external benefit confusion I'm a little confused by the following question and answer provided by MRU:

Fruit farmers pay beekeepers for their honeybees’ pollination
services. Honeybees provide an external benefit to fruit farmers.
However, fruits provide an external benefit to the beekeepers because
their honeybees need fruits. Which external benefit is larger:
honeybees’ external benefit to fruit farmers and fruits’ external
benefit to beekeepers?

Their answer:

Honeybees’ external benefit to fruit farmers is larger

This seems like the least fitting answer to me.  The fruit farmers pay the beekeepers for their services, so the benefits they get from this relationship are mostly accounted for by the cost.  However, beekeepers don't have to pay the farmers for the benefit their bees get from pollinating their plants, so this benefit is an external benefit that farmers give to beekeepers.  Am I misunderstanding something here?
Not sure I understand your confusion.
Fruits provide external benefits worth $X$ to honeybees, honeybees provide external benefits worth $Y$ to fruits.
Knowing all this, farmers and beekeepers agreed that farmers should pay beekeepers amount $Z$, which probably comes close to making things even, meaning $X + Z = Y - Z$. Since $Z &gt; 0$, $X &lt; Y$.