The US Department of Agriculture will resume data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report on October 1 — the start of a new fiscal year — after suspending the survey earlier this summer over budget constraints.
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The report is an annual survey that gathers data on the number of honeybees per state by quarter, including those being lost with symptoms of colony collapse disorder, an issue that’s made honeybees a darling of environmentalists and climate activists. This past year’s survey results, with one quarter of the data missing, will be released in August 2020.
[Editor’s note: See GLP’s pollinators and pesticides section for more information.]
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It’s one of two national surveys that track honeybee loss and the only one overseen by the federal government. The other survey, run by the Bee Informed Partnership, has been tracking data longer and relies on grant funding, including from the USDA, to support its work. The USDA survey is considered more statistically accurate, since it has access to a list of all registered beekeepers ….
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