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Almonds driving honeybee movement, colony losses 2nd highest on record
Nearly ninety percent of honeybees in the United States used for pollination services travel to California each year, mostly for almond production.
Jennifer Bond says almond acreage nearly doubled in the last decade.
“A pretty significant increase in the number of bearing acres and as expected an increase in demand for pollination services,” she says.
In comparison, the next closest state for pollination services was Washington at four percent followed by Michigan and Wisconsin at 1 percent with apple and blueberries the next greatest user of pollinator services.
In their offseason, about 30 percent of honeybees overwinter in the Northern Great Plains, including in Minnesota and South Dakota, where more than 20 percent of the nation’s Conservation Reserve Program acreage is located which boasts desirable forage for pollinators.
Researchers say the declining availability of forage land is one factor increasing the cost of beekeeping while long-distance transportation for pollination services adds to colony stress and loss.
Preliminary data from the Bee Informed Partnership’s national survey of beekeepers found during 2020 more than 45 percent of managed honeybee colonies were lost, the second highest loss since the report was created 15 years ago.
Beekeepers surveyed said the Varroa destructor mite was the main cause of colony loss over the winter and commercial beekeepers said queen issues were a close second. Summer colony losses were slightly different, with queen issues the largest factor, followed by the varroa mite.
