Western honey bee and Africa", making conservation of wild-bee diversity important. They further argue that the difficulty of controlling drones for mating is a serious handicap and a sign that domestication is not complete, in particular as "extensive gene flow usually occurs between wild/feral and managed honeybee populations". The honey bee is a colonial insect which is housed, transported by and sometimes fed by beekeepers. Honey bees do not survive and reproduce individually, but as part of the colony (a superorganism). Honey bees collect flower nectar and convert it to honey, which is stored in the hive. The nectar, transported in the bees'
Western honey bee a domesticated pollinator (the honey bee) could be compensated for by native, wild bee species." Similarly, Brian Dennis and William Kemp write: "Although the domestication of the honey bee is closely connected to the evolution of food-based socio-economic systems in many cultures throughout the world, in current economic terms, and in the U.S. alone, the estimated wholesale value of honey, more than $317 million dollars in 2013, pales in comparison to aggregate estimated annual value of pollination services, variously valued at $11–15 billion." On the other hand, P. R. Oxley and B. P. Oldroyd (2010) consider the domestication of bees