Reviewed August 2026 against USDA NASS, USDA Economic Research Service, and the Apiary Inspectors of America.

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Almond Bees Dying: The Short Answer

Yes — almond bees are dying at a scale that has alarmed beekeepers and growers alike. Commercial beekeepers reported colony losses of roughly 60% in almond-growing regions in January 2025, according to a survey run by the USDA Bee Research Laboratory and the Apiary Inspectors of America (Apiary Inspectors of America, 2024-25 survey). That is roughly double the 33% average annual loss rate US beekeepers have recorded across 2006-2024. The Honey Bee Health Coalition put the resulting financial damage at more than $139 million in 2025 alone (Honey Bee Health Coalition, January 2025 data).

This matters because almond pollination is the single largest managed pollination event in US agriculture. Roughly 1.8 million honey bee colonies — about 60% of all managed colonies in the country — are trucked into California’s Central Valley each February to pollinate almond bloom (USDA Economic Research Service). When a large share of those colonies die or arrive too weak to forage, the effects ripple through almond yield, beekeeper income, and the price of pollination services for the following season. Below is the current data, what is driving the losses, and how growers and beekeepers are adapting.

Why Almond Pollination Needs So Many Bees

Almond trees cannot self-pollinate. Commercial orchards are planted with multiple cultivars specifically because almond flowers need cross-pollination from a genetically different variety to set a nut, and honey bees (Apis mellifera) are effectively the only pollinator that can be deployed at the scale California’s orchards require. USDA NASS’s initial 2026 almond forecast put California’s bearing acreage at 1.39 million acres, with production forecast at 2.7 billion pounds on a shelled basis and an average yield of 1,940 pounds per acre (USDA NASS / Almond Board of California, April 2026). That acreage is why an estimated 1.8 million colonies — the large majority of every commercial hive in the country — get loaded onto flatbed trucks and driven into the Central Valley for a bloom window that typically runs from mid-February into early March.

The scientific case for bees is not a matter of tradition. A pollination study published in Scientific Reports found that almond fruit set increased by 60% when flowers were bee-pollinated compared with unpollinated controls (Scientific Reports, via NCBI). Without adequate colony strength and timing, growers see fewer nuts per tree regardless of how well the orchard is otherwise managed. This is also the reason searches like “bees pollinating almond trees” and “almond bee pollination” keep surfacing: growers, agronomy students, and beekeepers all want to understand a dependency that determines whether a season’s crop sets at all.

This single-species dependency is also the industry’s structural weak point. When 60% of the nation’s managed colonies converge on one region for a few weeks, a disease outbreak, a pesticide exposure event, or a bad winter hits the entire almond pollination supply at once rather than being spread across regions and seasons.

The Colony Loss Numbers Behind the Headlines

The figures beekeepers report each winter are not anecdotal — they come from a standardized annual survey. The Apiary Inspectors of America, working with the USDA Bee Research Laboratory, has tracked US colony losses since 2006. The long-run average annual loss rate across that period is 33% (Apiary Inspectors of America). The January 2025 figure specific to almond-pollinating operations — 60% — is nearly double that baseline, and it was severe enough that the Honey Bee Health Coalition characterized it as “catastrophic” in its public statement and estimated resulting losses at over $139 million for the 2025 pollination season (Honey Bee Health Coalition).

A loss rate is not the same as a shortage, and this is where the story gets more specific. Even at 60% colony mortality, enough surviving and rebuilt colonies were mobilized to meet the roughly 1.8 million colonies almond growers need — beekeepers split surviving hives, imported nucs, and drew down reserves to cover contracted acreage. But that comes at a cost: rebuilding a colony from a split takes weeks the beekeeper does not get paid for, and it draws down the very stock that would otherwise expand next year’s supply. The Apiary Inspectors of America survey is reissued annually, so a grower or beekeeper checking current-season losses should go directly to apiaryinspectors.org’s beekeeping survey page for the latest published figures rather than relying on a prior season’s number.

What Bee Losses Cost Growers and Beekeepers

Pollination has become the dominant source of income for commercial beekeepers, ahead of honey sales, and almonds are the reason. USDA’s Economic Research Service put total US spending on pollination services at $400 million in 2024, with almond pollination alone accounting for $325.8 million of that — roughly 81% of the entire US pollination services market (USDA Economic Research Service).

On a per-unit basis, the average pollination fee beekeepers charge is $209 per colony, and growers typically contract enough colonies to run about $310 per acre in pollination fees, according to Auburn University’s agricultural economics program (Auburn Agricultural Economics). USDA ERS has also documented that almond pollination fees have risen sharply since the mid-2000s as colony losses have pushed up demand for healthy hives relative to supply (USDA ERS, Amber Waves) — though the specific 2004 baseline figure behind that “doubled since” comparison is not published in the sources reviewed for this article; a grower wanting the exact historical trend line should pull ERS’s full pollination services dataset directly from ers.usda.gov.

Heavy winter losses feed directly into these fees. When 60% of colonies destined for almond orchards died going into the 2025 bloom, beekeepers who still had contracts to fill had to rebuild hives from splits, buy in nucleus colonies, or reduce the number of frames per hive delivered — all of which raise the beekeeper’s cost per contracted colony and get passed through in the following season’s pollination fee. That $139 million in Honey Bee Health Coalition-estimated losses is separate from, and additive to, the $325.8 million baseline pollination market: it represents damage absorbed by beekeepers on top of normal operating costs.

Why Are Almond Bees Dying? The Contributing Factors

Beekeepers, extension entomologists, and USDA researchers generally point to a combination of stressors rather than one single cause, and the balance of these factors shifts year to year:

• Varroa destructor mites: This parasitic mite weakens colonies and transmits viruses; it is widely considered a leading contributor to winter losses industry-wide. USDA’s Agricultural Research Service has ongoing work tracking mite prevalence in almond-destined colonies, but a current national prevalence percentage specific to almond operations was not available in the sources reviewed for this piece — beekeepers should consult USDA ARS’s published bee health research directly for the most recent survey data.
• Pesticide exposure: Colonies moved into orchard environments during and around bloom can be exposed to tank-mixed fungicides and insecticides, particularly when applications occur close to bloom despite label restrictions.
• Nutritional stress: Almond bloom itself is a monoculture food source for a few weeks; colonies trucked in from out of state may already be nutritionally depleted from a winter with limited forage.
• Transport and logistics stress: Moving roughly 1.8 million colonies over long distances on a tight seasonal schedule adds physical stress at exactly the point colonies need to be building strength for bloom.
• Viral load and disease: Deformed wing virus and other Varroa-associated viruses spread faster in colonies that are already stressed from transport and nutrition.
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None of these factors alone fully explains a 60% loss rate; the Apiary Inspectors of America and USDA Bee Research Laboratory attribute the scale of the January 2025 losses to compounding stress across several of these categories simultaneously, which is part of why the Honey Bee Health Coalition called for coordinated research and monitoring investment rather than a single fix (Honey Bee Health Coalition).

Pollination Economics: Then vs. Now

The table below anchors the specific, dated figures cited throughout this article in one place, alongside what is still an open data gap rather than a filled-in guess.

USDA NASS reissues its California almond forecast every May, and as of 2026 this is the only annual production, acreage, and yield report published — the separate objective measurement survey that used to run alongside it has been discontinued. Growers and analysts wanting the freshest figures should search “almond” at nass.usda.gov/Publications each May rather than relying on a prior year’s forecast.

Pollination Cost Calculator

Use the calculator below to estimate your own pollination contract cost, based on the current $209-per-colony and $310-per-acre benchmarks reported by USDA ERS and Auburn Agricultural Economics — enter your own acreage and colony density to see how the two pricing methods compare for your orchard.

Assumes uniform colony density across the orchard and does not account for hive-strength inspections, trucking distance, or contract minimums. Default values reflect USDA ERS's 2025 average $209/colony fee and Auburn Agricultural Economics' $310/acre benchmark; replace them with your own contracted rates for an exact figure.

Practices That Protect Bees During Almond Bloom

Reducing bee losses at bloom is mostly about timing and restraint rather than new technology. Practices with the clearest track record among growers and beekeepers include:

• Spray timing discipline: Avoid tank-mixing pesticides during daylight bloom hours; apply only when bees are not actively foraging, and follow label pre-bloom and bloom restrictions exactly.
• Hive-strength verification at delivery: Growers and beekeepers who inspect frame counts on delivery, rather than trusting a colony count alone, catch weak hives before they're relied on for pollination.
• Forage beyond the bloom window: Multi-crop interplanting and hedgerow or wildflower strips that bloom before and after almonds give bees food outside the roughly three-week almond bloom, reducing nutritional stress on colonies that stay in the region.
• Reduced hauling distance and staging: Beekeepers and growers coordinating on regional staging yards reduce the total transport time colonies spend stressed in transit.
• Communication between growers and beekeepers: Advance notice of planned spray applications lets beekeepers move or protect hives before treatment.

Monitoring Bloom and Bee Activity With Satellite Data

Timing is the one variable growers can act on before pollination even starts. Almond bloom timing shifts from year to year with winter temperature and rainfall patterns, and a bloom that runs ahead of or behind a beekeeper's delivery schedule reduces the effective overlap between flower receptivity and bee activity — narrowing the window in which pollination can actually occur. Farmonaut's satellite-based farm management platform tracks vegetation health (NDVI) at the orchard block level, which growers can use alongside ground observation to flag blocks that are blooming early or lagging, so hive placement can be adjusted before the bloom window closes rather than after.

This kind of monitoring does not replace a hive-strength inspection or a beekeeper's judgment about colony health, but it closes a different gap: knowing which blocks of a large orchard are at peak bloom on a given day, so that limited colony numbers get placed where pollination will count most.

🌐 Farmonaut API

Growers running larger operations across multiple blocks or ranches also use fleet management tools to coordinate the staged movement of hives and equipment during the compressed bloom window, and traceability solutions to document pollination and spray timing records — increasingly relevant given buyer interest in verifying that pesticide restrictions near bloom were actually followed. Carbon and input tracking through carbon footprinting tools is a separate, longer-horizon use case for growers pursuing sustainability certification, but it does not substitute for the bloom-timing and hive-strength practices above when the immediate goal is protecting this season's pollinators.

Related Reading on Almond Cultivation

For growers evaluating downstream harvest logistics once pollination and nut set are complete, see this overview of almond tree harvesting and processing equipment advances.

Growers and researchers working with orchard and weather data programmatically can pull bloom-relevant vegetation and weather layers directly through the Farmonaut Satellite & Weather API Developer Docs.

Further reading:

• Farmonaut’s platform

FAQ: Almond Bees and Pollination

The Bottom Line

Almond pollination is not a side detail of almond farming — it is a 1.8-million-colony logistics operation that determines whether 1.39 million acres of bearing trees set a crop at all. The 60% colony loss rate reported in almond regions for January 2025 was not a one-off statistic; it reflects a structural vulnerability in concentrating most of the country's managed bee colonies into one region for a few weeks each year. Growers and beekeepers who verify hive strength at delivery, hold off on bloom-period spraying, and extend forage beyond the almond bloom window are the ones most likely to come through a high-loss winter with pollination intact. The data to track — colony loss rates, pollination fees, and almond acreage — is published annually and publicly; check the Apiary Inspectors of America survey and USDA NASS's May forecast each season rather than relying on last year's figures.