part.

Further reading

To learn more about free-living honeybees, you can watch recorded talks from Ollie, Jon and other experts at the B4 symposium. B4 is an amazing community group run by people who are passionate about protecting honeybees and have recently turned their attention to the free-living population.

Here’s a great article by Ollie: Honey bees are surprisingly abundant, research shows – but most are wild, not managed in hives. It’s based on his recent paper:

Visick, O.D., Ratnieks, F.L.W. Density and survival of wild honey bee colonies in English wood pasture, parkland and deer parks. Apidologie 57, 5 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-025-01234-4

In this podcast episode, we meantioned hives for free-living honeybees. Check out this great mini documentary about the hives made by Matt Somerville, one of the speakers at the B4 symposium.

Wild honeybees now officially listed as endangered in the EU