The Biggest Bee Loss in U.S. History: Why Are Hundreds of Millions of Bees Dying?

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

The U.S. beekeeping industry is facing a crisis due to the shocking and unexplained deaths of hundreds of millions of bees over the past eight months.

Blake Schock, one of the nation’s leading beekeepers, found thousands of dead bees in his hives, saying he had never seen such losses before.

“The data shows that this is the worst loss of bees in recorded history,” he told CBS Saturday Morning.

Researchers are still trying to understand the causes of this mass die-off. Juliana Rangel, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, studies beehives in her lab. She cites several possible explanations, including changes in habitat and weather patterns, but says there is still no definitive answer.

Bees play a crucial role in food production in the United States. In addition to honey production, they pollinate 75% of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the US, representing a value of $15 billion. Shock warns that current losses are unsustainable.

"If this continues for many years, it will change the way we consume food in the United States," Schock said.

"If we lose 80% of our bees every year, the industry will not survive, meaning we will not be able to pollinate at the rate needed to produce food in the United States." One example is almonds. With the help of bees to pollinate them, almond trees produce two to three thousand pounds of almonds per acre. Without that pollination, almond trees produce only 200 pounds of almonds per acre. "Without bees, there is no almond crop," Shook says. One of Shook's jobs focuses on rebuilding dead hives. He is currently receiving an alarming number of such hives from commercial operations across the country. Beekeeping groups warn that 25% of those commercial operations could be closed by the end of the year due to these losses. "A friend called me who had 20,000 hives at the beginning of the winter and now he has less than 1,000. He said, 'That's it, I'm done.'" "I've had too many calls like that in the last few weeks," says Shock.

"This is not just a beekeeper's problem. This is a national food security issue."