Why Honey Bee Worries Are Worse

Lasting from October to March, almond pollinating season in California just ended. After, a beekeeper might follow several of the routes described below:

Plant Pollinators’ Routes

This year though, shrinking pollination populations have made honey bee worries worse.

Honeybee Worries

Thinking of a honey bee colony, we can imagine a single queen and 25,000 to 40,000 worker bees. However, during 2006 in Florida, beekeepers mysteriously lost as much as two-thirds of their honeybee colonies. Starting a new chapter in honey bee history, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) had begun.

While colonies always had a mortality rate that was close to 14%, CCD upped it to 30%. Since then, we’ve had good and bad years. However, between 2020 and 2025, the industry contracted by 2.9%. With 70% of the U.S. honeybee population threatened, honey bee worries got worse when 2.8 million colonies collapsed in 2024.

Described by a beekeeper, “They’re perfectly fine. They all look healthy as can be. You’ll come back in two weeks, and all there’s gonna be there is a queen.”

When hives disappear, beekeepers have three replacement strategies:

• They might divide a healthy hive.
• They could purchase packaged bees.
• They could replace the queen.

Below you can see mind-boggling numbers of honey bees doing their job:

Our Bottom Line: Honey Bee Markets

Looking at past pollinator-related markets, researchers suggest that CCD has had an impact:

With almonds though, the pop was substantial:

And now, reflecting the supply side shortages from CCD, the price of a queen doubled from $15 to $30. When a beekeeper tried to locate 2,000, they came up with 200.

As economists, we can ask if the supply side incentive of a higher price will help to solve the CCD problem.

My sources and more: Thanks to the NY Times for the colony collapse update. From there we returned to this paper and Scientific American,.