European honey bees are useful for maximizing fruit set. But watching the trees get pollinated I always see many native bee, wasp and fly species on the blossoms. Also, there are thousands of "feral" deciduous fruit trees in this district, and they are usually covered with fruit despite there being no European honey bees near them. Pre-Colombian North America ecosystems were capable of supporting large populations, and those ecosystems were managed sustainably.
Also, most of our food supply is not dependent upon European honey bees. Grains are wind pollinated and are the largest share of food crops - wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, soy, barley, rye. Tomatoes, blueberries, cranberries, squash, and melons are not dependent on honey bees. Root crops don't require honey bees, nor generally do vegetative food plants like lettuces and cabbages. Grapes are wind-pollinated, figs are wasp-pollinated, commercial bananas are propagated asexually. Wild bananas are bat pollinated as are some Agaves.
Recently, when I talk to growers they are interested in developing areas in the orchard that will support native pollinators. Pesticides are the problem there. All of the spiders and assassin bugs and other predatory insects are killed off, so there are no check on pest insect outbreaks. A healthy habitat might have as many as a million spiders per acre. Of course, the pests are mostly alien invasive species themselves, all part of a seriously disrupted and collapsing environment.
I am working in habitat restoration now, and last year we noticed an alarming decline in seed and fruit production on the native plant species we grow and monitor. Bumble bees, flies, butterflies, moths, wasps, hummingbirds, skippers, and beetles all play a roll in cross-pollination. We often watch the natural controls on insect outbreaks in real time, for example leaf miner outbreaks attracting parasitic wasps which put a check on them.
Saving European honey bees is about saving a particular type of industrial agriculture. Honey is a popular consumer item, of course, ad that helps with the public relations for the bees. But they don't belong in North American ecosystems and are a disruptive force.
The reality is that we try to kill all insects everywhere all the time, we wantonly destroy natural habitat, and then we wonder what happened to the handful of celebrity species, like the European honey bee and the Monarch butterfly.
They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
= new reply since forum marked as read