SPECIAL REPORT: Beekeepers in the US continue to report high colony loss rates

News 11's Melissa Zaremba brings us more on what this means for the honey bee population and what beekeepers are doing to keep honey bees alive

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - Beekeepers across the United States lost about 45% of their managed honey bee colonies according to the nation’s most recent survey conducted by the nonprofit Bee Informed Partnership. 

As we enter the spring season and start to see flowers blossom it’s all thanks to our honey bees.

Honey bees pollinate over 100 different types of crops in North America contributing about $15-billion to our economy every year. 

It’s no surprise honey bees are the most effective pollinators so it’s important they’re well taken care of.

“Most of the honey bees in the United States are managed by beekeepers and there are some people who say honey bees can escape and then live in the wild and then there are some people who say oh they will only survive one or two years, but they won’t survive much longer than that, we can safely say that most of the honeybees are managed,” said research coordinator, postdoc for Bee Informed Partnership Nathalie Steinhauer.

According to the most recent survey from April 2020 to April 2021 beekeepers across the united states lost about 45% of their honey bees that’s 6% higher than the average annual loss rate of 39%.

Research coordinator for Bee Informed Partnership Nathalie Steinhauer explains what this loss really means.

“That means that 40-percent of colonies need to be replaced every year, that’s a lot of time and effort and investment into those replacements you know that could be invested elsewhere so that’s what we are talking about the sustainability of beekeeping and the fact we are worried that this recording high number of colonies that needs to be replaced puts a lot of pressure on the beekeepers,” said Steinhauer.

“I’m out here on the Mesa where I’m learning about how local beekeepers manage their hives and bees throughout the year,” said News 11 Reporter Melissa Zaremba.

“The number of bees isn’t the issue it’s managing them and how long they can live for so a hive realistically should live almost forever, they should be able to make their own queen, but the issue we are having is the disease so a hive can live for about a year, but if we aren’t managing them or treating them for a disease that hive isn’t going to live for a year,” said local Beekeeper Nikki Burns. 

Burns says there are other factors to consider when taking care of her honey bees.

“Once brood picks up in the springtime, brood is like their larvae and their baby bees their varroa mites go into their brud and we have to hit the mites with the treatment during that process before they are capped and once spring comes then they are booming in numbers and the mite isn’t going to be booming with them because as more bees are laid there could be more mites if you aren’t treating them at the same time,” said Burns. 

Locals can also pitch in to help the honey bees too.

“The biggest thing is planting flowers they love, they love tomatoes, they love sunflowers they love all those kind of things, you want to provide more of that pollen because pollen is what they use to make their bee bread and that’s a lot of protein and that’s what they use to feed their larvae without that they aren’t going to have any food to feed their young their little babies, which you know we’re people too we need to eat,” said Burns.

Burns loves sharing her passion with the community.

“The whole biggest thing is education and I want to try and teach people about where it comes from, why and how to keep bees alive, and if they are interested in doing it to0 because I loved it until I got the chance to start doing it so what if I can spark that interest in somebody else too and we need a lot more bees in this world especially here in Yuma,” said Burns. 

According to BIP, there isn’t much data on colony losses for Arizona so it’s encouraged local beekeepers to take the yearly survey in order to get a better understanding of our local honey bees in order to keep them healthy and alive.

To help increase more data for Arizona local beekeepers can take the loss and management survey from April 1st until the 30th. 

Beekeepers can also participate in the Bee Informed Patnership’s Sentinel Apiary Program for citizen-scientist beekeepers with 4 or more colonies, the deadline is April 24th.