Beekeepers and honey producers are disputing a federal honeybee census estimate of 3.8 million colonies in the United States in 2022 – a record number for the nationwide count. That estimate showed a 35 percent increase from the estimate of 2.8 million colonies in 2017.
Since the numbers came out, headlines at publications large and small have proclaimed the colony collapse problem solved, reporting that U.S. bee farms are “buzzing” and that bees are “flourishing again.”
To beekeeping advocates, inflated numbers of bee colonies – a prominent statistic on bee health – can undermine efforts to get funding to improve colony health. To conservationists, high-profile reports of record numbers of bee colonies in the face of a well-documented trend of insect extinctions complicate the job of maintaining public awareness about food security and the effects of pesticides.
On the other side, executives for agrochemical companies tout data points that seem to assure the public that the bees are fine. In the last decade, companies that manufacture neonicotinoid pesticides have mounted public relations campaigns in the wake of extensive scientific research that showed that their products harm bees.
Beekeeping advocates question the tally from the 2022 bee colony census because it differs from their own totals of bee colonies. Also, they suspect bias in the estimate because of the high nonresponse rate to the five-year agricultural census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture – a rate that has increased substantially since the last census in 2017.
“That 3.8 million hive number was just way off,” said Chris Hiatt, president of the American Honey Producers Association.. “Every year, for like the last 20 years, we’ve been [at] 2.5, 2.6 million hives. . . . There’s been hardly any margin of error on that 2.5 million.”
Based upon the margin of error for the bee colony survey, the actual number of colonies in the census may fall within a range of 3.4 million to 4.1 million at a 95 percent confidence level, according to statistical information provided by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
Jerry Hayes, associate publisher and senior editor of Bee Culture magazine, questions the USDA’s hands-off approach to the survey.
“I don’t think those in the federal government who are doing the survey are actually interacting with the industry,” Hayes said. “They’re getting their data from someplace else. . . . You have to have people out there who are talking to beekeepers.”
To adjust for nonresponses, department statisticians expand the data they receive to account for operations that the survey missed, or for operations whose managers did not respond.
Responses to the survey are weighted. For example, in a weighted system, a response from a beekeeping business in Ohio with 10 colonies may, in the final tally, represent several similar-sized operations nearby whose managers did not respond.
The weighting process can introduce bias into the final estimate. In a prepared statement, officials for the NASS wrote that “we strive to use nonresponse adjustment methods that do not introduce bias, and we periodically conduct studies to assess if nonresponse bias is present.”
The statement also noted that “NASS response rates remain strong though, some of the highest amongst organizations and other entities that conduct survey work, and NASS is still providing the most comprehensive and impartial ag data in the industry.”
For the five-year census of agriculture, the USDA surveys farm owners and managers by postal mail, online questionnaires and telephone. The agency mailed out 3 million packets in December 2022, then followed up at least four times with reminder notes and packets.
The agency reported that for the agricultural census overall, the response rate from farm owners and managers was 61 percent. Five years before, in 2017, the response rate to the agricultural survey was 71 percent. For the five-year census, the USDA does not publish specific response rates for farms with bee colonies.
Further complicating the issue, the USDA releases two distinct numbers for bee colonies.
An annual survey of honey producers has consistently reported about 2.9 million honey-producing colonies in the United States. Respondents who report fewer than five colonies are excluded from those results. In that survey, the response rate from honey producers is 55.5 percent.
The five-year survey, which produced the estimate of 3.8 million colonies, drew on responses from farm producers. All operations with known colonies are reported in the results of that survey. It counts all plots of land, both rural and urban, if $1,000 worth of products were raised and sold there, or could have been sold there, during the survey year.
The USDA did not release the number of operators with bee colonies that responded to the survey, but in a statement noted that, based on the reported data, there were nearly 74,000 farms with bee colonies in the United States in 2022.
In a statement, USDA officials said that “the underlying methodological differences between the Census of Agriculture and annual estimating program, including the population definition and statistical adjustments applied to the reported data, leads to differing measures of colony counts.”
For Hiatt of the American Honey Producers Association, an imprecise count “hurts our argument on Capitol Hill for more money on honeybee research.”
Companies that manufacture neonicotinoid insecticides, which are identified by extensive research as a factor in declining bee health, also watch these numbers.
In March 2015, an agrochemical company executive applauded the increases in the USDA colony counts in her newsletter, according to documents acquired by U.S. Right to Know under the Florida Sunshine Law.
In the newsletter, which goes to government officials and others, Beth Roden, now senior vice president and head of communications for Bayer U.S., wrote:
“And the buzz for bees continues to be positive. Last week some independent research helped set the record straight on honey bee health and the minimal effect neonicotinoid insecticides have, and this week the USDA released its Honey Report, which stated that honey production in the U.S. increased 19 percent in 2014 and that honeybee colonies increased by 100,000 or 4 percent.”
That point of view troubles Hiatt, who said that beekeepers are struggling with annual colony losses near 50 percent.
“I mean, we’re struggling to stay in business with low honey prices and habitat loss and pesticide pressure,” Hiatt said.
Beekeepers are concerned with national food security, he said, and the headlines don’t ring true.
“They’re like, see, the bees are fine,” he said.
