For Louisiana beekeeper Josh Janway, this March has been one of the worst starts to a honey bee season he can remember.
Last year, he was operating with just under 4,000 hives. Now, a confluence of factors, including pesticide use, Varroa mites and the destruction of the habitats where the bees find food has sliced his colony numbers nearly in half.
“We’re talking about March,” Janway said. “That’s when flowers are supposed to be out, bees are supposed to be growing. And we’re just not seeing it.”
Janway and beekeepers across the U.S. have reported unusually severe losses as the 2025 season begins. From June 2024 to February 2025, commercial beekeepers saw a 62% decrease in hives on average, according to results of a survey published by Project Apis m., a nonprofit beekeeping and agricultural research organization.
Beekeeper Josh Janway uses a smoker on a bee hive before handling it at Janway Farms on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
The ramifications for consumers and the food supply are still unfolding. But considering that roughly 35% of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators, it’s likely that widespread honey bee losses will take a toll on this year’s crop yields, said Kevin Langley, president of the Capital Area Beekeepers Association in Baton Rouge.
“Bees are the canary in the coal mine,” Langley said. “They are the representation of nature in our food supply, and right now they are not healthy, and we are not healthy.”
Why are bees dying?
Beekeeping is an industry with loss built in. Janway, who runs a modest commercial operation that specializes in selling honey locally and sending bees to pollinate the almond crop in California, said he is accustomed to losing 40% of his hives each year.
But the past two years have hit beekeepers especially hard.
In 2024, the U.S. Beekeeping Survey identified a 55.1% loss among managed bee colonies nationwide, significantly higher than the prior 14-year average of 40.3%. Early findings this year suggest the situation has only worsened, with losses growing by potentially another 7%, according to the Project Apis m. report.
“As an industry and as a business model, how do you make money when you’re losing 60% every single year?” Janway said.
A bee flies by beekeeper Josh Janway as he talks about the trouble his colony is facing this year at Janway Farms on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
Beekeepers identified several possible causes for why numbers continue to fall.
One is the presence of Varroa mites, destructive external parasites that can inject honeybees with viruses and reactivate dormant viral infections.
Other potential reasons are the lack of places to find food brought on by habitat loss, as well as the damaging effects of pesticides on bees. The impact of pesticides on bee health is complex and not always lethal, but studies have found even sublethal doses impair bees’ immune system, learning and memory and longevity.
There likely isn’t a single culprit for the honey bee losses this year, said beekeeper Wes Card. It is likely different factors interacting and exacerbating each other.
“I think there were several issues that came into play, caused a perfect-storm type event that has led to substantial colony losses across the total domestic population of bees,” Card said. “It’s a pretty serious concern.”
Beekeeper Josh Janway points out the low volume of bees in a what he calls a collapsed colony and notes how many of his hives have this few bees this year at Janway Farms on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
As beekeepers around the U.S. struggle to recover, Louisiana and other Gulf states will be crucial to maintaining the industry, said Card, who generates a third of his revenue selling replacement colonies. Warmer temperatures and longer foraging seasons make southeastern states ideal for raising bees.
“Louisiana is critical as essentially a nursery, supplying the industry the replacement colonies,” Card said.
Accounting for losses
Though the season is off to a rocky start, local beekeepers said they will adjust as best they can. Compensating for weak numbers involves “splitting” hives, or dividing existing colonies in two.
The perpetual dilemma with splitting is ensuring the bees have sufficient time to rebound and make enough honey for a strong yield.
“You’re going to give and take somewhere, right?” Janway said. “You’re either going to give and take on your honey and numbers or vice versa.”
The queen bee of the hive is marked with a white dot, middle right, made by a paint pen to easily be able to spot it at Janway Farms on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
Joe Sanroma, who has been working in the industry since he was 14 years old, agreed that the beginning of spring this year was one of the worst he’s experienced.
He feels hopeful that his operation will rebound. Still, he said, his output will be less than past seasons.
“Beekeepers are very resilient,” Sanroma said. “When we get knocked down, we generally know how to get back up. Just hopefully we don’t get knocked down too many times.”
