Almond Milk and Bees: What the Evidence Shows

Almond milk does not kill bees directly, but the almond orchards behind it depend on a huge seasonal hive movement, and US honey bee colonies have been dying at high rates. About 2.7 million colonies were needed for the 2024 California bloom, which was 99% of all US colonies on 1 January 2024 (University of Illinois farmdoc daily, 2025). Beekeepers then lost 55.6% of their colonies in the year to April 2025, the highest rate since annual tracking began (Apiary Inspectors of America and Auburn University).

So the claim behind “almond milk and bees” is partly right and partly too simple. This guide separates what the data show from what they do not. It covers how many hives almond orchards use, what is really driving colony losses, how almond milk compares with other milks on water and emissions, what growers do to protect bees at bloom, and a calculator for the cost of pollination on an orchard.

Almond milk and bees: the short answer

The table gives the answer to the most common questions in one place. Each row is explained in the sections below, with the source.

Are bees used to make almond milk?

No. Bees are not an ingredient and no bees are killed in the factory. Almond milk is made from almonds that are soaked, ground and strained. The link to bees comes earlier, on the farm. An almond is a seed that forms only after a flower has been pollinated, and managed honey bees do most of that work in California.

The Almond Board of California says that every almond exists because a honey bee pollinated that flower, and that research on self-compatible varieties continues. It also reports that bee activity improves nut set, yield and quality even in those varieties (Almond Board of California, updated March 2026). So the question people really ask is not about an ingredient. It is whether growing almonds at this scale harms the bees that pollinate them.

Why almond orchards need so many hives

Most almond varieties cannot fertilise themselves with their own pollen. Orchards are therefore planted with more than one variety, and bees carry pollen between them. The University of Illinois describes the California almond bloom as the largest pollination event in the world. It starts in mid-February and lasts three to four weeks.

The same article gives the scale. About 1.4 million acres of almonds needed an estimated 2.7 million colonies in 2024, based on two colonies per acre for standard varieties and one per acre for self-fertile ones. The 2025 bloom was expected to need 2.8 million, a 3.5% rise. On 1 January 2024, 37% of all US colonies were already in California. By July that share falls to about 20%, as the hives spread back across the country.

Between 2017 and 2022, the number of colonies used for almond pollination grew by 27%, or about 400,000 colonies, according to the USDA cost-of-pollination report as summarised in the same article. That growth is the real link between almond demand and bee pressure: more orchard acres mean more hives pulled into one place at one time.

Growers pay for this. Pollination fees now average over $200 per colony (farmdoc daily, 2025), and the Almond Board puts it at around $200 per hive, among a farm’s top yearly costs (Almond Board of California, 2026). For beekeepers, the bloom pays more than honey production for the rest of the year. The calculator further down lets you test what that fee means for one orchard.

What the colony loss data show

Beekeepers in the United States lost an estimated 55.6% of their managed colonies between April 2024 and April 2025. The survey is run by Auburn University and the Apiary Inspectors of America. It reports this as the highest annual loss since tracking began in 2010-2011. The 14-year average at that time was 41.4%. Winter losses from October 2024 to April 2025 reached 40.2%, against a 17-year winter average of 29.3% (Apiary Inspectors of America and Auburn University, preliminary results 2024-2025).

The next year was better. The 2025-2026 survey estimates 39.9% annual loss and 30.3% winter loss, close to the long-run averages of 42.3% and 29.9%. It is a survey of volunteer respondents and the confidence ranges are wide (30.1% to 53.1% for the annual figure), so treat the year-to-year change with care.

The survey also notes that a loss rate is a death rate, not a change in colony numbers. Beekeepers replace dead colonies by splitting healthy ones, so total colony numbers can stay level even in a high-loss year.

Loss rates in the United States, three survey years

The chart below plots both the yearly figure and the winter figure. Note that the 2024-25 winter loss (October 2024 to April 2025, a period that includes the February 2025 bloom) was the highest on record, and the Almond Board of California reports that many colonies entered that bloom already weaker than normal.

Chart

US managed colony loss, annual and winter

Estimated % of managed colonies lost, survey years 2023-24 to 2025-26

What is actually hurting bees at almond bloom

Almond milk appears in the search results because almond orchards are such a visible part of the story. The pressures on the bees are several, and they are not all about almonds. Here are five pressures that come up most. The first four affect bees directly; the fifth, water, is a separate issue.

1. Varroa mites and the viruses they carry

The strongest evidence points to disease. In a June 2025 news release (the research paper was still awaiting peer review) the USDA Agricultural Research Service reported that bees sampled from collapsed commercial colonies carried high levels of deformed wing virus and acute bee paralysis virus. The viruses are spread by Varroa mites, and the mites it screened showed signs of resistance to amitraz, a miticide beekeepers have used widely.

ARS said that over 60% of commercial colonies had been lost since the prior summer, which it put at 1.7 million colonies and an estimated $600 million in financial impact. Its research leader added that the findings do not rule out other long-known stresses. The same cause is given in the Almond Board’s own summary, which says many colonies entered the 2025 bloom weaker than normal and did not rebound.

2. Crowding and travel

Almond pollination moves colonies over long distances and puts millions of them in the same region. Close contact can help pests and disease pass between hives. We could not find a study that isolates how much of the national loss is caused by the almond trip itself, so we do not give a number. What the data show is the scale of the move: colonies from the North Central region ship 140,000 to 150,000 hives a year to California and the Mountain region ships over 500,000 (farmdoc daily, 2025, on 2017-2021 shipments).

3. Pesticides sprayed at or near bloom

Almond growers treat for fungal diseases such as blossom blight and for insect pests. University of California IPM, the state extension programme, sets out clear precautions for protecting bees. They include not tank-mixing insecticides with fungicides in flowering crops, not adding adjuvants to bloom fungicide sprays unless the label requires it, and applying a needed fungicide between sunset and midnight when bees are not active.

In California, anyone applying a pesticide must tell beekeepers within 1 mile at least 48 hours in advance (UC IPM). The Almond Board’s Honey Bee Best Management Practices, written with UC Davis, regulators and registrants, set out the same communication chain between growers, applicators and beekeepers. The sources we opened do not give a percentage of bees harmed by sprays, so this guide does not either.

4. Few other flowers, and uniform orchards

Almonds bloom early, when little else flowers. The Almond Board says this gives colonies a nutritious food source at a time when few others are available. The other side of the same fact is that a large block of one crop offers only a short window of food. The Almond Board lists nutrition and forage among its research areas, and its best-practice pages include cover crops and forage between tree rows. A 2025 study cited by the Board looked at cover cropping and colony strength; we list it for readers who want to follow the research, not as a result we tested.

5. Water and the wider footprint

Water use matters for the land the bees live in, but it is a separate issue from bee mortality. We give the numbers in the next sections, because they are often mixed into the same argument. The comparison with other milks is the part most readers want.

How almond production affects bees: what is and is not proven

The table separates the strongest evidence from the weakest.

Read the rows as a list of pressures, not as shares of a total. No source we opened splits the 2025 losses into percentages by cause.

Almond milk against other milks

People who worry about bees often also worry about water. Our World in Data uses the large Poore and Nemecek (2018) study in Science, which covered more than 38,000 commercial farms in 119 countries. It finds that almond milk uses less land and produces less greenhouse gas than soy milk, but needs more water and causes more eutrophication (nutrient pollution of waters). It also finds that dairy milk has the highest impact on almost every measure.

Chart

Water used per litre of milk

Litres of freshwater per litre of milk, global averages

The figures below are global averages per litre of milk from that dataset. Local numbers will differ. California almonds are irrigated, so water use per litre in California may differ from the global average; the dataset does not break it out by state.

Freshwater use per litre of milk

Almond milk uses about 371 litres per litre of milk in this dataset. Dairy milk uses 628 litres, rice milk 270, oat milk 48 and soy milk 28. So the often-repeated claim that almond milk is a water-heavy drink is true against oat and soy, but not against dairy.

Greenhouse gas emissions per litre of milk

For emissions, almond milk comes out lowest in the dataset at 0.70 kg of CO2-equivalent per litre, compared with 3.15 for dairy milk. The Our World in Data page makes the same point: almond milk has lower emissions and uses less land than soy.

The Almond Board of California argues that almond trees use about as much water as other California tree crops such as pistachios and walnuts, and that growers cut water used per almond by 33% between the 1990s and 2010s (Almond Board of California, Water Wise page). That is an industry source and it measures water per almond, not per litre of milk. We give it as the industry’s own view.

Chart

Greenhouse gas emissions per litre of milk

kg CO2-equivalent per litre, global averages

What almond growers and beekeepers do to protect bees

These are the practices named in the sources we opened. Pesticide use is regulated; always follow the product label and local rules, and ask your county agricultural commissioner what applies where you farm.

• Talk early. The Almond Board says each person in the chain, from grower to applicator to beekeeper, should share the right information at the right time. In California the 48-hour notice to beekeepers within 1 mile is a legal duty.
• Avoid bloom sprays when possible. UC IPM says to avoid pesticides on flowering plants, particularly insecticides and miticides, and not to let spray drift onto blooming weeds.
• Do not mix insecticides with fungicides at bloom. UC IPM advises against it where plants are flowering.
• Time any needed fungicide for the evening. Between sunset and midnight, where the label and rules allow.
• Match hive numbers to the orchard. Research presented by UC Davis found that self-compatible orchards still benefit from bees, at 0.5 to 1 hive per acre depending on local conditions. Two hives per acre stays the guide for non-compatible orchards.
• Fund mite research. The Almond Board says it is supporting both chemical and non-chemical Varroa control, and the US EPA has recently registered several new Varroa products.
• Plant forage. Cover crops between rows can give bees food outside the short bloom.

Estimate your own pollination bill

Pollination is a real line in the budget. The calculator turns the hive rate and the fee into a bill for your orchard. The values start as examples and are not a forecast, so change them to your own contract.

Try the numbers for your own farm below.

What shoppers can do

No source we opened shows that a household switching from almond milk to another drink changes colony losses. The main drivers found by USDA researchers are mites and viruses, not milk sales. What shoppers can reasonably do is choose by the measures they care about most.

• If water is your main concern, oat and soy milk use far less per litre than almond milk in the dataset above.
• If emissions are your main concern, all four plant milks in the dataset beat dairy, and almond milk is the lowest of them.
• If protein matters, Our World in Data notes that 100 ml of cow’s milk has about 3.4 g of protein, against about 0.5 g in almond milk.
• If you want to support pollinators directly, plant flowers that bloom in different seasons, avoid spraying flowers and keep part of a garden unmown. These are common extension advice; check your state extension service for local plants.

None of these steps proves a drink is good or bad for bees. They help you weigh the real trade-offs.

▶ Our video on simple sustainable farming practices, including soil cover and fewer inputs. · 4:34

Satellite monitoring of orchards: what it can and cannot show

Satellite images do not show bees. They can show how an orchard’s canopy changes through a season, whether ground cover grows between the rows, and where trees are stressed. Farm owners use this information to time irrigation or scouting, and to document practices such as cover cropping. Farmonaut Satellite + AI Farm Monitoring System offers these maps on web and mobile at sat.farmonaut.com. A satellite map shows vegetation, not the cause of a problem, so field checks and a pest adviser are still needed.

Better scouting also supports integrated pest management (IPM): spray only where a pest has been confirmed, and spray at the time that is safest for bees.

▶ Our video on how satellite NDVI maps show crop stress across a large farm. · 4:09

Where the claim “almond milk is bad for bees” goes wrong

Three common mistakes show up in online articles on this topic.

1. Treating one stat as the whole story. The 55.6% loss in 2024-25 was real, but the next year’s survey shows 39.9%, and USDA researchers tie the spike mainly to viruses and mites.
2. Blaming the drink rather than the system. Almond orchards are one crop that uses hired pollination. Apples and cherries also compete for the same hives, and the Illinois article notes that Midwest specialty crop growers compete with California almonds for pollination services.
3. Ignoring the ‘what instead’ question. Dairy milk has higher water, land and emissions numbers in the same dataset, and oat or soy milk use less water.

Frequently asked questions

Is almond milk bad for bees?

Almond milk is not bad for bees as a product, but almond growing puts heavy demands on honey bees. About 2.7 million colonies were needed for the 2024 bloom, 99% of US colonies (farmdoc daily). USDA researchers link the recent big losses to viruses spread by Varroa mites, though they say other long-known stresses still matter.

Are bees used to make almond milk?

No. Bees pollinate almond flowers on the farm. The milk is made from the nuts, which are soaked and ground. No bees go into the product.

Does almond milk production harm bees?

It can add stress. Hives are trucked to California for a few weeks, and orchards are sprayed for diseases and pests. UC IPM and the Almond Board set precautions to reduce harm, such as evening fungicide sprays and no tank mixes at bloom. The sources we opened do not give a percentage of losses caused by almond pollination alone.

Which milk is best for bees?

No dataset we found ranks milks by effect on bees. Oat and soy milk use less water than almond milk, and all plant milks have lower emissions than dairy. Which one is best depends on which impact you value most.

How many bees does an almond orchard need?

Standard orchards use about two hives per acre. Research reported by the Almond Board suggests 0.5 to 1 hive per acre for self-compatible varieties, depending on local conditions (Almond Board of California, 2026).

Where can I check colony loss numbers?

The US Beekeeping Survey is run by Auburn University and the Apiary Inspectors of America. Its results are posted each year on the Apiary Inspectors site. The numbers are survey estimates with confidence ranges, so read the ranges as well as the headline.

Conclusion

The facts on almond milk and bees are more specific than the headline. Almond orchards depend on honey bees, and the yearly move of about 2.7 million hives to California adds cost and logistics pressure for growers and beekeepers (farmdoc daily, 2025). USDA researchers linked the sharpest recent colony losses to viruses spread by mites that resist a common treatment. Almond milk uses more water per litre than oat or soy milk but less than dairy. Growers can lower risk to bees by following the label, spraying in the evening only when needed, and telling beekeepers early. This page is general information; check the product label and local rules.

Related pages on our site: almond tree water use, carbon footprint tracking, farm traceability, crop loans and insurance and fleet management.