Homestead
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Maine beekeepers reported the lowest rates of hives lost last year since the state’s apiary program began surveying them in 2016.
Honeybee hives regularly die off from a number of threats including parasitic disease-spreading mites, pesticides, starvation and unpredictable weather conditions.
But Maine data has shown that trend dropping, which an expert thinks might be due to education efforts. Along with producing local honey, honeybees pollinate about 80 percent of all flowering plants and most of the fruit and vegetable plants people rely on.
The latest survey included data from nearly 300 of the state’s 1,300-plus registered beekeepers, spanning April 2023 to April 2024. More than 2,000 hives were represented.
Of those hives, 24.3 percent were lost. That’s about a 13 percent drop from the year before. Common causes were mites and viruses, losing the hive’s queen, starvation and environmental reasons.
Surveys use a variety of methods and can’t be compared exactly, but national surveys have found higher loss rates of up to 48 percent nationally in recent years.
Overall, state apiarist Jen Lund said she was “really pleased” with Maine’s results this year. Since she started surveying eight years ago, rates have tended to go up a percentage point one year and drop down several the next, trending down overall.
Lund thinks that has a lot to do with beekeeper education about how to manage bees and fight risks such as parasitic varroa mites, which also transfer diseases.
A few dozen new beekeepers have registered most years since 2016 as well, and the licensing process involves education and mentorship.
Maine beekeepers are interested: Lund alone gives about 60 talks each year to beekeepers and community groups about the many facets of bee health and management.
Educational events are a focus of monthly meetings for the 50 members of the Penobscot County Beekeepers Association, said secretary Diane Brown, who keeps several hives in Milford with her husband. Members host speakers such as Lund, attend online webinars and visit each other’s hives to learn from each other.
The beekeeping group has become the couple’s community, introducing them to new friends and neighbors. But the ongoing education is also necessary, she said, because bees are complicated.
The Browns lost a hive for the first time in 2024, likely to varroa mites. Though losing a hive is disappointing and can set a beekeeper back several hundred dollars, it’s not an unusually concerning event.
Most buy their “nucs,” or starting hives, from the South and aren’t worried about future supply, according to Brown.
Backyard honeybees like these are quite different from Maine’s 270-plus species of native bees, though. Lund compares honeybees to livestock, with food and care provided, while native wild bees are more like wildlife.
Wild bee populations are also at risk overall, with various studies suggesting their populations are dropping across species.
But in Maine and most of New England, wild bees also have a lot going for them. Unlike states where thousands of acres are paved into cities or planted with just one crop such as corn or soybeans, bees have open land with unique plants to pollinate here, Lund said.
Native bees can pollinate native plants more efficiently, and they don’t catch the same diseases that honeybees face. Their solitary nature means mites also can’t get a foothold and affect many of them at once, like they do in hives.
Many residents are interested in providing habitat and food for them, holding off mowing their lawns in May or adding native plants to their gardens.
“It’s a really great place to be a bee,” she said.
