Review of Bee Health

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — The federal government and U.S. beekeepers now know a little more about the number of honeybee operations nationwide. The newly released, first-of-their-kind statistics, which help set a baseline, should be of more value later when new quarterly and annual numbers are available.

For now, what’s known is that the number of U.S. colonies, at operations with five or more colonies, totaled 2.59 million on Jan. 1, down 8 percent from 2.87 million a year earlier, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.