How About Some Good News?

It appears that hobbyist beekeepers are responsible for a net increase in colonies across the country.

These bees are better cared for, not trucked all over the country, and so are more resilient than their commercial counterparts, and this may prevent a shortage of pollinators:

There’s now a record number of honeybees humming in the U.S—and for many farmers, hobbyist beekeepers, and almond-milk lovers, the news is sweeter than honey.

Nearly a million bee colonies have been formed in the past five years, according to 2022 Census of Agriculture data from the USDA, boosting the total number of colonies to an all-time high of 3.8 million.

The record high has arrived after nearly 20 years of collapsing colonies, where bees died from exposure to poisonous pesticides, stress from cross-country transit to pollinate crops, invasive pests, and changes to habitat. While new colonies have formed, the threat of their collapse is still a very relevant danger.

One does wonder how anthropogenic climate change will factor into all of this.