In my the last story I publish I try to correct the misinformation that I was seeing going around the internet. That misinformation was that honeybees were put on the endangered species list. I noted that this was not accurate because it was not bees in general or honeybees that were put on the list, but that several species of yellow faced Hawaiian bees were put on the list.
This, to my surprise, sparked a bit of controversy in the comment section. Many people were offended that I would suggest that the honeybees were not endangered. Some thought that I was saying that CCD was a myth. Some did not like the Washington Post article that I linked to that proclaimed that the “Bee-pocalypse” was over.
This was of course very frustrating because my story was not about CCD or the decline in honeybees. I only wanted to note that the yellow faced Hawaiian bees were the ones that were put on the endangered species list.
Given this response I have decided to share this story about the current state of Honeybees.
I think many of you will be glad to hear that honeybee populations have improved since CCD was first reported in 2006. According to data from the USDA, Honeybee populations have risen from about 2.5 million in 2006 to 2.7 million in 2016. As you can see from the chart below that is a 20 year high. In fact there has very dramatic decline of the number of CCD reported in recent years.
Beekeepers are mainly responsible for this increase in population.
Beekeepers have devised two methods for recouping their losses after seasonal die-offs. The first method involves splitting one healthy colony into two separate colonies. This is done by putting half the bees into a new beehive with a new queen. The other method involves simply buying a bunch of bees to replace the ones you lost.
Beekeepers were doing this before CCD came along. So when it did all they had to do was work harder to keep production up. Unfortunately this means that honey prices have practically doubled and so have pollination rates.
Now this isn’t to say that everything is fine. Beekeepers are reporting on average a 28.7% loss in colonies over the winter. That is more than double the typical amount of 14% that was reported before CCD. Resources should be used to help beekeepers reduce these high losses. Still, given the resourcefulness of the industry I’m not worried about any type of “Beepocalypse " occurring anytime soon.