> "There are many species of honey bees. Apis Mellifera is the bee kept by beekeepers in the United States. It originated in Europe (though a recent archaeological dig may have found apis species that pre-date European colonization of the Americas.) Based on the current information, honey bees are a “non-native” species. They can, and do, escape cultivation and can live in the wild. In order to be considered “invasive” they would need to displace and prevent native insects from thriving. This is hotly debated. Most researchers have found that pollination by bees of different species increases fruit set, the number of seeds and subsequent flowers – thereby increasing forage for all insects. They do not fight with each other and rarely share diseases. Since adequate forage for all bees is on the decline, could honey bees be taking all the nectar and pollen – leaving nothing for native bees? It’s possible but not likely. Honey bees are most often kept in large commercial groups – moved between big orchards for pollination. Hobby beekeepers are fairly spread out. Native bees stay in their own habitat. They do overlap, but not everywhere."
source: https://duffymeadows.com/2019/01/21/are-honey-bees-and-invas...
Some of the issues in question are just how much of an impact they have in forcing out native bees due to competition for resources and how much of a nuance they are as a result of pollinating and thereby assisting in the spread of invasive plants. Answers to those questions vary by both location (with some having more fragile native bee populations to begin with) and depending on if the bees are from feral bee colonies which tend to be fairly small vs bees from giant commercial operations which can suddenly introduce extremely large numbers of bees to an area.
I can certainly see that there are cases where honey bees could cause enough of a problem to be considered invasive, but it does seem a little unfair to pin that on the bee if it's primarily caused by the actions of commercial bee keepers and not the bee's natural behavior in the wild. That is, it says less about the bee and more about the bee keepers.
This also only concerns the common honey bee. I don't think anyone would argue that the africanized honeybee wasn't a problem.
From a paper which falls on the invasive side of the argument but calls out the debate explicitly:
> Yet the extent to which this introduced species alters native communities remains controversial, reflecting ongoing debate over the importance of resource competition in regulating pollinator populations.
source: https://doi.org/10.1890/02-0626