The National Agricultural Statistics Service of the United States Department of Agriculture has released its honey report for 2014 and found it's boom times for bees.
Hives increased again, another 4 percent, up to a whopping 2.74 million colonies, and honey production is up 19 percent. Yield per colony averaged 65.1 pounds, which is up 15 percent.
If there is a Beepocalypse, the bees have not gotten the memo.
The statistics include producers with five or more colonies and since amateur beekeeping is now a big fad the USDA thinks they are probably undercounting hives. Who leads the U.S.? North Dakota, with far more colonies than either Florida or California. It's a $67 million dollar business for them.
Bee hive production and counts are important because of concern there may have been a 'colony collapse' more recently like there was in the mid-1990s. While no one is sure what caused the drop in the mid-1990s, broad spectrum organophosphate pesticides were blamed and so scientists created neonicotinoids, which act on specific receptors in the nerve synapses of some insects, as a safer alternative. In 2006, there was a small decline and it led to concerns that these newer products might be the cause, but since then the numbers have continued to rise considerably.
