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chromas writes:

US beekeepers reported lower winter losses but abnormally high summer losses

Beekeepers across the United States lost 43.7% of their managed honey bee colonies from April 2019 to April 2020, according to preliminary results of the 14th annual nationwide survey conducted by the nonprofit Bee Informed Partnership (BIP). These losses mark the second highest loss rate the survey has recorded since it began in 2006 (4.7 percentage points higher than the average annual loss rate of 39.0%). The survey results highlight the cyclical nature of honey bee colony turnover. Although the high loss rate was driven by the highest summer losses ever reported by the survey, winter losses were markedly lower than in most years. As researchers learn more about what drives these cycles of loss, this year emphasizes the importance of the summer for beekeeper losses.

This past year, winter losses were reported at 22.2%, which is 15.5 percentage points lower than last year and 6.4 points lower than the survey average. However, high summer losses were reported at 32.0%, which is 12.0 percentage points higher than last year and 10.4 points higher than the survey average.

"This year, summer loss was actually the highest we've ever recorded, even higher than winter losses, which is only the second time we've seen that, and it's mostly commercial beekeepers that are driving that loss number, which is unusual," says Nathalie Steinhauer, BIP's science coordinator and a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Maryland Department of Entomology. "So that makes this year different and interesting to us, because we want to know what is driving their losses up in comparison to previous years."

Commercial beekeepers typically have lower losses than backyard and smaller operations. Commercial honey bees pollinate $15 billion worth of food crops in the United States each year, so their health is critical to food production and supply.

Survey data, Loss map, Preliminary report (abstract (pdf))

Original Submission