USDA Reports Encouraging Honeybee Numbers

The USDA released its report on honeybee colonies earlier this week, and the number were encouraging when it comes to the total number of colonies as well as colony losses.

"The January one honeybee colonies is up 2%."

That's compared to January 1st of 2020 at just over 2.9 million. NASS' Travis Averill said when it comes to colony losses, "In 2021 for January to March, that percentage is 13% compared to 14% in 2020. And the April to June 2021 that was 9% compared to 10% in 2020 for those same quarters."

So some improvement. And the USDA report says from January through March this year the number of colonies lost with colony collapse disorder symptoms was almost 77,000. That's 27% lower than the same quarter last year.

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