03/18/2025
The Pollinator Stewardship Council urgently brings to your attention an unprecedented crisis affecting the nation's honeybees. Recent hive inspections done by commercial beekeepers in the US reveal that a massive bee die-off event of historic levels is occurring, threatening critical pollination services essential to more than 130 fruits and vegetables and posing a substantial risk to U.S. food security. PSC President Steve Ellis states: "Large honey bee die offs have always seemed mysterious, even to many beekeepers. Honey bee poisoning is challenging to diagnose. The PSC is working with Industry leaders to address the root causes of this catastrophe."
The following excerpt is from a joint appeal written by the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) and the American Honey Producers Association (AHPA) addressed to the Secretary of Agriculture:
"As commercial beekeepers in the USA began to inspect their bees over the past 3 weeks, they began to discover unprecedented colony losses. These losses are severe, geographically broad, and may impact food security through inadequate pollination services. Colony losses from 2006-2024 have averaged 40-50% each year. This is an unsustainable loss rate. However, early surveys results show bee death rates over the last 12 months may be as high as 70-80%. This would be a historic loss of honeybee colonies and would be critical if we hope to ensure the pollination of the more than 130 fruits and vegetables that rely on honeybees.
Industry leadership has worked together with the USDA to quickly create a survey to begin to discover how widespread the loss is and where. USDA researchers, university scientists and beekeepers have worked together over the past weeks to take samples from the tens of thousands of dead colonies. The latest survey results show bee losses well over 50% for the winter months alone. This is 30-40% higher than normal winter loss. Once you include the bee loses for the rest of the year the number of bees lost is industry threatening and may have a serious effect on American agriculture. Beekeepers will be pushed beyond the level of recovery if we experience annual losses of 70-80%. Combined with losses during other times of year, this additional loss puts many beekeepers at a loss rate of 70%-100% over the past 12 months."
