Last winter, commercial beekeepers lost more than 60% of their colonies—the worst losses on record.
We often blame separate threats like pests, pesticides, habitat loss, or extreme weather. But the real culprit is our industrial food system.
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Managed honeybees are essentially gig workers, the tiniest hired laborers in agriculture.
They contribute over $15bn to the US food system and help pollinate more than 130 fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Each year, bees are trucked cross-country, fed supplements, bred for productivity, exposed to pesticides, and pushed to pollinate on a schedule.
The Almond Pollination Super Bowl
California's annual almond bloom is a prime example.
Each February, beekeepers truck more than 2 million bee colonies—over 95% of the country's commercial colonies—to pollinate 1.4 million acres of almonds.
It's the largest pollination event in the world, but it poses great risks.
As bees fly through orchards, they spread parasitic varroa mites and deadly diseases. They are also exposed to agrochemicals.
Almond growers sometimes spray fungicides during bloom, but current pesticide label regulations may not label sublethal agrochemicals as bee toxic, even though they can stunt bee growth, reproduction, and foraging navigation.
The timing adds pressure. Colonies aren't usually at peak strength in February, but growers want active hives.
Beekeepers feed expensive supplements and breed productive queens that are more susceptible to mites.
Loss of Forage and Research Cuts
Beekeepers rely on income from pollination partly because cheap, foreign honey has driven prices below production costs. They are also losing floral oases.
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Each summer, beekeepers truck over 40% of colonies to the Northern Great Plains to forage on grasslands.
But since the early 2000s, farmers have plowed millions of acres to grow biofuel crops like corn and soy, reducing forage and exposing bees to agrochemicals.
The Trump administration is adding to the crisis by gutting bee research.
In April, the USDA announced it would decommission the Beltsville Bee Research Lab in Maryland, one of only five USDA bee labs.
For over 90 years, it supported beekeepers with free disease detection and research. Now beekeepers lose that ally.
The closure comes on top of planned closures of 57 of 77 US Forest Service research sites and 16 USGS research centers, including one in North Dakota that studied land use impacts on bee health.
As losses mount, beekeepers may charge farmers more or have fewer bees.
These costs could ripple downstream, leading to smaller harvests, more expensive fruits and vegetables, and less diversity in the produce aisle.
We've arrived at a crucial moment. Bee declines destabilize our food system.
The problem is a nexus of stressors built by the agriculture system that depends on them.
To support bees, we need to restore funding for pollinator research, maintain conservation lands, and require pesticide labels to capture sublethal toxicities.
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Bees and beekeepers have done their part. It's time our food system did too.
