Latest news with #ProjectApis
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The Trump Administration Is Tempting a Honeybee Disaster
It was early January when Blake Shook realized the bees were in trouble. Shook, the CEO of a beekeeping outfit called Desert Creek, was coordinating California's annual almond pollination, the largest such event in the world. The affair requires shipping nearly 2 million honeybee colonies from all across the country to California orchards. But this year, Shook's contacts were coming up short. Their bees were all dead. From June 2024 to February 2025, the United States suffered its worst commercial honeybee crash on record. An estimated 62 percent of commercial colonies perished, according to a survey by the nonprofit Project Apis m. As Shook and other beekeepers were struggling to fill their contracts, they notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which promptly collected samples of pollen, wax, honey, and dead bees from both live and lost colonies to analyze at its five bee-research laboratories around the country. The USDA has long been the country's frontline response to honeybee die-offs, using its labs to characterize threats to the insects. But this year, before the researchers could uncover what exactly had killed the bees, the Trump administration's sweeping federal funding cuts scrambled the operation. Now scientists, farmers, and beekeepers alike are racing to recover and prevent the next massive die-off before it's too late. Honeybee colonies in the U.S. have occupied a precarious position for nearly two decades. Since official recordkeeping started in 2007, approximately 40 percent of honeybee colonies kept by both commercial and hobbyist beekeepers have died off each winter. Keepers have still managed to keep the total U.S. honeybee population relatively stable by breeding new queens, and by relying on the USDA to quickly identify what caused any given die-off so they can prevent it from happening the next year. Quickly is the operative word. Identifying which killer—or, more likely, combination of killers—is responsible for a colony's death is crucial for beekeepers as they restock and adjust for new threats. They need to know whether they should provide their bees with supplemental food, or treat their gear with chemicals to kill specific parasites, viruses, or bacteria. 'Until they have results from the samples that were taken, they don't know if it's safe to rebuild with that equipment,' Danielle Downey, the executive director of Project Apis m., told me. [Read: The last thing bees need right now] After a major winter die-off, the USDA usually returns its verdict by late March or early April, Downey said. But several beekeepers and the American Beekeeping Federation told me they are still waiting on this year's report. 'It's a little frightening,' Russell Heitkam, a commercial beekeeper in Northern California, told me. In addition to delivering its report on a given year's die-off, the agency offers financial aid for beekeepers to offset the costs of replacing their stock during years with particularly high losses. But Heitkam and Shook both told me that after they applied for the funds this year, they received a notice from the USDA's Farm Service Agency that said they should expect to be paid less than usual. If beekeepers don't have answers—or money—before summer begins, they will have missed their window to rebuild. The Department of Agriculture seems hard-pressed to return answers in time. In February, the agency approached Cornell University and asked its bee experts to take on pesticide testing 'due to government staffing cuts and the high expense involved with testing samples for pesticides,' according to a university press release. The university was able to take on the job because it already had the necessary equipment, and because of a $60,000 donation from an anonymous donor. Scott McArt, the program director of Cornell's Dyce Lab for Honey Bee Studies, told me that he and his team are close to wrapping up their analysis, but they will need to run their results by the USDA before they can be shared. (A university spokesperson declined to comment further on how the partnership was worked out.) Because of widespread government cuts, it's unclear to what extent the USDA is equipped to test for any other potential killers. An agency spokesperson told me, 'USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists are working closely with federal partners, stakeholders, and impacted parties to identify the source of this agricultural challenge,' but did not answer my questions about what, exactly, that work comprises. In February, The New York Times reported that roughly 800 employees had been fired from the Agricultural Research Service, the branch in charge of the agency's honeybee labs (among other services). Before that round of layoffs, each bee lab employed 10 to 20 researchers, each with their own highly specialized skill set. About a dozen of them were fired in February, according to a USDA bee-lab researcher who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job; some were rehired temporarily, then placed on administrative leave. The exact scope of the layoffs remains unclear—as of this week, none of the five labs has any listings under their websites' staff pages—and any loss of staff could prove debilitating as the deadline for beekeepers to rebuild approaches. John Ternest, an expert in bee pollination, told me he was abruptly let go in mid-February, just as he was helping select which tests for environmental contaminants to run on dead colonies at the USDA's Stoneville, Mississippi, bee-research unit. [Read: The NIH's most reckless cuts yet] Without fully funded and staffed USDA labs, experts fear that beekeepers won't know why their colonies are dying the next time disaster strikes. Beekeepers are relieved that Cornell has stepped in this year, but asking outside labs to pick up the agency's slack 'isn't sustainable in the long run,' Katie Lee, a honeybee researcher at the University of Minnesota, told me. For one thing, Cornell is one of a small handful of institutions in the country that have the equipment to test dead colonies for pesticides. Plus, the USDA has years' worth of data and well-established partnerships with beekeepers, universities, and nonprofits; nongovernmental agencies would have a hard time coordinating, communicating, and responding at the same scale. And aside from Cornell's anonymous benefactor, deep-pocketed donors have not exactly been coming out of the woodwork to fund entomology research. The Department of Agriculture still has a few precious weeks to finish its research and distribute funds before many American beekeepers will be in real trouble. At the very least, the Trump administration is making beekeepers' jobs more complicated at a precarious moment. One chaotic year will likely not spell the end of American beekeeping, but if the upheaval continues, it will bring real risks. More than 90 commercial crops in the U.S. are pollinated by bees, including staples such as apples and squash. Even a modest reduction in crop yields, courtesy of honeybees dying off or beekeepers quitting the business, would force the U.S. to import more produce—which, with tariffs looming, is unlikely to come cheap. The responsibility to keep food production stable through the ongoing bee crisis is putting immense stress on commercial beekeepers, most of whom operate relatively small family businesses. Every year for the past two decades, they have had to rebuild from some level of mass bee death. Carrying on is beginning to feel Sisyphean. 'We're seeing a lot of commercial beekeepers quitting the field,' Nathalie Steinhauer, an entomologist at Oregon State University, told me. Shook said that many of the beekeepers he works with now face bankruptcy. Still, a number of them plan to hold out for one more year, in hopes that this winter was a fluke, that federal funding will stabilize, that researchers will somehow figure out what killed their bees so it doesn't bring the American food system down too. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
20-05-2025
- General
- Atlantic
The Trump Administration Is Tempting a Honeybee Disaster
It was early January when Blake Shook realized the bees were in trouble. Shook, the CEO of a beekeeping outfit called Desert Creek, was coordinating California's annual almond pollination, the largest such event in the world. The affair requires shipping nearly 2 million honeybee colonies from all across the country to California orchards. But this year, Shook's contacts were coming up short. Their bees were all dead. From June 2024 to February 2025, the United States suffered its worst commercial honeybee crash on record. An estimated 62 percent of commercial colonies perished, according to a survey by the nonprofit Project Apis m. As Shook and other beekeepers were struggling to fill their contracts, they notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which promptly collected samples of pollen, wax, honey, and dead bees from both live and lost colonies to analyze at its five bee-research laboratories around the country. The USDA has long been the country's frontline response to honeybee die-offs, using its labs to characterize threats to the insects. But this year, before the researchers could uncover what exactly had killed the bees, the Trump administration's sweeping federal funding cuts scrambled the operation. Now scientists, farmers, and beekeepers alike are racing to recover and prevent the next massive die-off before it's too late. Honeybee colonies in the U.S. have occupied a precarious position for nearly two decades. Since official recordkeeping started in 2007, approximately 40 percent of honeybee colonies kept by both commercial and hobbyist beekeepers have died off each winter. Keepers have still managed to keep the total U.S. honeybee population relatively stable by breeding new queens, and by relying on the USDA to quickly identify what caused any given die-off so they can prevent it from happening the next year. Quickly is the operative word. Identifying which killer—or, more likely, combination of killers—is responsible for a colony's death is crucial for beekeepers as they restock and adjust for new threats. They need to know whether they should provide their bees with supplemental food, or treat their gear with chemicals to kill specific parasites, viruses, or bacteria. 'Until they have results from the samples that were taken, they don't know if it's safe to rebuild with that equipment,' Danielle Downey, the executive director of Project Apis m., told me. After a major winter die-off, the USDA usually returns its verdict by late March or early April, Downey said. But several beekeepers and the American Beekeeping Federation told me they are still waiting on this year's report. 'It's a little frightening,' Russell Heitkam, a commercial beekeeper in Northern California, told me. In addition to delivering its report on a given year's die-off, the agency offers financial aid for beekeepers to offset the costs of replacing their stock during years with particularly high losses. But Heitkam and Shook both told me that after they applied for the funds this year, they received a notice from the USDA's Farm Service Agency that said they should expect to be paid less than usual. If beekeepers don't have answers—or money—before summer begins, they will have missed their window to rebuild. The Department of Agriculture seems hard-pressed to return answers in time. In February, the agency approached Cornell University and asked its bee experts to take on pesticide testing 'due to government staffing cuts and the high expense involved with testing samples for pesticides,' according to a university press release. The university was able to take on the job because it already had the necessary equipment, and because of a $60,000 donation from an anonymous donor. Scott McArt, the program director of Cornell's Dyce Lab for Honey Bee Studies, told me that he and his team are close to wrapping up their analysis, but they will need to run their results by the USDA before they can be shared. (A university spokesperson declined to comment further on how the partnership was worked out.) Because of widespread government cuts, it's unclear to what extent the USDA is equipped to test for any other potential killers. An agency spokesperson told me, 'USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists are working closely with federal partners, stakeholders, and impacted parties to identify the source of this agricultural challenge,' but did not answer my questions about what, exactly, that work comprises. In February, The New York Times reported that roughly 800 employees had been fired from the Agricultural Research Service, the branch in charge of the agency's honeybee labs (among other services). Before that round of layoffs, each bee lab employed 10 to 20 researchers, each with their own highly specialized skill set. About a dozen of them were fired in February, according to a USDA bee-lab researcher who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job; some were rehired temporarily, then placed on administrative leave. The exact scope of the layoffs remains unclear—as of this week, none of the five labs has any listings under their websites' staff pages—and any loss of staff could prove debilitating as the deadline for beekeepers to rebuild approaches. John Ternest, an expert in bee pollination, told me he was abruptly let go in mid-February, just as he was helping select which tests for environmental contaminants to run on dead colonies at the USDA's Stoneville, Mississippi, bee-research unit. Without fully funded and staffed USDA labs, experts fear that beekeepers won't know why their colonies are dying the next time disaster strikes. Beekeepers are relieved that Cornell has stepped in this year, but asking outside labs to pick up the agency's slack 'isn't sustainable in the long run,' Katie Lee, a honeybee researcher at the University of Minnesota, told me. For one thing, Cornell is one of a small handful of institutions in the country that have the equipment to test dead colonies for pesticides. Plus, the USDA has years' worth of data and well-established partnerships with beekeepers, universities, and nonprofits; nongovernmental agencies would have a hard time coordinating, communicating, and responding at the same scale. And aside from Cornell's anonymous benefactor, deep-pocketed donors have not exactly been coming out of the woodwork to fund entomology research. The Department of Agriculture still has a few precious weeks to finish its research and distribute funds before many American beekeepers will be in real trouble. At the very least, the Trump administration is making beekeepers' jobs more complicated at a precarious moment. One chaotic year will likely not spell the end of American beekeeping, but if the upheaval continues, it will bring real risks. More than 90 commercial crops in the U.S. are pollinated by bees, including staples such as apples and squash. Even a modest reduction in crop yields, courtesy of honeybees dying off or beekeepers quitting the business, would force the U.S. to import more produce—which, with tariffs looming, is unlikely to come cheap. The responsibility to keep food production stable through the ongoing bee crisis is putting immense stress on commercial beekeepers, most of whom operate relatively small family businesses. Every year for the past two decades, they have had to rebuild from some level of mass bee death. Carrying on is beginning to feel Sisyphean. 'We're seeing a lot of commercial beekeepers quitting the field,' Nathalie Steinhauer, an entomologist at Oregon State University, told me. Shook said that many of the beekeepers he works with now face bankruptcy. Still, a number of them plan to hold out for one more year, in hopes that this winter was a fluke, that federal funding will stabilize, that researchers will somehow figure out what killed their bees so it doesn't bring the American food system down too.
The Hill
11-04-2025
- The Hill
Honey prices to surge as honeybee populations decline
(NewsNation) — As honeybee populations decline at unprecedented rates, honey prices are expected to rise. Honeybees play a critical role in agriculture. Beekeepers describe the decline as catastrophic, and some experts warn the crisis could affect both honey and produce prices well beyond the summer. California hive theft up 87% since 2013 Colonies could decline by 60 to 70% this year due to a dangerous combination of mites, pesticides, habitat loss and hive theft. In California, hive theft is up 87% since 2013, with 10,000 hives stolen — worth more than $3.5 million. Thefts are most common during almond season, when farmers pay between $185 and $300 per hive. Honeybees pollinate 35% of world's crops Prices for popular summer produce — such as almonds, apples, strawberries and avocados — are expected to increase. Honeybees pollinate roughly 35% of the world's food crops, so fewer bees mean lower yields and higher prices for fresh produce, jams, jellies and baked goods. Honeybees contribute about $17 billion annually to U.S. agriculture production, including more than $4 billion from almonds alone, according to Project Apis.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Yahoo
Honey prices to surge as honeybee populations decline
(NewsNation) — As honeybee populations decline at unprecedented rates, honey prices are expected to rise. Honeybees play a critical role in agriculture. Beekeepers describe the decline as catastrophic, and some experts warn the crisis could affect both honey and produce prices well beyond the summer. Colonies could decline by 60 to 70% this year due to a dangerous combination of mites, pesticides, habitat loss and hive theft, according to economists at Washington State University. Trader Joe's new tote bags reselling for hundreds In California, hive theft is up 87% since 2013, with 10,000 hives stolen — worth more than $3.5 million, per the California State Beekeepers Association. Thefts are most common during almond season, when farmers pay between $185 and $300 per hive. Prices for popular summer produce — such as almonds, apples, strawberries and avocados — are expected to increase. Honeybees pollinate roughly 35% of the world's food crops, according to the Department of Food and Agriculture. Fewer bees mean lower yields and higher prices for fresh produce, jams, jellies and baked goods. Honeybees contribute about $17 billion annually to U.S. agriculture production, including more than $4 billion from almonds alone, according to Project Apis. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
U.S. honeybee deaths soar, and grocery store bills could take the hit
Beekeepers across the country are sounding the alarm as honeybee populations are dwindling at an unprecedented rate, a trend that could affect Americans' wallets at the grocery store. Honeybees are the backbone of the food ecosystem, pollinating 75% of the world's natural supplies, according to the National Park Service. But a recent nationwide survey by Project Apis m., a nonprofit group that supports beekeeping science, found 'catastrophic' honeybee declines across the industry. Commercial operators reported an average loss of 62% from June to February nationwide. 'These alarming losses, which surpass historical trends, could significantly impact U.S. agriculture, particularly crop pollination for almonds, fruits, vegetables, and other essential food sources,' the survey said. Elina L. Niño, who runs the Bee Health Hub at the University of California, Davis, said researchers have not determined why so many bees have died in the past year. "There are many contributing factors that can cause a colony to die,' she said, including pathogens; varroa mites, a parasite that feeds on bees; and a lack of nutrition. 'To put it into perspective — we, the United States — we have about 2.7 million colonies. So that's a huge loss for beekeepers, huge loss for agricultural industry," Niño said. "And of course, when you combine thefts with that, it's not good news for beekeepers, either.' Bees are responsible for $17 billion in agricultural production in the United States every year, according to Project Apis m. 'So if you have a loss of pollinators that are pollinating those crops, prices of food are probably going to go up,' Niño said. Bees, the only insects that produce food for human consumption, have become a hot commodity as their numbers dwindle. In Northern California's Butte County, beehive theft revolves around almond pollination, said Sheriff's Deputy Rowdy Freeman, a member of the California Rural Crime Prevention Task Force. 'I often describe it as a perfect crime, because it's beekeepers stealing from other beekeepers,' he said. Investigators say most thefts occur at night, so beekeepers are getting creative by hiding tracking devices deep in the hives. The task force also encourages beekeepers to brand their hives so law enforcement can determine the rightful owner. 'It's kind of rare that we do recover stolen hives,' Freeman said. Bee thefts in California have increased 87% since 2013, to 10,000 stolen hives valued at over $3.5 million, according to the task force. Beekeeper Trevor Tauzer, whose 4 million bees help pollinate a 40-acre almond orchard near Sacramento, California, has had to deal with bee deaths and thefts. 'It feels violating," Tauzer said. "You work all year, you put all your money, you put all of your effort, all of your passion, into keeping the bees healthy, and then somebody picks up and disappears with them.' Niño said that beekeepers need government support to counteract the losses but that regular people can also play a role by providing access to clean bee forage. 'If you have a backyard, we have great resources at UC Davis where you can look up what plants you could plant to support the pollinators," Niño said. 'Research has shown over and over again that if the bees do have access to plentiful forage, plentiful flowers, they can deal with a lot of the other negative factors that they have to be exposed to.' This article was originally published on
