Honeybee infestation in a home. Photo: Neckler's Bee Farm Removal.
A swarm of honeybees. Photo: Richard Hebert, Hebert Honey Farm, DeRidder, LA
In the autumn of 2006, a beekeeper in Florida filed the first report of a sudden and unexplained disappearance of his bees. They did not die. They just packed up and left. More reports of heavy losses (mostly from commercial migratory beekeepers) quickly followed. In subsequent years, beekeepers have reported losing anywhere from 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives.
The term, “colony collapse disorder” or CCD, was coined after reports of missing honeybees. CCD has these attributes:
The suspected causes of CCD include:
However, since 2010, AHA had referred approximately 300 referrals to beekeepers to remove honeybee infestations despite the widespread concern about honeybee population reported in various media. This experience failed to align with the narrative that honeybee numbers are declining.
But wait! Earlier this year, two publications reported positive stories about honeybee populations:
The Washington Post reported that the number of honeybees at an all-time high, and ““We have added almost a million bee colonies in the past five years.” Texas leads the nation in the number of beekeepers, and a big reason for this growth is a property tax incentive enacted in 2012, a “plot of five to 20 acres now qualifies for agricultural property-tax breaks if you keep bees on it for five years.” A beekeeper can place six hives on five acres to qualify for the tax break and can add another hive for each 2.5 acres. This tax break has enabled a new apiary business model according to The Washington Post, “Honey Bees Unlimited (HBU) now leases and runs 1,500 hives for 170 clients in eight counties north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. As developers split the once-rural countryside into five- and 10-acre ranchettes, [HBU is] signing up new clients faster than [HBU] can split hives to place on their land.”
While Texas is experiencing growth in the number of beekeepers and apiaries, California leads the nation in total number of bee hives. The reason for this population of honeybees in the Golden State is because of the pollination services needed for the state’s almond crop which has doubled since 2007.
Yet, beekeepers witnessed the second largest loss of colonies in 2023. However, beekeepers are aggressive in their management using hive splitting & queen replacement to exceed these heavy losses.
Vox, a general interest news site, shared many of the same points as The Washington Post article. The Vox article added to the discussion about honeybee populations by comparing honeybee husbandry to poultry husbandry. Honeybees can be compared to factory-farmed chickens, “Like chickens, honeybees are stressed to the killing point by the conditions of mass farming (in the bees’ case, the stress of being moved across the country to service California almond trees)… Both chickens and honeybees are so valuable that it is in farmers’ economic interest to more than replace what they lose, with the result that numbers keep going up.”
Honeybees seem to be thriving in Louisiana and other states despite the “beepocalypse” hysteria in old news reports of the last decade and a half.
If you want to contact Beehive Buzz, please send your questions and pictures to Keith Hawkins, Area Horticulture Agent (AHA), 337-463-7006 or khawkins@agcenter.lsu.edu. Also, you can be on the “beemail” email list by emailing your request to the address above.
“This work has been supported, in part, by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Renewable Resources Extension Act Award, Accession Number 1011417.”