More work needed to help bees in Pennsylvania, experts say (2024)

Things are looking brighter in the bee business.

But maintaining healthy and productive hives keeps people like Drew Johnson as busy as a you-know-what.

Environmental challenges, including climate change, a lack of native plants and dwindling foraging and shelter, have made the world less bee-friendly.

Recent years have seen increased calls and campaigns to “save the bees” and increased awareness.

The number of bee colonies in the United States has grown in recent years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2022 census showed that close to a million bee colonies were added between 2017 and 2022, to more than 3.8 million. Nearly 33 million more pounds of honey were collected in 2022 compared with 2017.

There’s still much more work to be done, local keepers say.

At hives managed by Johnson, a regional manager for national company Best Bees, which takes care of bee colonies on residential and commercial properties, the work is more challenging than ever.

“Beekeeping has never been harder. It’s a lot more work than I think people think,” Johnson said. “Twenty years or more ago, beekeeping really was, you keep some bees in your backyard and harvest honey from them once a year. If you kept that logic today, your bees might make it a year, tops.”

From his Country Barn Farm in O’Hara, Joe Zgurzynski sells honey to about 15 Giant Eagle stores and about a half-dozen other stores in Allegheny County. He also teaches beekeeping classes, makes candles and ships queen bees out to those trying to start their own hives.

He’s been in the business 50 years, and when it comes to raising awareness about threats to bees, Zgurzynski is not satisfied with settling.

“It’s one of those things that never goes away. We’re always going to need honeybees, as long as we need food to eat,” he said. “Do I think we’re doing enough to help the honeybees? Definitely not. More can always be done. But there’s definitely more awareness now about the importance of honeybees and maintaining a healthy habitat for honeybees than any other time in my life.”

A bee rebound?

The USDA’s annual honeybee colony survey showed that beekeeping operations with five or more colonies lost 14% of their colonies between January and March of last year.

Pennsylvania’s average losses were a little bit higher last year at 17%. The next annual survey, covering this year’s numbers, will be released in August.

Pennsylvania suffered higher losses about a decade ago. About 31% of colonies were lost between January and March 2015, according to the data.

Zgurzynski’s bees are doing better than average. He said his loss rate was 4% for the winter of 2022-23 and 5% this past winter.

“Going back 100 years, winter losses were around 10% — that’s what beekeepers have had to contend with since beekeeping became a thing,” he said. “When losses start approaching 40%, 50%, it becomes unsustainable.”

Ten years ago, Zgurzynski said, his losses hovered around 17%. More intensive beekeeping management has helped him get his numbers up, he said.

Barriers to bees

Colony collapse disorder — described by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a phenomenon where the majority of worker bees in a colony depart the hive, leaving behind their queen, food and a few nurse bees — was once feared as one of the biggest threats to honeybee hives. The EPA said reported cases of the phenomenon have declined substantially over the past five years.

Now, Johnson said, more is understood about what can cause the phenomenon. Pesticides brought into the hive can weaken the bees, causing a collapse, he said.

“If bees are foraging something that they should not be bringing into the hive, like a chemical of some sort, that can cause the colony to become weakened, fall apart and die,” he said.

Honeybees also sometimes abandon a hive if they don’t have enough food — something that happens more often as climate change shrinks the blooming season in spring, when bees collect most of their food. Pests and parasites, like the Varroa mite, can also latch on to bees and spread disease and weakness.

Beekeepers have had to fight mites, regularly checking their hives for invaders, Zgurzynski said.

“It’s just a real devastating parasite of honeybees, that not only weakens the bees but also transmits diseases,” he said. “Between raising my own queens and really staying on the mites, going through each hive and getting them really ready for winter, that’s really cut my losses.”

Labor intensive

Threats to the hive make work for beekeepers, which is why the hobby is more labor intensive than ever before, Johnson said.

“Before, someone might never open their bee box more than a few times a year. These days, on average, it’s every two weeks. In the warmer months, you might check more frequently, and in the cold months, you might check once a month,” he said. “The nectar season is so much more limited than it was before, (so) beekeepers spend a lot more time feeding the bees a sugar-water solution, so they have enough food to get through the year.”

At the Penn State Extension, apiculture educator Robyn Underwood has seen promising progress for honeybees. Apiculture is another word for beekeeping.

“Beekeepers are getting better at keeping their bees alive in the winter. Now, what I’m hearing more is that people have too many bees,” she said. “I think getting healthy colonies through the winter means lots of swarming in the spring, and that’s really what we saw this year.”

The Penn State Extension is expanding its online resources for beekeepers, adding a “Beekeeping 102” online course that supplements its beginner offerings.

Through the self-paced program, beekeepers can learn more about organic beekeeping that does not rely as much on chemicals and how to handle parasites. While mites present a problem, beekeepers are learning how to work around them, Underwood said.

“When beekeepers are educated in how to monitor for them and deal with them, it really helps to keep the bees healthy,” she said. “They’re not going to go away — they’re here to stay. We just have to make sure they don’t get out of control.”

Conservation tactics

Some conservation tactics can benefit both honeybees and native bees. Avoiding the use of pesticides is a boon to all pollinators, and honeybees can also pollinate native plants.

“With the spotted lanternfly outbreak, more people than usual are going toward using pesticides to try and knock down the spotted lanternfly population, but it’s most likely doing more harm than good,” Burke said. “Because what are those chemicals doing to our beneficial insect populations?”

Leaving stems and leaves to lie over the winter instead of immediately cutting them down or sweeping them up can also provide shelter space for native bees to build their nests, Underwood said. An open patch of dirt in your garden can also provide habitat for some species.

“There are some bees that nest in the stems, the overwintering stems,” she said. “I’m one of the people who leave it there for the whole winter — I don’t even take them out until I think the bees have hatched out in the spring. It’s a totally different aesthetic, but it’s better for the bees.”