Last winter marked a historic low for American beekeeping. Commercial beekeepers lost more than 60% of their colonies, the worst losses the industry has ever recorded. But the real story behind this collapse is not a single culprit. It is the industrial food system itself.
Honeybees have become the gig workers of agriculture. Managed colonies contribute more than $15 billion annually to the U.S. food economy, pollinating over 130 varieties of fruits, nuts, and vegetables alongside native bees and other pollinators. To deliver this work, beekeepers haul their colonies across the country from crop to crop, year-round, feeding them supplements, breeding for maximum productivity, and exposing them to chemical sprays on a punishing schedule.
California's almond industry exemplifies the problem at its most extreme. Every February, commercial beekeepers transport more than 2 million colonies to the state, representing over 95% of all managed colonies in the country, to pollinate 1.4 million acres of almond trees. The scale is staggering and unprecedented. This single event has been called the Super Bowl of beekeeping.
Yet almond pollination is a minefield for bee health. As colonies work the orchards, they drift into one another and spread varroa mites, parasites that carry deadly diseases and represent the industry's primary pest threat. Growers spray fungicides during bloom to protect their crops, exposing the bees to agrochemicals that current pesticide labels do not classify as bee-toxic, even though they impair bee growth, reproduction, and navigation.
The timing creates additional pressure. Bee colonies in February are typically not at their strongest, yet almond growers demand vigorous, productive hives. Beekeepers compensate by feeding expensive supplements year-round, which are inferior to natural forage, and by breeding queens for maximum output, a trait that makes colonies more vulnerable to varroa mites.
Financial pressure compounds the biological stress. Cheap, often adulterated honey from abroad has flooded the market, driving prices below production costs. Beekeepers have become dependent on pollination contracts simply to survive, with almond work paying bills that honey sales can no longer cover.
The loss of forage land has deepened the crisis. Beekeepers traditionally moved 40% of the nation's colonies to the Northern Great Plains each summer to forage on native grasslands and produce honey. Since the early 2000s, farmers have plowed millions of acres of this land to grow biofuel crops like corn and soy. These crops are sprayed with agrochemicals that drift or leach across property lines, weakening bee colonies even miles away.
Government support for bee research, already thin, is now evaporating. In April, the USDA announced the closure of the Beltsville Bee Research Lab in Maryland, one of only five federal bee research facilities in the country. For over 90 years, Beltsville scientists have provided beekeepers with disease detection, overwintering research, and pest management protocols at no cost. The shutdown removes a crucial lifeline when beekeepers need it most.
The Bee Lab closure is part of a larger dismantling of pollinator science. The administration plans to close 57 of 77 U.S. Forest Service research sites, jeopardizing bee habitat across 193 million acres of public land. The U.S. Geological Survey will shutter 16 research centers, including the Northern Prairie Research Center in North Dakota, which has tracked how Midwestern land use changes affect bee health, and a USGS Bee Lab in Maryland dedicated to native bee research nationwide.
As beekeepers absorb mounting losses, they will likely charge farmers higher fees for pollination or simply have fewer colonies available. Those costs will flow directly to consumers. Harvests will shrink, produce will cost more, and grocery store aisles will offer less variety. The problem masquerades as an environmental concern but is actually an economic one: the system that feeds America depends on bees, and that system is breaking them.
Reversing the trajectory requires immediate action. Funding for pollinator research must be restored and expanded. Conservation lands must be maintained and expanded across the country. Pesticide labels must be rewritten to account for sublethal toxicities that current regulations ignore.
Bees and beekeepers have held up their end of the bargain. The food system that profits from their labor now needs to do the same.
Author James Rodriguez: "The U.S. is treating its most productive insects like disposable labor, then acting shocked when they collapse."
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