As honey bee colonies face significant losses nationwide, scientists are signaling a deep impact in agriculture production this year. According to an announcement made by Washington State University entomologists, commercial honey bee colony losses are projected to reach between 60 and 70 percent up from 40 and 50 percent in the past decade.
The significant jump this year could be from nutrition deficiencies, mite infestations, viral diseases and possible pesticide exposure during the previous pollinating season, Priya Chakrabarti Basu, an assistant professor of pollinator health and apiculture at Washington State University (WSU), said, but it’s too early in the season to know the exact reason.
“I honestly think this is a combination of multiple stressors, which is why for years my lab has been focusing on understanding the impacts of and interactions of these stressors on bee pollinators,” Basu said.
Basu, who joined the WSU Bee Program this winter, is one of several WSU scientists leading or collaborating in programs that help improve the standing of honey bees across the country, according to a press release.
Since close to 35 percent of the world’s food depends on pollinators, according to the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the USDA determined that honey bees had a production value of nearly $350 million in 2023. The United States’ commercial beekeepers are under pressure to maintain colonies because “pollination demands haven’t gone down,” Basu said.
“So beekeepers face tremendous pressure to keep the same number of colonies to meet those needs,” she said.
Some crops that depend on honey bees to grow, include apples, strawberries, cucumbers and avocados. Plants, such coffee, cocoa and vanilla, are also affected, according to the USDA. But nuts, such as almonds and macadamia nuts, are also directly impacted by the honey bee colony decline. California almonds are the biggest crop for honey bee pollination, according to the USDA.
“The almond industry frequently asks for strong colonies,” Brandon Hopkins, WSU’s P.F. Thurber Endowed Distinguished Professor of Pollinator Ecology, said. “But this year, growers are desperate. Anything with live bees in a box is in demand because the industry is short on supply. I haven’t heard of that since the early days of colony collapse around 2008.”
The goal of the program is to work with beekeepers, stakeholders, industry partners, and collaborating researchers to understand pollinator health and the stressors on bees.
“Losses have been increasing steadily,” she said. “Pollination demands haven’t gone down, so beekeepers face tremendous pressure to keep the same number of colonies to meet those needs.”
Basu said going forward the program hopes to “partner with beekeepers on developing more sustainable practices to help reduce losses and create databases to better understand how bee nutrition works,” according to a press release.
“If we see increasing colony losses, we could see a drop-off in honey production and an increase in the rent growers pay beekeepers to bring pollinators in,” Basu said. “We may just see some beekeepers cease operations completely because it’s too expensive to continue as a business.”
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