Why are honeybees dying en masse in the United States but thriving in China?

While the US suffered its largest recorded collapse in its commercial honeybee colonies, China’s bee population has reached a historic high, maintaining the country’s long-standing position as the world’s largest producer of apiary goods.

Around 62 per cent of managed colonies perished in a devastating wave of losses that swept across the US from June 2024 to January this year, to the alarm of the agricultural sector which relies on bee pollination for about one-third of its crops.

Scientists from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) identified the culprit in June: viruses spread by parasitic mites that have developed resistance to Amitraz, the long-relied-upon miticide, leaving colonies defenceless against infestations, according to a report in the journal Science.

In stark contrast, China saw a 25 per cent increase on the last survey to a record 15 million colonies last year, according to researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ Institute of Apicultural Research (IAR).

IAR professor Xu Shufa said that “the fundamental difference lies in management practices”.

“The US model relies on large-scale, clustered operations where single apiaries may contain thousands of colonies. Beekeepers typically transport hives to nectar-rich areas for extended periods, intervening minimally until honey harvest,” Xu said.

South China Morning Post