Nationwide, beekeepers report loss of 1.6M colonies in 10 months

Across the United States, beekeepers are facing their greatest crisis in decades, with more than 1 million colonies reported lost in the last 10 months.

The losses, reported and published by the Honey Bee Health Coalition in April, are staggering, with 1.6 million colonies lost between June 2024 and March 2025. The data shows beekeepers of all sizes are being hit, too, with hobbyists (one to 49 colonies), sideliners (50 to 500 colonies) and commercial beekeeping operations (more than 500 colonies) experiencing average losses of 51%, 54% and 62%, respectively.

The Honey Bee Health Coalition brings together beekeepers, researchers, government agencies, conservation groups and many other key partners with focuses on improving the health of bees and supporting populations of native and managed pollinators. Survey data was collected in partnership with Project Apis m., a national nonprofit, from 842 beekeepers, with participants accounting for an estimated 1.956 million colonies, around 72% of the country’s bees, according to the coalition.

“The concern for beekeepers is that this is turning out to be one of the worst losses nationally that we’ve seen, historically,” said Dan Conlon, who runs Warm Colors Apiary in South Deerfield with his wife, Bonita. “What’s different about it is that a lot of the people who generally have done pretty well during those periods are doing badly as well.”

Here in the Pioneer Valley, beekeepers like the Conlons have said they, too, have seen losses like their peers around the country, although not quite at the same level.

“We always considered up to 20% an acceptable loss. … It certainly looks like we’re more in the 30% range this year, which is certainly better than my contemporaries,” Conlon said. “A lot of times when you lose bees, you know you could have done something had you been more on top of it. When you don’t know what happened, that’s the time to get worried.”

In Ashfield, Bear River Bee Farm owner Mark Burton said he only lost about 15% of his bees, while They Keep Bees, an organization with 300 hives in Montague run by Ang Roell, also avoided the fate of many other keepers, with a 20% loss.

While it may seem obvious, continued losses of honeybees, “a keystone species” around the nation, could have “the potential to significantly impact our entire ecosystem,” according to Kim Skyrm, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources’ chief apiary inspector. In total, MDAR estimates there are about 8,000 beekeepers in Massachusetts managing between 45,000 and 65,000 honeybee colonies.

“It is estimated that one in every three bites of food depends on pollinators,” Skyrm said. “So if we had no bees, there would be negative impacts on crop yields, increased costs in food production, dietary limitations due to reliance on wind-pollinated crops, reduction in livestock-associated products such as meat, dairy, etc. and food insecurity in areas that already face malnutrition.”

A main culprit for these losses, if it can be pinned on one source among the many stressors bees face, is only 1.1 millimeters long: the Varroa mite.

“If you’re serious about bees,” said Burton, who has about 40 colonies down the road from his home in Ashfield, “you’re talking more about mites.”

Mites, viruses and more

A major challenge in beekeeping, according to MDAR, is that honeybees face a “myriad of health stressors,” including but not limited to: Varroa mites, disease, predators, pesticides, ecosystem degradation and climate change.

In the face of many of these issues, the best method to protect hives, Skyrm said, is vigilance and routine health inspections, as assessing parasites, pathogens, pests and predators is key to ensuring colonies survive. In particular, Varroa mites — with the appropriate scientific name “varroa destructor” — are the main concern.

“Varroa mites are considered to be currently the most detrimental health issue in beekeeping and proper mite management is key to colony health,” Skyrm said. “Given this, beekeepers should take an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to managing Varroa mite levels through the season. Beekeepers also need to ensure that colonies have adequate space for population growth through the season and food supplies.”

These miniscule mites, beekeepers say, bring an outsized problem to apiaries, as they can weaken the hives and open them up to other stressors, like viruses.

“They’re parasitizing the bees. That weakens colonies, but the bigger thing that it’s doing is vectoring all these viruses,” Burton said. “Dirty mites can give clean bees viruses. Dirty bees can give clean mites viruses. Bees can give each other viruses. You can create this perfect storm if you’re not keeping your mite level as low as possible.”

Burton said it’s a “numbers game” when it comes to managing mites, as it is nearly impossible to eliminate them. But it is possible to “keep the baseline low enough so that the vectoring of viruses don’t overwhelm the bees.”

“The art of beekeeping has been around for a long time and our challenge nowadays is to incorporate more disease management into that art,” Burton said. “And the disease management itself has become an art.”

There’s a few treatment methods for mites, with the two major schools of thought being organic and synthetic treatments. Burton said he prefers the natural treatments — glycerin and oxalic acid — as not only does it avoid putting chemicals into his hives, but the mites can develop a resistance to synthetic compounds, much like how bacteria can develop a resistance to antibiotics in a hospital.

Alongside natural treatments, Roell said They Keep Bees is also looking at bee genetics to raise strong queens, which are able to survive over winter and are resistant to mites.

“We breed off of those and we have a rigorous breeding cycle we follow,” Roell said. “We’re trying to be as discerning as possible using natural acids and, really, using genetic selection and local ecology is the ethos we build everything else around.”

And while They Keep Bees had a strong winter, Roell said sometimes it can just come down to luck because so many factors can affect bees.

“I can’t say I have really great survival because of x, y and z,” Roell said.

Warm Colors Apiary is also on the forefront of genetics, as it has worked closely with the Honeybee Breeders Association for 25 years to improve the stock.

“We’ve made significant gains that way and many of us think that’s the long-term goal here,” Conlon said. “We have to get the bees back to a state where their natural inheritable traits are overcoming the threats to the environment. … We are building up behaviors that are inheritable in the bees that counter the mites.”

As beekeepers continue to face losses, Conlon said vigilance of hives and consideration of the environment is necessary to ensure honeybees continue to pollinate flowers and produce honey.

“I see the solution to most of this as improving management. Making sure everybody’s handling their bees to the best of their knowledge and, secondly, getting the public to buy into the idea that the environment has got to be protected,” Conlon said. “Not just for the honeybees, but for us.”

With MDAR receiving variable reports of losses this year, it is seeking feedback from apiarists across the state. The agency is currently conducting its 2024-2025 Bee Aware Honey Bee Health Survey, which is open through May 31, and will provide valuable data for MDAR. Beekeepers with colonies of all sizes are encouraged to participate in the survey, which is expected to take about 15 minutes, by visiting bit.ly/3ELKuVT.

If you are a beekeeper and suspect you may have a colony health issue or hive death, you can reach out to bees@mass.gov.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.