PULLMAN, WA – Commercial honey bee colony losses in the U.S. could reach 60 to 70% in 2025, according to entomologists at Washington State University. Over the past decade, annual losses have typically ranged between 40 and 50%.
While it’s too early in the season to know exactly why colony losses are higher this year, Priya Chakrabarti Basu, an assistant professor of pollinator health and apiculture at WSU, suspects a combination of stressors including nutrition deficiencies, mite infestations, viral diseases, and possible pesticide exposure during the previous pollinating season.
“Losses have been increasing steadily,” she said. “Pollination demands haven’t gone down, so beekeepers face tremendous pressure to keep the same number of colonies to meet those needs.”
Basu joined WSU this winter after working at other institutions around the country. She hopes to partner with beekeepers on developing more sustainable practices to help reduce losses and create databases to better understand how bee nutrition works.
She is one of several WSU scientists who are leading or collaborating in programs that help improve the standing of honey bees across the country, both through applied science and new research that may help beekeepers.
For example, Brandon Hopkins, WSU’s P.F. Thurber Endowed Distinguished Professor of Pollinator Ecology, is involved with varroa mite control, commercial management practices, and new research on bee nutrition that he hopes will help beekeepers have better access to healthy food for their colonies.
He explains that varroa destructor mites feed on pupae in the hive, often killing them and reducing the numbers of future generations. The mites also transmit viral diseases and feed on adult honey bees, weakening them and increasing their susceptibility to diseases.
One upside is that beekeepers likely aren’t surprised by the losses.
“I’ve heard since last August that this was going to be a terrible year,” Hopkins said. “That seems to have come true.”
Fruit growers may be directly impacted, he said. California almonds are the biggest crop for honey bee pollination, which happens in February and March. Almonds are the seeds of almond trees and not nuts.
“The almond industry frequently asks for strong colonies,” Hopkins said. “But this year, growers are desperate. Anything with live bees in a box is in demand because the industry is short on supply. I haven’t heard of that since the early days of colony collapse around 2008.”
Finding methods to sustainably keep bees alive will be key, Basu said. About 35% of the world’s food depends on pollinators, according to the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
“If we see increasing colony losses, we could see a drop-off in honey production and an increase in the rent growers pay beekeepers to bring pollinators in,” Basu said. “We may just see some beekeepers cease operations completely because it’s too expensive to continue as a business.”
Honey bees had a production value of nearly $350 million in 2023, according to the USDA. Fewer bees mean higher costs for farmers who depend on them and increased hassle in making sure growers have bees when they’re needed.
“I don’t want to be a fearmonger, but this level of national loss could mean increased bankruptcies amongst beekeepers,” Hopkins said. “Growers of crops downstream from almonds may need to scramble if the beekeeper they’ve relied on to pollinate their apple trees, for example, isn’t in business anymore.”
The WSU Bee Program works with beekeepers, stakeholders, industry partners, and collaborating researchers to better understand the impact of stressors on bees and help mitigate them. The bee team invites beekeepers and anyone concerned with pollinator health to learn more, participate in citizen science research, and help support the program.
